The Sixtiers (Ukrainian: Шістдесятники, romanized: Shistdesiatnyky, lit. 'people of the sixties') were а new generation of young intellectuals who reawakened literature and a sense of Ukrainian nationalism within the Soviet intelligentsia. The Sixtiers entered the cultural and political life in Ukraine during the Soviet era of late 1950s and 1960s and expressed elements of humanism, embracing Western literature, while stressing universal socialism by returning to values of Leninism.

The Sixtiers arose after the Khrushchev Thaw. Born in Ukraine between 1925 and 1945, their worldviews were formed by a series of tragedies and persecutions including the Holodomor, Stalin's Purges and World War II during childhood. This was followed by political and historical events while many were attending University.

The Sixtiers are often seen as a "group of friends" who had a reawakening of Ukrainian nationalism. They emerged after a period of russification under Stalin and used the Thaw to explore ideals of nationalism and universal socialism. They included writers, literary critics, poets, painters, fashion designers and translators. Sixtiers drew on romantic and realist influences while stressing universal socialism by returning to Lenin's values. After 1964, many of Sixtiers faced persecution and arrest and work was smuggled out through samvydav or lost until after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Sixtiers emerged at the intersection of Soviet ideas of culture and nationalism. Much of the Ukrainian intelligentsia was wiped out during Stalin's purges and Ukrainian partisan movements during the World War II were discredited. The Executed Renaissance lead to the death or deportation of Generations of Ukrainian thinkers. This created a void in Ukrainian language art and literature.

The Soviet Union promoted an idea of a local culture of each member republic that was united by a higher Russian culture. This created a sense of superiority within the academy where Ukrainian language and work was downplayed and admission to Kyiv University reserved for Ethnic Russians.

In 1952–53, Soviet officials arrested or expelled a number of students at the Ukrainian division of the Kyiv University Philological Faculty for demonstrating a "nationalist deviation" in their work. A 1953 Komsomol investigation into the division declared the Ukrainian Nationals as "queer fish" (Russian: своеобразные чудаки, romanized: svoeobraznye chudaki) or eccentrics. Students at Kyiv University who would become the leaders in the Sixtier movement faced a stigma as being Ukrainian peasants while also benefiting from the upward mobility of Soviet education.

Following the death of Stalin in 1954 a "thaw" began that spread in Soviet culture and academies. The Sixtiers emerged from a cultural policy used as an instrument of implementing Soviet discourse that got rooted in International socialist realism and romantics of Nationalism.

Three major events would further shape the worldviews of many of the Sixitiers. In Kurenivka near the center of Kyiv, a dam, which the Soviet Government had used for waste disposal from a brick factory, burst, causing the Kurenivka mudslide. An estimated 54 people died but the KGB buried the story for days and the official account did not match the experience of eyewitnesses. Second, the fire at the State Public Library in Kyiv the evening of 24 May 1964, was also a noted influence on the Sixtiers. Finally, on 4 September 1965, at film premiere of in Kyiv literary critic Ivan Dziuba tried to call out the prosecution of Ukrainian intelligentsia following a series of arrests.