56. Poetry of Ukrainian Romanticism

Vovchok, Marko (pseud of Mariia Vilinska), b 22 December 1834 in Ekaterininskoe, Orel gubernia, Russia, d 10 August 1907 in Nalchik, in Caucasia. Writer. In 1851 she married Opanas Markovych, who had been a member of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, and moved from Orel to Ukraine. From 1851 to 1858 she lived in Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Nemyriv and studied the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian traditions and folklore and wrote Narodni opovidannia (Folk Stories), which was published in 1857. It met with immediate acclaim in Ukrainian literary circles, particularly from Taras Shevchenko and Panteleimon Kulish, and in Russia (it was translated into Russian and edited by Ivan Turgenev as Ukrainskie narodnye rasskazy [Ukrainian Folk Tales, 1859]). In 1859, after a short stay in Saint Petersburg, Vovchok moved to Germany. She spent some time in Switzerland, England, and Italy but stayed the longest in Paris. In 1862 a two-volume edition of Narodni opovidannia was published, and individual works were published in the journals Osnova (Saint Petersburg), the monthly Meta, , and the weekly Vechernytsi. . From 1867 to 1878 Vovchok lived in Saint Petersburg, where owing to the prohibition against the Ukrainian language she wrote and translated for Russian journals. She wrote in Russian Zhivaia dusha (The Living Soul, 1868), Zapiski prichetnika (The Notes of a Participant, 1870), V glushi (In the Backwoods, 1875), and several other novels. From 1878 Vovchok lived in northern Caucasia, and in 1885–93 in Kyiv gubernia, where she continued her work on Ukrainian folklore and a dictionary. At the beginning of the 1900s she renewed her contact with Ukrainian publishers.

Gogol's works display different variations of the Romantic style and a masterly use of metaphor, hyperbole, and ironic grotesque. His language is exceptionally rhythmic and euphonic. He was the first writer of the so-called Ukrainian school in Russian literature to employ a host of lexical and syntactic Ukrainianisms, primarily to play with various stylistic levels from the vulgar to the pathetic. Some of his Ukrainian stories are the earliest examples of the Russian naturalist school, which combined Romantic ideology with a negative, ‘low’ depiction of everyday life. Gogol's writings were frequently imitated by such Ukrainian writers as Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Panteleimon Kulish, and Oleksa Storozhenko, and by such writers of the Ukrainian school in Russian literature as Yevhen Hrebinka.

57. Romanticism in Ukrainian music (s.Hulak-Artemovsky, m.Lysenko)

Hulak-Artemovsky, Semen [Hulak-Artemovs’kyj], b 16 February 1813 in Horodyshche (Cherkasy region), Cherkasy county, Kyiv gubernia, d 17 April 1873 in Moscow. Composer, opera singer, actor, and dramatist. He was the nephew of Petro Hulak-Artemovsky and a close friend of Taras Shevchenko. A graduate of the Kyiv Theological Seminary, he studied voice in Saint Petersburg and Florence (1839–42). He was noted for his dramatic talent and his powerful, rich baritone voice. From 1842 Hulak-Artemovsky was the leading soloist at the Mariinskii Theater and the Italian Opera in Saint Petersburg. His repertoire included over 50 operatic roles, including Ruslan in M. Glinka's Ruslan and Liudmila, Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Antonio and Lord Ashton in G. Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and Lucia di Lammermoor. He wrote the comic opera Zaporozhets’ za Dunaiem (Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube, 1863), in which he sang the part of Karas; the divertissement Ukraïns’ke vesillia (The Ukrainian Wedding, 1851), in which he sang the father-in-law; the vaudeville Nich na Ivan Kupala (Saint John's Eve, 1852); and several art songs. As an actor he appeared in roles such as Vybornyi and Chupryna in Ivan Kotliarevsky's Natalka Poltavka and Moskal’-charivnyk (The Muscovite-Sorcerer).

Lysenko, Mykola, b 22 March 1842 in Hrynky, Kremenchuk county, Poltava gubernia, d 6 November 1912 in Kyiv. Composer, ethnomusicologist, conductor, pianist, teacher, and community figure. The descendant of an aristocratic Cossack starshyna family, he acquired the rudiments of piano playing from his mother and gained a strong appreciation of Ukrainian music and Cossack lore from his grandparents. From 1860 he studied at Kharkiv University and Kyiv University, graduating in 1865 with a degree in natural sciences. His stay in Kyiv, his activities in the Hromada of Kyiv, and his close relationships with his cousin Mykhailo Starytsky, and with Volodymyr Antonovych, Tadei Rylsky, and others led Lysenko to make a strong personal commitment to the study and development of Ukrainian music. He worked for two years as an arbitrator in Tarashcha county, then furthered his music studies in Leipzig (1867–9) under K. Reinecke and E. Richter. After returning to Kyiv in 1869 to work as a music teacher and conductor, he moved to Saint Petersburg (1874–6) to study orchestration under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; then he returned to Kyiv in 1904 to open his own school of music and drama.

At the time, Lysenko was at the center of Ukrainian cultural and musical life in Kyiv. He gave piano recitals and organized choirs for performances in Kyiv and tours through Ukraine in 1893, 1897, 1899, and 1902. He cultivated an informal network of patriotic Ukrainians, and headed the Ukrainian Club from 1908. He also maintained close ties with community leaders in Western Ukraine from as early as 1867, most notably with Ivan Franko.

Lysenko's musical compositions were numerous and varied. His operatic works include the singspiel Chornomortsi (Black Sea Cossacks, 1872); the operetta Natalka from Poltava (1889); the operas (based on works by Nikolai Gogol) Christmas Night (1873–82), Utoplena (The Drowned Maiden, 1883), and Taras Bulba (1890); the operetta Aeneid (1911); the miniature opera Nocturne; and three operas for children: Koza Dereza (Billy Goat's Bluff, 1888), Pan Kots’kyi (Sir Catsky, 1891), and Winter and Spring (1892). Other theatrical musical works include Sappho (1886–94), which is composed of scenes from life in ancient Greece, and music for William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

An eminent concert pianist, Lysenko wrote many compositions for the piano. These works include a sonata, two rhapsodies, a suite, a scherzo, and a rondo, as well as a long list of smaller forms such as ‘Songs without Words,’ nocturnes, waltzes, and polonaises. In these works he often uses the melodies and rhythms of Ukrainian folk songs. In some, Fryderyk Chopin's influence is noticeable. In the field of chamber music, Lysenko wrote many works for violin and piano as well as a trio for two violins and viola and a string quartet. He also wrote a symphony (unfinished) and a symphonic fantasia.