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I. The History and Cultural Legacy of the Kyivan Caves Monastery
II. Ukrainian Wandering Bards: Kobzars, Bandurysts, and Lirnyks
III. Ostrih Academy: Eastern Europe's First Institution of Higher Learning
IV. Brotherhoods: The Promoters of Education and Culture in Early Modern Ukraine
V. The Origins and Tradition of Book Printing in Ukraine
VI. The Cultural Legacy of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy
VII. The Hromada Movement and the Growth of Ukrainian National Consciousness
VIII. The Ukrainian Populist-Ethnographic Theater in Russian-ruled Ukraine
IX. Les Kurbas, Berezil, and the Birth of Modern Ukrainian Theater
I. THE HISTORY AND CULTURAL LEGACY OF THE KYIVAN CAVE MONASTERY
The Kyivan Cave Monastery is not only one of the most interesting architectural ensembles in Eastern Europe, but it is one of the most important spiritual and cultural centres in the history of the Ukrainian people. Founded by Saint Anthony of the Caves in the mid-11th century, the monastery soon became the largest religious and cultural center in Kyivan Rus'. Foreign works were translated there, and books were transcribed and illuminated. Architecture and religious art (icons, mosaics, frescoes) developed in the monastery. In 1615 Archimandrite Yelysei Pletenetsky established the first printing press in Kyiv at the Kyivan Cave Monastery Press, which became an important center of publishing in Ukraine. Archimandrite (later Metropolitan) Petro Mohyla restored and embellished the monastery. Today the monastery complex is rich in important architectural monuments... Learn more about the Cave Monastery's history and major figures associated with it and view numerous illustrations depicting its architecture by visiting such entries as:
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KYIVAN CAVE MONASTERY (Kyievo-Pecherska Lavra).
An Orthodox monastery in Kyiv. It was founded by Saint Anthony of the Caves in the mid-11th century near the village of Berestove in a cave that the future metropolitan of Kyiv, Ilarion, had excavated and lived in until 1051. The first monks excavated more caves and built a church above them. The monastery’s first hegumen was Varlaam (to 1057). He was succeeded by Saint Theodosius of the Caves (ca 1062-74), who introduced the strict Studite rule. The Kyivan princes and boyars generously supported the monastery, donating money, valuables, and land, and building fortifications and churches; some even became monks. Many of the monks were from the educated, upper strata, and the monastery soon became the largest religious and cultural center in Kyivan Rus’. Twenty of its monks became bishops in the 12th and 13th centuries... |
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KYIVAN CAVE PATERICON (Kyievo-Pechers’kyi pateryk). A collection of tales about the monks of the Kyivan Cave Monastery. There exist two extant redactions: the Tver or Arsenian redaction of 1406, and the Kyiv or Cassianian redaction of 1462. The original version arose after 1215 but not later than 1230 out of the correspondence of two monks of the monastery-monk Simon (by then the bishop of Suzdal and Vladimir) and monk Polikarp, who used the epistolary form as a literary device. The letters contain 20 tales about righteous or sinful monks of the monastery based on oral legends and several written sources, such as the Life of Saint Anthony of the Caves and the Kyivan Cave and Rostov chronicles, which have not survived... |
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KYIVAN CAVE MONASTERY ICON PAINTING STUDIO (Lavrska ikonopysna maisternia).
Main centre of Ukrainian icon painting for many centuries. Its founding at the
end of the 11th century was connected with the painting (1083-9) of the
Dormition Cathedral of the Kyivan Cave Monastery by Greek masters and the Kyivan
artists Master Olimpii and Deacon Hryhorii. The studio developed a distinctive
style that is evident in its frescoes, icons, and book illuminations. From the late 16th century, collections of prints by western and local artists and of student drawings were kept for educational purposes. The studio's finest masterpieces of the 18th century are the mural paintings of the Dormition Cathedral (1724–31) and the Trinity Church (1734–44) above the Main Gate of the Kyivan Cave Monastery. Many noted icon painters and engravers were trained at the studio... |
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SAINT ANTHONY OF THE CAVES (Sviatyi Antonii Pecherskyi; secular name: Antyp),
b ca 983 in Liubech, Chernihiv region, d 1073 in Kyiv. As a youth he joined the
monastery at Mount Athos, where he was tonsured and adopted the religious name
Anthony. After many years he returned to Ukraine; reputedly he took up residence
in a cave in which Metropolitan Ilarion had lived, near the village of
Berestove, on the outskirts of Kyiv. Anthony’s deeds and fasting attracted other
monks, including Saint Theodosius of the Caves. This monastic community became
the nucleus of the Kyivan Cave Monastery, and Anthony emerged as the founder of
monasticism in Ukraine... |
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DORMITION CATHEDRAL OF THE KYIVAN CAVE MONASTERY. The main church of the Kyivan Cave Monastery. Built in 1073–8 at the initiative of Saint Theodosius of the Caves during the hegumenship of Stefan of Kyiv and funded by Prince Sviatoslav II Yaroslavych. According to the Kyivan Cave Patericon, Master Olimpii was to have been one of the mosaic masters. At the end of the 11th century many additions to the cathedral were built, including Saint John's Baptistry in the form of a small church on the north side. In the 17th century more cupolas and decorative elements in the Cossack baroque style were added. As the Soviet Army retreated from Kyiv on 16–17 September 1941, mines were placed under the cathedral, and on 3 November it was blown up. The reconstruction of the cathedral began in 1998 and was completed in time for its reconsecration during the Ukrainian Independence Day ceremonies in August 2000... |
II. UKRAINIAN WANDERING BARDS: KOBZARS, BANDURYSTS, AND LIRNYKS
The artistic tradition of Ukrainian wandering bards, the kobzars (kobza players), bandurysts (bandura players), and lirnyks (lira players) is one of the most distinctive elements of Ukraine's cultural heritage. While kobzars first emerged in Kyivan Rus', bandurysts and lirnyks appeared and became popular in the 15th century. Kobzars often lived at the Zaporozhian Sich and accompanied the Cossacks on military campaigns. The epic songs they performed served to raise the morale of the Cossack army in times of war, and some (eg, Prokip Skriaha) were even beheaded by the Poles for performing dumas that incited popular revolts. As the Hetman state declined, so did the fortunes of the kobzars, and they gradually joined the ranks of mendicants, playing and begging for alms at rural marketplaces. In the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly from the 1870s, the kobzars, including the virtuoso Ostap Veresai, were persecuted by the tsarist regime as the propagators of Ukrainophile sentiments and historical memory. In the 1930s, during Stalin's Great Terror, several hundred kobzars and lirnyks were brought to a congress from all parts of Ukraine and after the congress ended almost all of them were shot... Learn more about the artistic legacy of the Ukrainian wandering bards by visiting the following entries:
