Ukrainian Dancers is a theme series ofpastels byEdgar Degas depicting Ukrainian women performing folk dances. Degas created these drawings during the 1890s and early 1900s.

Degas used the name "Les danseuses russes" ("Russian [female] dancers")^[1] and it was known under this name in English and French sources, despite vast ethnographic and art historical evidence for the Ukrainian origin of the women^[2][3][4]

There were a number of voices calling for changing the misleading "Russian" name, criticizing it as "deliberate or just lazy misinterpretation" of Ukraine for many years.^[2] These calls intensified with the beginning ofRussian invasion in Ukraine in February 2022. The increased focus prompted London'sNational Gallery to rename a drawing from its collectionUkrainian dancers in April 2022.^[5][2][3]

In February 2023 Metropolitan Museum changed the name of one of the pastels toDancers in the Ukrainian dress after calls from Ukrainian representatives including an art historian and journalist.^[6][7] As of May 2023 in theNational Museum of Stockholm another work from the series was changed toThree Dancers in Ukrainian Dress.^[8]

There are at least 18 pastels and sketches of Ukrainian dancers created by Degas, mostly in the second half of the 1890s.

Lisa Bixenstine classifies them as 6 finished pastels, 4 unfinished ones, and 8 sketches.^[9]

Artwork	Year	Technique	Canvas(cm)	Catalogue	Collection	Reference
	1894	pastel	54 x 34	MS 390	private collection	[10]
	1895	pastel and charcoal	48 x 67	MS 392	private collection	[11]
	1895-1899	tracing paper, pastel, charcoal	62 x 67	MS 383	Nationalmuseum (Stockholm, Sweden)	[12]
	1898	pastel and charcoal	73 x 59	MS 389	private collection	[13]
	1898	Pastel, charcoal and black chalk on paper mounted on cardboard	67 x 57	MS 394	Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, United States)	[14]
	1899	tracing paper, pastel, charcoal	62,2 x 62,9	MS 384	Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, United States)	[15]
	1899	paper, pastel	62,9 x 64,7	MS 385	Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, United States)	[16][17]
	1899	tracing paper, pastel, charcoal	61,9 x 45,7	MS 387	Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, United States)	[18][19]
	1899	pastel	58,4 x 76,2	MS 391	private collection	[20]
	1899	Pastel and charcoal on 5 sheets of paper mounted on cardboard	73 x 59,1	MS 393, MS 1845	National Gallery (London,Great Britain)	[21][22][23]
	1899	tracing paper, pastel, charcoal	59,3 x 38	MS 1533	private collection	[24]
	1900-1905	paper, pastel, charcoal	98,3 x 75,5	MS 1204	private collection	[25]
	с. 1899	paper, pastel, charcoal	63 x 60,8		private collection	[26]
	1900-1905	paper, pastel, charcoal	54 x 71,1		private collection	[27]

• Bixenstine, L. R. (1987).Edgar Degas' Russian dancers series (1897-99): their dating, pastel technique, and their context within his late period (1885-1908) (PhD thesis). The Ohio State University.

• Richard Kendall and Jill DeVonyar.Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement. Exhibition catalog, Royal Academy of Arts. London, 2011, pp. 19, 227, 229–31, 237
• David Bomford et al. inArt in the Making: Degas. Exhibition catalog, National Gallery. London, 2004

• Paintings by Edgar Degas
• Dance in art
• 1890s paintings
• 1900s paintings
• Reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata