Panteleimon Kulish

Kulish occupies an unusual position in Ukrainian cultural history — poet, novelist, ethnographer, and the man who devised the "kulishivka," an early phonetic orthography for the Ukrainian language that was later suppressed under the 1876 Ems Decree. That imperial Russian prohibition on Ukrainian-language publishing made his alphabet politically charged long after his death in 1897.

The National Bank of Ukraine's commemorative and collector series has leaned heavily on literary and cultural figures since independence, and this 2008 issue is part of that broader program. Printed entirely at the Kyiv facility, it is one of the few modern Ukrainian notes where the printer and issuer occupy the same institutional complex.