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KOBZARS. Wandering folk bards who performed a large repertoire of epic-historical, religious, and folk songs while playing a kobza or bandura. Kobzars originally composed and performed their own historical songs and dumas in the recitative style and later added songs of various other genres (religious and humorous songs, dance melodies) to their repertoires, which were passed on to their students. Kobzars were held in high esteem by the Zaporozhian Cossacks. In the late 18th century the occupation of kobzar became the almost exclusive province of the blind and crippled, who organized kobzar brotherhoods to protect their corporate interests. In the 19th century, the few hundred remaining kobzars in Poltava, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv gubernias and their artistry aroused the interest of various ethnographers, composers, and painters, including Mykola Lysenko, Oleksander Rusov, and Lesia Ukrainka... |
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BANDURA. A Ukrainian musical instrument similar in construction and appearance to a lute. The bandura has 32–55 strings: the 8–14 bass strings (bunty) are stretched along the neck, and the 24–43 treble strings (prystrunky) run along the side of the soundboard. Before the 20th century the bandura had various shapes and tunings (basically diatonic), but in recent times it has been standardized. The oldest record of a bandura-like instrument in Ukraine is an 11th-century fresco of court musicians (skomorokhy) in the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. This lute-like instrument is probably the ancestor of the bandura and the kobza. The two instruments were related, but distinct. The kobza was smaller in size and had fewer strings, but these were fretted. Around the 16th century prystrunky were added to the bandura, and from that time only one note was obtained from each string... |
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DUMA. Lyrico-epic works of folk origin about events in the Cossack period of the 16th–17th century. The dumas differ from other lyrico-epic and historical poetry by their form and by the way in which they were performed. They did not have a set strophic structure, but consisted of uneven periods that were governed by the unfolding of the story. Each period constituted a finished, syntactical whole and conveyed a complete thought. The dumas were not sung, but were performed in recitative to the accompaniment of a bandura, kobza, or lira. The chanting had much in common with funeral lamentation. Scholars connect the dumas with the poetic forms that appeared in Ukraine in the 12th century, particularly with the Slovo o polku Ihorevi. One widely accepted theory of the origin of the dumas is that proposed by Pavlo Zhytetsky, according to which they were a unique synthesis of popular and ‘bookish-intellectual’ creativity... |
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LIRNYKS. Wandering folk minstrels, often blind, who accompanied themselves on a lira, a folk string instrument introduced in Ukraine from the West in the 15th century. The sound of a lira is produced by cranking a rosined wheel against strings within the instrument. Most frequently, the lira has three strings; the two lower strings are monotonic, and the higher string leads the melody. Lirnyks appeared in Ukraine in the 15th century and had formed a guild by the end of the 17th century. There were special schools for them. Their repertoire consisted mainly of religious songs, although humorous and satirical songs were also popular. Some lirnyks specialized in historical songs and dumas. The lifestyle of lirnyks (as well as kobzars) is described by N. Kononenko in Ukrainian Minstrels: And the Blind Shall Sing (1998)... |
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VERESAI, OSTAP, b 1803 in Kaliuzhyntsi, Pryluka county, Poltava gubernia, d April 1890 in Sokyryntsi, Pryluka county, Poltava gubernia. Kobza player and singer (tenor). A peasant who became blind in his early youth, he studied from 1818 with S. Koshovy and other kobzars. By the 1860s he was the most renowned performer of Ukrainian epic and historical songs. In 1873 he appeared in recital for the Southwestern Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society and in 1875 concertized in Saint Petersburg. His repertoire included the dumas Kinless Fedir, Three Brothers from Azov, and Oleksii Popovych. Veresai's artistry was studied by ethnographers such as Oleksander Rusov and Pavlo Chubynsky, as well as by Mykola Lysenko, who wrote a monograph on the works in Veresai's repertoire (1873, 1978)... |
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PARKHOMENKO, TERENTII, b 28 October 1872 in Voloskivtsi, Sosnytsia county, Chernihiv gubernia, d 23 March 1910 in Voloskivtsi. Kobzar. Having lost his sight at 10 he studied the kobza under A. Hoidenko and others and then for five years wandered with Hoidenko through Ukraine. At 30 he began to teach the kobza. Some of his students (Petro Tkachenko-Halashko, Serdiuk-Pereliub, and Avram Hrebin) became noted folk singers. He corresponded with Mykola Lysenko, Opanas Slastion, Oleksander Malynka, Mikhail Speransky, Lesia Ukrainka, Ivan Franko, and Volodymyr Hnatiuk. He gave concerts in Kyiv, Poltava, Nizhyn, Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Uman, Vinnytsia, Yelysavethrad, and Warsaw. His repertoire included dumas, historical songs, psalms, lyrical songs, and satires. Because his songs awakened national consciousness among the peasants, he was harassed by the authorities. He died as a result of a police beating... |
III. OSTRIH ACADEMY: EASTERN EUROPE'S FIRST INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING
Founded ca 1576 in Ostrih, Volhynia, by a Ukrainian nobleman Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky--one of the most remarkable figures in the 16th-century Ukrainian cultural and national rebirth--the Ostih Academy was the first postsecondary learning center in the Orthodox Eastern Europe. At a time when Catholicism was making inroads into Western Ukraine, the academy was a bastion of Orthodoxy and Ruthenian culture and maintained the traditional orientation toward Constantinople. Though the Ostrih Academy did not develop into a Western European-style university, as Ostrozky had hoped, it was the foremost Orthodox academy of its time. Closely associated with the Ostrih Press, the academy and the Ostrih intellectual circle had an enduring influence on pedagogical thought and the organization of schools in Ukraine and provided a model for the brotherhood schools that were later founded in Lviv, Lutsk, Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Vilnius, and Brest. The legacy and tradition of the Ostrih Academy has endured until today and became the basis for the establishment in 1994 of the Ostrih Higher Collegium, which was conferred university status in 2000 and renamed the Ostrih Academy National University... Learn more about the Ostrih Academy and Ostrih intellectual circle by visiting the following entries:
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OSTRIH ACADEMY. The first rector of the academy was the writer Herasym Smotrytsky. The instructors, many of whom had been invited from Constantinople, included the pseudonymous Ostrozkyi Kliryk, the Greek Cyril Lucaris, J. Latos (a philosopher from Cracow University), and Yov Boretsky, who later became rector of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood School and then metropolitan of Kyiv. The curriculum consisted of Church Slavonic, Greek, Latin, theology, philosophy, medicine, natural science, and the classical free studies (mathematics, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, and logic). In addition the academy was renowned for choral singing. The academy was closely affiliated with the Ostrih Press. Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, the writer and scholar Meletii Smotrytsky, and several other prominent political and cultural leaders studied at the academy. With the founding of a rival Jesuit college in Ostrih in 1624, the academy went into decline, and by 1636 it had ceased to exist... |
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OSTROZKY, KOSTIANTYN, (Polish: Ostrogski, Konstantyn), b 1526 or 1527 in Dubno, Volhynia, d 23 February 1608 in Ostrih, Volhynia. Ukrainian nobleman and political and cultural figure; starosta of Volodymyr-Volynskyi and marshal of Volhynia from 1550, voivode of Kyiv from 1559, and senator from 1569; the most powerful magnate in Volhynia and one of the most influential figures in the Lithuanian-Ruthenian state and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was a candidate for the Polish throne after the death of Sigismund II Augustus (the last member of the Jagiellon dynasty) in 1572, and for the Muscovite throne after the death of Tsar Fedor Ivanovich (the last member of the Riurykide dynasty) in 1598. Ostrozky defended Ruthenian (Ukrainian and Belarusian) political rights and was the de facto leader of Ukraine in the negotiations leading up to the 1569 Union of Lublin, during which he demanded that Ruthenia be treated as an equal partner of Poland and Lithuania... |
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SMOTRYTSKY, HERASYM, b ? in Smotrych (now in Dunaivtsi raion, Khmelnytskyi oblast), d October 1594. Writer and teacher; father of Meletii Smotrytsky. He was secretary at the Kamianets-Podilskyi county office and in 1576 was invited by Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky to Ostrih, where he became one of the leading activist members of the Ostrih intellectual circle. In 1580 Smotrytsky became the first rector of the Ostrih Academy. He was one of the publishers of the Ostrih Bible, to which he wrote the foreword and the verse dedication to Prince Ostrozky. The dedication is one of the earliest examples of Ukrainian versification (nonsyllabic) and is somewhat reminiscent of Ukrainian dumas. Smotrytsky's polemical works against those betraying the Orthodox faith and a satire on the clergy have been lost. Only his book, Kliuch tsarstva nebesnoho (Key to the Heavenly Kingdom, 1587), which is the first printed example of Ukrainian polemical literature, has survived... |
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OSTRIH PRESS. The second oldest printing press in Ukraine, founded in 1578 by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) with the financial backing of Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky at the prince's castle in Ostrih, Volhynia. Its first publications were Azbuka (Alphabet, 1578), a collection of prayers in Greek and Church Slavonic; the second impression of Fedorovych's Bukvar (1578), the first Ukrainian primer; the first Ukrainian edition of the New Testament and an alphabetical index to it (1580); the Ostrih Bible (1581); and the first poetic work printed in Cyrillic, Andrii Rymsha's Khronolohiia (Chronology, 1581). It also printed pro-Orthodox, anti-Uniate polemical literature, including works by Herasym Smotrytsky, V. Surazky, Ostrozky, Khrystofor Filalet, and the pseudonymous Ostrozkyi Kliryk; a book (1598) containing eight epistles by Meletios Pegas and one by Ivan Vyshensky (his only work published during his lifetime); several liturgical books; and works by Saint Basil the Great and Saint John Chrysostom in Church Slavonic translation... |
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OSTRIH BIBLE. The first full Church Slavonic edition of the canonical Old and New Testaments and the first three books of the Maccabees, printed in Ostrih in 1580-1 by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) in 1,500-2,000 copies. The preparation of the text and the printing were funded by Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky. With close to 1,400 headpieces, initials, and tailpieces, the 628-folio book is one of the finest examples of printing in late 16th-century Ukraine. The text was based on all the Church Slavonic and Greek sources of the Bible (including the complete 1499 Bible of Archbishop Gennadii of Novgorod the Great) collected by Ostrozky. The Old Testament sources were verified against the Septuagint or translated anew (sometimes incorrectly) by scholars directed by Herasym Smotrytsky at the Ostrih Academy. The Bible includes Ostrozky's and Smotrytsky's prefaces, Smotrytsky's heraldic verses dedicated to Ostrozky, and Fedorovych's postscript. The Bible was reprinted with minor revisions in a unified orthography in Moscow in 1663... |
IV. BROTHERHOODS: THE PROMOTERS OF EDUCATION AND CULTURE IN EARLY MODERN UKRAINE
Ukraine and Belarus were the only countries where Orthodox lay brotherhoods came into being. Although structurally similar to their western European counterparts, the Eastern-rite brotherhoods developed their unique features and their activities coincided with a period of crucial social and cultural change in early modern Ukraine. The Ukrainian brotherhoods assumed the task of defending the Orthodox faith and Ukrainian nationality by counteracting Catholic and particularly Jesuit expansionism, Polonization, and later conversion to the Uniate church. The schools attached to the Orthodox brotherhoods in several larger cities disseminated European humanist ideas and introduced generally accessible post-humanist education, while the brotherhood presses promoted the development of scholarship and literature. Learn more about the brotherhoods and their crucial influence on education and culture in early modern Ukraine by visiting the following entries:
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BROTHERHOODS. Fraternities affiliated with individual churches in Ukraine and Belarus that performed a number of religious and secular functions. The origins of brotherhoods can be traced back to the medieval bratchyny, which were organized at churches in the Princely era. Brotherhoods as such appeared in Ukraine in the mid-15th century, with the rise of the burgher class. They began to play a historical role in the second half of the 16th and at the beginning of the 17th century. The brotherhoods endeavored to reform the Orthodox church from within by condemning the corrupt practices of the hierarchy and of individual clergymen. They brought about a revival in the life of the church by promoting cultural and educational activity. They founded brotherhood schools, printing presses, and libraries... |
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BROTHERHOOD SCHOOLS. Schools founded by religious brotherhoods for the purposes of counteracting the denationalizing influence of Catholic (Jesuit) and Protestant schools and of preserving the Orthodox faith began to appear in the 1580s. The first school was established in 1586 by the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood. The school served as a model for other brotherhood schools in various towns of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, most of them in Ukraine and Belarus. In the first half of the 17th century even some villages had brotherhood schools. The most prominent schools were the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood School and Kyiv Epiphany Brotherhood School. In 1631, the latter was merged with the Kyivan Cave Monastery School to form the Kyivan Mohyla College, which later became the Kyivan Mohyla Academy… |
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LVIV DORMITION BROTHERHOOD. An Orthodox religious association founded in the 15th century by Lviv merchants and tradesmen at the Dormition Church in Lviv. It is the oldest and one of the leading Ukrainian brotherhoods, and it served as an example to other brotherhoods. There are historical references to it dating back to 1463. According to its charter, which was confirmed by Patriarch Joachim V of Antioch in 1586 and Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople in 1589, the brotherhood was independent of the local bishops (right of stauropegion) and subject directly to the Patriarch of Constantinople. It had the right to oversee the activities not only of secular members of the church but also of the clergy and even the bishops… |
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KYIV EPIPHANY BROTHERHOOD. A church brotherhood established ca 1615 at the Kyiv Epiphany Brotherhood Monastery in the Podil district by wealthy burghers, nobles, clerics, and Cossacks to defend the Orthodox faith from the onslaught of Polish rule and Catholicism. Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny gave it a great deal of support and joined it ‘with the entire Zaporozhian Host' in 1620. That same year the Orthodox Kyiv metropoly was restored and the brotherhood acquired stauropegion status and the right to establish a ‘brotherhood for young men' from the visiting patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophanes III. The Polish king Sigismund III Vasa granted the brotherhood a royal charter in 1629… |
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LUTSK BROTHERHOOD OF THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS. A renowned Orthodox brotherhood founded in 1617 in Lutsk by H. Mykulych, the hegumen of the Chernchytsi monastery located near the city. The Lutsk Brotherhood included monks, priests, bishops, nobles, aristocrats, and members of the middle class from Lutsk and Volhynia. It received a charter from the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa in 1619 and was granted the status of stauropegion by the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1623. It ran the Lutsk Brotherhood of the Elevation of the Cross School and operated a printing press in the monastery. After Bohdan Khmelnytsky's era the brotherhood entered a period of steady decline… |
V. THE ORIGINS AND TRADITION OF BOOK PRINTING IN UKRAINE
The invention of movable type and printing presses in Germany around 1450 had a tremendous and lasting influence on the cultural, social, religious, and scientific development of Europe. As the printing technologies spread throughout the continent and allowed for a quicker and wider dissemination of knowledge, they became a major catalyst for both the Reformation and the later scientific revolution. Printed books represented the key factor in the spread of education and literacy. In Ukraine, the first printing press was founded by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) in Lviv in 1573. Its equipment and assets were used to found the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood Press (1591–1788), which played a key role in the history of early Ukrainian printing. Printing in Volhynia began after Fedorovych entered the service of Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky and founded what became the important Ostrih Press (1577-1612). Founded in the early 17th century the Kyivan Cave Monastery Press became the most important center of printing and engraving in Ukraine until the mid 19th century; it played a crucial role in raising the level of education and culture and in aiding the Orthodox Ukrainians to defend themselves against the inroads of Polonization and Catholicism... Learn more about the origins and traditions of book printing in Ukraine by visiting the following entries:
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PRINTING. The earliest books printed in the Ukrainian redaction of Church Slavonic and in the Cyrillic alphabet in general--the Orthodox Octoechos and Horologion--were produced in 1491 by Szwajpolt Fiol, a Franconian expatriate in Cracow. These were followed by liturgical books produced in the Lithuanian-Ruthenian state by short-lived presses on Belarusian territory, such as Frantsisk Skoryna's in Vilnius (1525), Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) and Piotr Mstislavets's in Zabludiv (now Zabludow, 1568-70), and Vasyl Tsiapinsky's itinerant press (ca 1565-70). The first printing press on Ukrainian territory was founded by Fedorovych in Lviv (1573-4). Thereafter Lviv remained a major printing center. In Kyiv, printing began with the founding of the Kyivan Cave Monastery Press (1615-1918). In Left-Bank Ukraine the first printing presses were those of Kyrylo Stavrovetsky-Tranquillon in Chernihiv (1646) and Archbishop Lazar Baranovych in Novhorod-Siverskyi (1674-9)... |
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FEDOROVYCH (FEDOROV), IVAN, b ca 1525, d 16 December 1583 in Lviv. Fedorovych was the founder of book printing and book publishing in Russia and Ukraine. He was deacon of Saint Nicholas Gostunsky Church in Moscow, where, from 1553, he oversaw the construction of a printing house commissioned by Tsar Ivan IV. This technical innovation created competition for the Muscovite scribes, who persecuted Fedorovych and finally caused him to flee to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Settling in Zabludow (Zabludiv) on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, he changed his surname from Fedorov to Fedorovych. He moved to Lviv in 1572. In 1575 Fedorovych, in the service of Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky, was placed in charge of the Derman Monastery; in 1577-9 he established the Ostrih Press, where, in 1581, he published the Ostrih Bible. He returned to Lviv after a quarrel with Prince Ostrozky, but his attempt to reopen his printing shop was unsuccessful. His printery became the property of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood... |
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OSTRIH PRESS. The second oldest printing press in Ukraine, founded in 1578 by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) with the financial backing of Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky at the prince's castle in Ostrih, Volhynia. Its first publications were Azbuka (Alphabet, 1578), a collection of prayers in Greek and Church Slavonic; the second impression of Fedorovych's Bukvar (1578), the first Ukrainian primer; the first Ukrainian edition of the New Testament and an alphabetical index to it (1580); the Ostrih Bible (1581); and the first poetic work printed in Cyrillic, Andrii Rymsha's Khronolohiia (Chronology, 1581). It also printed pro-Orthodox, anti-Uniate polemical literature, including works by Herasym Smotrytsky, Vasyl Surazky, Kostiantyn Ostrozky, Khrystofor Filalet, and the pseudonymous Ostrozkyi Kliryk. The press functioned, with some interruptions, until 1612; from 1602 to 1605 it operated at the Derman Monastery... |
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LVIV DORMITION BROTHERHOOD PRESS. A press founded by the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood in 1586. With a printing press and other equipment used by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov), it printed liturgical books, primers, poetry, dramas, and theological, educational, and polemical literature. Its oldest extant publications date from 1591: the 1589 charter of Patriarch Jeremiah II granting the brotherhood the right of stauropegion, a booklet of verses in honor of Metropolitan Mykhailo Rahoza, and the grammar Adelphotes. From 1591 to 1722 the press issued 140 books with a total run of some 160,000 copies. They were distributed throughout Polish-ruled Ukraine and Belarus, and even in Wallachia, Moldavia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. They were not, however, permitted to be sold in Russian-ruled Ukraine until 1707. The press played an important role in the intellectual life of Ukraine and the defense of the Orthodox church. In 1788 the Lviv brotherhood and its press were succeeded by the Stauropegion Institute... |
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KYIVAN CAVE MONASTERY PRESS. The first imprimery in Kyiv and the most important center of printing and engraving in Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was founded ca 1606-15 at the Kyivan Cave Monastery by the archimandrite Yelysei Pletenetsky, who purchased the equipment of the former Striatyn Press of Hedeon Balaban in Galicia. Later it was headed by, among others, Zakhariia Kopystensky, Petro Mohyla, Innokentii Gizel (for over 30 years), Varlaam Yasynsky, and Yoasaf Krokovsky. The imprimery issued several hundred titles on various subjects, both original works and translations, in Ukrainian, Church Slavonic, Polish, Russian, Latin, and Greek. Beautifully engraved and ornamented, they were distributed throughout the Slavic countries, as well as Austria, Greece, and Moldavia. In the 16th and 17th centuries the imprimery played an important role in raising the level of education and culture in Ukraine. The tsarist ukase of 1720 limited it to printing only religious works, which it continued to do until 1918... |
VI. THE CULTURAL LEGACY OF THE KYIVAN MOHYLA ACADEMY
Established in 1632, Kyivan Mohyla Academy developed into the leading center of higher education in 17th- and 18th-century Ukraine, which exerted a significant intellectual influence over the entire Orthodox world. In founding the school, Metropolitan Petro Mohyla's purpose was to master the intellectual skills and learning of contemporary Europe and to apply them to the defense of the Orthodox faith. Taking his most dangerous adversary as the model, he adopted the organizational structure, the teaching methods, and the curriculum of the Jesuit schools. From its beginnings, the academy had close ties with the Cossack starshyna, which provided it with moral and material support. The school, in turn, educated the succeeding generation of the service elite. Many of the most accomplished Ukrainian authors and churchmen of the time served on the school's faculty, and some of them played instrumental roles in Peter I's educational reforms. Among the academy's most famous students was the renown philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda... Learn more about the history and cultural legacy of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy by visiting the following entries:
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KYIVAN MOHYLA ACADEMY. Established by Petro Mohyla through the merger of the Kyiv Epiphany Brotherhood School (est 1615–16) with the Kyivan Cave Monastery School (est 1631 by Mohyla), the new school was conceived by its founder as an academy, ie, an institution of higher learning offering philosophy and theology courses and supervising a network of secondary schools. Completing the Orthodox school system, it was to compete on an equal footing with Polish academies run by the Jesuits. Fearing such competition, King Wladyslaw IV Vasa granted the school the status of a mere college or secondary school, and prohibited it from teaching philosophy and theology. It was only in 1694 that the Kyivan Mohyla College (Collegium Kijoviense Mohileanum) was granted the full privileges of an academy, and only in 1701 that it was recognized officially as an academy by Peter I... |
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MOHYLA, PETRO, b 10 January 1597 in Moldavia, d 11 January 1647 in Kyiv. Ukrainian metropolitan, noble, and cultural figure; son of Simeon, hospodar of Wallachia (1601–2) and Moldavia (1606–7), and the Hungarian
princess Margareta. After his father’s murder in 1607, Mohyla and his mother sought refuge in Western Ukraine. He was tutored by teachers of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood School, and pursued
higher education in theology at the Zamostia Academy and in Netherlands and France. After his return to Ukraine he entered the military service and fought as an
officer in the Battle of Cecora (1620) and Battle of Khotyn (1621). In 1621–7 he received estates in the Kyiv region and became interested in affairs of the
Ukrainian Orthodox church. In September 1627 a dietine in Zhytomyr chose Mohyla to succeed the late Zakhariia Kopystensky as archimandrite of the influential Kyivan Cave Monastery... |
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PROKOPOVYCH, TEOFAN, b 18 June 1681 in Kyiv, d 19 September 1736 in Saint Petersburg. Orthodox archbishop, writer, scholar, and philosopher. He graduated from the Kyivan Mohyla Academy in 1696 and continued his education in Lithuania, Poland, and at the Saint Athanasius Greek College in Rome. In 1704 he returned to the Mohyla Academy to teach poetics, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology. He also served as prefect from 1708 and rector in 1711–16. He gained prominence as a writer and as a supporter of Hetman Ivan Mazepa. His most famous work, Vladimir, is dedicated to the hetman, whom he depicted as the figure of the Grand Prince of Kyiv. Following Mazepa's unsuccessful revolt against Tsar Peter I in 1709, however, Prokopovych denounced him and expressed his complete allegiance to Peter... |
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YAVORSKY, STEFAN, b 1658 in Yavoriv, Galicia, d 27 November 1722 in Moscow. Orthodox hierarch, theologian, poet, and philosopher. A graduate of the Kyivan Mohyla College (ca 1684), he completed his education in Polish Jesuit colleges. After returning to Kyiv in 1687, he renounced Catholicism, became an Orthodox monk (1689), and taught rhetoric (1690), philosophy (1691–3), and theology (1693–8) at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy. He was hegumen of Saint Nicholas's Monastery in Kyiv from 1697; in 1700 he was appointed metropolitan of Riazan and Murom in Russia, and on 1 December 1701, exarch in Moscow of the Russian Orthodox church, by Emperor Peter I. Yavorsky helped Peter to reform the church and education. Eventually his defense of church autonomy, criticism of Peter, opposition to Teofan Prokopovych, and intolerance of Protestantism cost him the tsar's favor... |
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SKOVORODA, HRYHORII, b 3 December 1722 in Chornukhy, Lubni regiment, d 9 November 1794 in Pan-Ivanivka, Kharkiv vicegerency. Philosopher and poet. He was educated at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy (1734–53, with two interruptions). He sang in Empress Elizabeth I's court Kapelle in Saint Petersburg (1741–4), served as music director at the Russian imperial mission in Tokai, Hungary (1745–50), and taught poetics at Pereiaslav College (1751). He resumed his studies at the Kyivan academy, but left after completing only two years of the four-year theology course to serve as tutor to V. Tomara (1753–9). He spent the next 10 years in Kharkiv, teaching at Kharkiv College. After his dismissal from the college he spent the rest of his life wandering about eastern Ukraine, particularly Slobidska Ukraine. Material support from friends enabled him to devote himself to reflection and writing... |
VII. THE HROMADA MOVEMENT AND THE GROWTH OF UKRAINIAN NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
The hromada movement, which originated in the Russian Empire in the late 1850s, played a decisive role in the Ukrainian national revival and the development of Ukrainian national consciousness. Because of police persecution and the mobility of their members, most hromadas existed for only a few years. Members differed in political conviction; what united them was a love for the Ukrainian language and traditions and the desire to serve the people. The general aims of the hromadas were to instill through self-education a sense of national identity in their members and to improve through popular education the living standard of the peasant masses. Members were encouraged to use Ukrainian and to study Ukrainian history, folklore, and language. Each hromada maintained a small library of illegal books and journals from abroad for the use of its members. The larger hromadas organized drama groups and choirs, and staged Ukrainian plays and concerts for the public. The hromadas were active in the Sunday-school movement: they financed and staffed schools and prepared textbooks. Avoiding contacts with revolutionary circles, the hromadas regarded their own activities as strictly cultural and educational. However, in the 1880s, under pressure from younger members, these societies gradually became involved in some political activity as well... Learn more about the hromada movement and its legacy by visiting the following entries:
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HROMADAS. Clandestine societies of Ukrainian intelligentsia that in the second half of the 19th century were the principal agents for the growth of Ukrainian national consciousness within the Russian Empire. The first hromada, established in Saint Petersburg, was already active by the fall of 1858. It consisted of some former members of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, including Mykola Kostomarov, Panteleimon Kulish, and Taras Shevchenko. With financial support from the landowners Vasyl Tarnovsky and Hryhorii Galagan, works of Ukrainian writers began to be published and the journal Osnova appeared. Another hromada outside Ukraine sprang up at the University of Moscow in 1858-9. In Ukraine the most important hromada, the Hromada of Kyiv, was organized in 1859 by students who were active in the Sunday-school movement. In Kharkiv a student circle that collected ethnographic material formed around Oleksander Potebnia at the end of the 1850s, but the first hromada arose probably in 1861-2... |
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HROMADA OF KYIV. The most active and enduring hromada in Russian-ruled Ukraine. It was not only the chief cultural, and to some extent political, society of Ukrainian intelligentsia in Kyiv but also, through its contacts with similar societies in other cities, the most important catalyst of the Ukrainian national revival of the second half of the 19th century. Founded in 1859 mostly by students who felt morally obligated to improve the condition of the people through education, the hromada initially focused on teaching at Sunday schools. In the early 1860s a khlopoman group lead by Volodymyr Antonovych joined the hromada. In 1862, at the height of its activity, the hromada's membership reached 200, and included representatives from various social strata and from different nationalities--Jews and Poles as well as Ukrainians. Under the close surveillance of the authorities, the hromada reduced its activities and limited itself to cultural, apolitical goals, devoting much attention to publishing a journal, Kievskaia starina, devoted to Ukrainian studies... |
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KHLOPOMAN. Adherent of a populist movement of Ukrainian students and intelligentsia in Right-Bank Ukraine in the 1850s-1860s. The derogatory Polish term 'chlopoman,' meaning lover of the peasantry, was adopted eventually by those who propagated the notion of 'love for the simple Ukrainian people.' The movement, which was greatly influenced by French socialists (P-J. Proudhon, L-A. Blanqui) and democratic populism, originated among students of Kyiv University who belonged to the Polonized nobility. Recognizing the duty to serve 'the people among whom one lives,' they turned away from Polish student organizations and established a Ukrainian society. The khlopoman movement also had an impact on young people in Left-Bank Ukraine, particularly in Kharkiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, and Odesa. The movement's founders included Volodymyr Antonovych, Tadei Rylsky, Borys Poznansky, Pavlo Zhytetsky, and Pavlo Chubynsky... |
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ANTONOVYCH, VOLODYMYR, b 18 January 1834 in Makhnivka, Kyiv gubernia, d 21 March 1908 in Kyiv. Historian, archeographer, archeologist, professor of history at Kyiv University from 1878, editor in chief of the publications of the Kyiv Archeographic Commission, patron and head (from 1881) of the Historical Society of Nestor the Chronicler in Kyiv, and head of the Hromada of Kyiv. Antonovych was a major representative of the populist school in Ukrainian historiography. He founded the so-called Kyivan school of historians, which consisted of his students at Kyiv University (among them Mykhailo Hrushevsky), who later laid the foundations of modern Ukrainian historiography. In his writings Antonovych avoided synthetic theories and concentrated on documentary research. For almost half a century Antonovych played a leading role in Ukrainian civic and political life. He wrote over 300 scholarly studies... |
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KIEVSKAIA STARINA. A learned monthly for Ukrainian studies printed in Russian and published in Kyiv from 1882 to 1906. In 1907 it was renamed Ukraina and appeared in Ukrainian. The journal was founded by Teofan Lebedyntsev, Volodymyr Antonovych, Oleksander Lazarevsky, and Pavlo Zhytetsky, and was financed mostly by Vasyl Symyrenko. It was the unofficial organ of the Hromada of Kyiv, which in 1893 became its real owner. For over 25 years Kievskaia starina was the only printed medium of Ukrainian scholarship in Russian-ruled Ukraine. It published a wealth of research and documentary materials in history, archeology, ethnography, philology, and bibliography. In 1890 it began to publish belles-lettres, which from 1897 appeared in Ukrainian. The leading Ukrainian scientific minds and cultural figures of the time were grouped around the journal, forming something like a learned society. At the turn of the century Kievskia starina became a sort of encyclopedia of Ukrainian studies... |
VIII. UKRAINIAN POPULIST-ETHNOGRAPHIC THEATER IN RUSSIAN-RULED UKRAINE
The many amateur theatre groups and touring theaters, active in Russian-ruled Ukraine by the end of the 1850s, played an important role in the Ukrainian national revival. In Kyiv the leader in setting up amateur troupes was Mykhailo Starytsky, and in rural areas of southern Ukraine, Ivan Karpenko-Kary. Although the 1863 tsarist government circular issued by Petr Valuev limited the use of the Ukrainian language on stage, the development of Ukrainian amateur theater continued until 1876, when the Ems Ukase completely prohibited Ukrainian performances in Russian-ruled Ukraine. In 1881, in spite of heavy censorship, the first touring theater in eastern Ukraine was founded, under Marko Kropyvnytsky. Touring theaters led by Starytsky (1885), Mykola Sadovsky (1888), and Panas Saksahansky (1890) followed. Their repertoire consisted mostly of populist-romantic and realistic plays by Kropyvnytsky, Starytsky, and Karpenko-Kary. Censorship did not permit performances of plays with historical and social themes and completely prohibited the staging of plays translated from other languages. Each performance had to include at least one Russian play and the troupe was required to secure a local governor's permission for each staging of a Ukrainian-language play. After the failed Revolution of 1905 censorship eased, and Mykola Sadovsky was able to organize the first resident Ukrainian theater in Kyiv in 1907. He successfully produced Ukrainian operas as well as melodramas and comedies of manners in translation. In the 1910s, the populist-ethnographic theater gave way to the realistic-psychological style of acting... Learn more about the Ukrainian populist-ethnographic theater in Russian-ruled Ukraine by visiting the following entries:
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KROPYVNYTSKY, MARKO, b 22 May 1840 in Bezhbairaky, Yelysavethrad county, Kherson gubernia, d 21 April 1910 en route from Mykolaiv to Kharkiv, buried in Kharkiv. Renowned actor, stage director, playwright, and composer; a founder and director of the first professional Ukrainian theater in Russian-ruled Ukraine. Working as a petty official of the county court or the municipal government in Bobrynets and Yelysavethrad, for ten years he was active as an actor and play director in amateur theater groups with Ivan Tobilevych (Ivan Karpenko-Kary). In 1871 he moved to Odesa and joined the professional theater of Russian popular drama, where he played mostly the roles of Ukrainian characters. In 1882 Kropyvnytsky organized his own touring theater troupe in Yelysavethrad. As the first Ukrainian professional troupe, it marks the beginning of a new period in the history of the Ukrainian theater. Drawing on the talent of such actors as Mariia Zankovetska and Mykola Sadovsky, the troupe toured Ukraine and some Russian cities with a populist-realist repertoire, and was acclaimed highly by both Ukrainian and Russian critics... |
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KARPENKO-KARY, IVAN (pen name of Ivan Tobilevych), b 29 September 1845 in Arsenivka, Bobrynets county, Kherson gubernia, d 15 September 1907 in Berlin. Famous Ukrainian actor and playwright; the brother of the theater figures Panas Saksahansky, Mykola Sadovsky, and Mariia Sadovska-Barilotti. In 1863 he met Marko Kropyvnytsky and with him became involved in producing amateur theater in Yelysavethrad. In 1884 he was exiled to Novocherkassk for his involvement with Ukrainian revolutionaries; returning to Ukraine in 1886, he lived under police surveillance until 1889. From 1887 until his illness in 1904 he lived on his farmstead, wrote, and worked as a stage actor and director, mostly in the traveling troupe of his brother Panas Saksahansky. He was acclaimed for his principal dramatic and comic roles in many Ukrainian plays, some of them his own. Karpenko-Kary was renowned as a playwright. Altogether he wrote 18 frequently produced plays: satiric comedies, eg Martyn Borulia (1886), dramas, eg. Naimychka (The Servant Girl, 1885), and historical ethnographic plays, eg. Sava Chalyi (1899)... |
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SADOVSKY, MYKOLA (real surname: Tobilevych), b 13 December 1856 in Kamiano-Kostuvate, Yelysavethrad county, Kherson gubernia, d 7 February 1933 in Kyiv. Theater director, actor, and singer; brother of Ivan Karpenko-Kary, Mariia Sadovska-Barilotti, and Panas Saksahansky. In 1881 he began his theatrical career in Hryhorii Ashkarenko's, Marko Kropyvnytsky's, and Mykhailo Starytsky's troupes. From 1888 he led his own troupe, which in 1898 joined Saksahansky's Troupe. Sadovsky was the artistic director of the Ukrainska Besida Theater (1905–6) and then organized the first resident Ukrainian theater in Kyiv, which was active until 1919. Acclaimed by Mykhailo Starytsky as the most talented of the Tobilevych family, Sadovsky was an actor of the realistic-psychological school, whose best roles were profound interpretations of the heroes in historical and social dramas, such as Starytsky's Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi, Ivan Karpenko-Kary's Sava Chalyi, and Liudmyla Starytska-Cherniakhivska's Het'man Doroshenko. He was also a key force behind the flowering of Ukrainian operatic theater... |
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SAKSAHANSKY, PANAS (pseud of Panas Tobilevych), b 15 May 1859 in Kamiano-Kostuvate, Yelysavethrad county, Kherson gubernia, d 17 September 1940 in Kyiv. Theater director and actor; brother of Mykola Sadovsky, Ivan Karpenko-Kary, and Mariia Sadovska-Barilotti. After completing his education in Yelysavethrad (1880) he worked in Mykhailo Starytsky's (from 1883), Marko Kropyvnytsky's (1885), and Sadovsky's (1888) troupes; led his own Saksahansky's Troupe (1890-1909); worked in Trokhym Kolesnychenko's troupe (1910-15) and in the Society of Ukrainian Actors (1915-16); directed the People's Theater (1918-22); worked in the Zankovetska Theater (intermittently in 1922-6); and, from 1927, led a touring troupe with Sadovsky. Saksahansky was an actor of the realistic-psychological school, gifted in gesture and mimicry, whose most famous roles were in satirical comedies, such as Ivan Kotliarevsky's Natalka from Poltava. In Ukrainian translation he staged Schiller's Die Rauber, Karl Gutzkow's Uriel Acosta, and Shakespeare's Othello. He is the author of two plays and two books of memoirs... |
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ZANKOVETSKA, MARIIA (nee Adasovska), b 4 August 1854 in Zanky now in Nizhyn raion, Chernihiv oblast, d 4 October 1934 in Kyiv. Actress, singer, and theater activist. Zankovetska was educated in a Chernihiv private school and at the Helsinki Conservatory. She debuted in 1882 in Ivan Kotliarevsky's Natalka from Poltava as a member of Marko Kropyvnytsky's troupe, which production heralded the rebirth of Ukrainian professional theater, heavily repressed since the Ems Ukase of 1876. Zankovetska performed as leading actress in the troupes of Kropyvnytsky, Mykhailo Starytsky, and Mykola Sadovsky, in Saksahansky's Troupe, in Onysym Suslov's troupe, in the Society of Ukrainian Actors, and in the State People's Theater. She appeared at the All-Russian Congress of Stage Workers in 1897, where she demanded the termination of censorship in Ukrainian theater. Zankovetska's stage career spanned over 30 dramatic-heroic roles from the populist-ethnographical repertoire, which she played with innate subtlety and intelligence. Her best performances were opposite Mykola Sadovsky, and her talent was praised by Konstantin Stanislavsky...
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IX. LES KURBAS, BEREZIL, AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN UKRAINIAN THEATER
Les Kurbas (1887-1937) was not only the most important organizer and director of the Ukrainian avant-garde theater, but also one of the most outstanding European theater directors in the first half of the 20th century. Hailed by Vsevolod Meyerhold as "the greatest living Soviet theater director" (and thus, elevated above such giants of Russian and European theater as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Alexandr Tairov, and Meyerhold himself), Kurbas worked to create a new tradition of an intellectual and philosophical theater. His Molodyi Teatr productions revolutionized Ukrainian theater (that was crippled for decades by tsarist draconian decrees and circulars), elevating it in style, esthetics, and repertoire to the level of modern European theater. It was in the 1920s, at his Berezil theater, that Kurbas's creative genius became most evident. At its height Berezil employed nearly four hundred people and ran six actors' studios, a directors' lab, a design studio, and a theater museum. However, Kurbas was given only several years to implement his cultural revolution. Accussed by the Soviet officials of nationalism and counterrevolutionary activities, Kurbas was arrested and executed during the Stalinist terror. All of his productions were banned from the Soviet repertoire and most of his archival materials, including all of his films, were destroyed. No serious study of his artistic legacy was allowed to be published in the USSR until the late 1980s... Learn more about Les Kurbas, his brilliant creative legacy, and the birth of modern Ukrainian theater by visiting the following entries:
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KURBAS, LES (Oleksander), b 25 February 1887 in Sambir, Galicia, d 3 November 1937 in a Soviet prison on the Solovets Islands. Outstanding organizer and director of Ukrainian avant-garde theater, filmmaker, actor, and teacher. In 1907-8 he studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and drama with the famous Viennese actor Josef Kainz. After graduating from Lviv University in 1910, he worked as an actor in the troupes of the Hutsul Theater (1911-12) and Lviv's Ukrainska Besida theater (1912-14), founded and directed the Ternopilski Teatralni Vechory theater in Ternopil (1915-16), and worked at Sadovsky's Theater in Kyiv (1916-17). After the February Revolution of 1917 Kurbas reorganized an actors' studio he had founded in 1916 into the Molodyi Teatr theater (1917-19) in Kyiv and became the secretary of the journal Teatral'ni visty... |
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BEREZIL (March). A theater established in 1922 in Kyiv by the Berezil artistic association as an experimental studio under the artistic direction of Les Kurbas. Achieving recognition as Soviet Ukraine's national theater, it was located in Kyiv until 1926 and then moved to the then capital, Kharkiv. At its height Berezil included six actors' studios (three in Kyiv, one each in Bila Tserkva, Boryspil, and Odesa), close to 400 actors and staff members, a directors' lab, a design studio, a theater museum, and ten committees, including a 'psycho-technical' committee that used applied psychology to develop new teaching methods for actors and directors. Berezil also published a journal, Barykady teatru (Theatrical Barricades)... |
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MOLODYI TEATR (Young Theater). A theatre troupe in Kyiv headed by Les Kurbas from 1917 to 1919. The core group of actors consisted of graduates of the Lysenko Music and Drama School. Most of the productions were directed by Kurbas, although Hnat Yura, V. Vasilev, and Semen Semdor also directed shows. Anatol Petrytsky was the main stage designer, but Mykhailo Boichuk was invited to create sets for several important productions. Kurbas's articles, such as the 'Manifesto' (in Robitnycha hazeta, 1917), called for a new Ukrainian theatre and outlined the artistic goals of the group. Molodyi Teatr rejected the Ukrainian ethnographic repertoire and presented modern Ukrainian plays and world classics. Kurbas strived to create an intellectual and philosophical theater whose ultimate aim was to return to its ritualistic roots and to become once again some form of a religious act... |
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KRUSHELNYTSKY, MARIAN, b 18 April 1897 in Pyliava, Buchach county, Galicia, d 5 April 1963 in Kyiv. Actor and play director of Les Kurbas's school; educator. Making his stage debut in 1915 in the Ternopilski Teatralni Vechory theater, he subsequently acted in the Ukrainian Theater in Ternopil (1918, 1920-1), the New Lviv Theater (1919), the Franko Ukrainian Drama Theater in Vinnytsia (1920), and the Ukrainska Besida Theater in Lviv (1922-4). Then he was one of the leading actors of the Berezil theater, and after Les Kurbas's arrest and the dissolution of Berezil, Krushelnytsky was appointed in 1934 artistic director and chief play director of the Kharkiv Ukrainian Drama Theater. He modified the theater's profile, particularly its repertoire, according to the demands of socialist realism... |
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BUCHMA, AMVROSII, b 14 March 1891 in Lviv, d 6 January 1957 in Kyiv. Prominent stage and screen actor, director, and teacher. Buchma began his stage career at the Ruska Besida theater in Lviv in 1910. In 1917 he studied at the Lysenko Music and Drama School in Kyiv. In 1920 he worked in the Kyiv Ukrainian Drama Theater and in 1923-6 in the Berezil theater, where he played such memorable roles as Jimmie Higgins in an adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel, Leiba in an adaptation of Taras Shevchenko's Haidamaky, Jean in Prosper Merime's La Jacquerie, and the Fool in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. At the same time he became a film actor and later left the theater to devote himself solely to the cinema (1926-30). The main roles in which he appeared in these years were those of Jimmie Higgins, Mykola Dzheria, Taras Shevchenko, Taras Triasylo (in films of the same titles), the leading role of Hordii in The Night Coachman and the German soldier in Oleksander Dovzhenko's Arsenal... |
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