KYIV DAYS FOCUS ON TREASURED MONUMENTS (06/14/98)

KYIV DAYS FOCUS ON TREASURED MONUMENTS

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - In connection with Kyiv Days celebrations the weekend of May 29, Ukraine began a long overdue resurrection of two treasured monuments, one a historical landmark, the other a contemporary music legend.

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, the 12th century cathedral demolished in 1936 by Soviet authorities, and Volodymyr Ivasiuk, the young Ukrainian songwriter who had achieved fame throughout the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian diaspora before being murdered in 1979, share a common but tragic trait: both were destroyed by the Soviet regime because they represented the greatest threats to communism - religion and freedom of thought.

Seven years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, both are being restored to their rightful place in Ukrainian culture.

For the works and memory of composer Volodymyr Ivasiuk, best known for penning the popular song "Chervona Ruta," it is a figurative restoration - one that had not been extended to him after his murder in 1979.

After being officially ignored during Soviet times and never honored on a large scale after Ukraine's independence, the composer received a degree of recognition for his musical accomplishments in a memorial concert on May 29, the first time he was honored in such a way in Kyiv. The concert featured performances by a wide array of entertainers from Ukraine's music scene, from the avant-garde pop genre to classical music, and a greeting from Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma that included a statement recognizing his contribution to Ukrainian culture.

Ivasiuk's compositions, some of which are so widely known and sung that they are considered folk songs, launched the careers of several Soviet singers, including Sofia Rotaru, the Bukovyna-born songstress still in Moscow. In the 1970s his songs were popular "from Khabarovsk to the Carpathian Mountains," as singer Vasyl Zinkevych said during the memorial concert.

However, Soviet authorities increasingly saw his popularity as a threat to their rule, as his songs and his public statements became more political. The 30-year-old songwriter was found brutally murdered in May 1979, his mutilated body discovered in the forests outside of Lviv three weeks after his disappearance.

Ukrainians have long held that the Soviet KGB was responsible for the beloved composer's brutal death, although officially his murder remains unsolved to this day. Tens of thousands of people attended the funeral at the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv.

Although the songs of Ivasiuk remained popular in Ukraine and the Soviet Union after his murder and are sung by many contemporary artists to this day, not a single concert honoring the songwriter had taken place in Kyiv on a large scale until the May 29 concert.

Sponsored by Coca-Cola Ukraine, the concert was a fund-raiser in preparation for more wide-scale commemorations of Ivasiuk's legacy that are planned for next year in connection with the 20th anniversary of his death and the 50th anniversary of his birth. Plans are in the works to establish a museum in Chernivtsi in the house where Ivasiuk lived and for a monument to the composer in Kitsman, Bukovyna, the village of his birth.

Among the notable Ukrainian stars that entertained a packed auditorium at the Palats Ukraina in Kyiv were vocalists Any Lorak, a fellow Bukovynian who informed the crowd that she was born in the building where Ivasiuk lived in the city of Chernivtsi; and Pavlo Dvorskyi, well-known in the Ukrainian diaspora for his versions of Ivasiuk songs; as well as young artists who are helping to create a Ukrainian pop music scene independent of Moscow, such as Viktor Pavlyk, Maryna Odolska, Oleksander Ponomariov, and the bands Plach Yeremii and Komu Vnyz.

The concert was held on the first day of Kyiv Days, a cultural event held annually in Kyiv on the last weekend of May, which includes free open-air concerts on Kyiv's central plaza, Independence Square, boat regattas on the Dnipro and bicycle races on the city's main thoroughfare, the Khreschatyk.

Whereas the Ivasiuk concert can be taken as a figurative restoration of a great Ukrainian composer, the blessing of the rebuilt bell tower of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery is literally the completion of the first stage of the reconstruction of one of Ukraine's most historic religious monuments.

The bell tower and the entire monastery complex, including a five-domed cathedral, were destroyed at the command of Communist authorities in 1936. The church is thought to have been built by Grand Prince Sviatopolk II around 1110, and first destroyed during the Tatar invasion in 1240.

By 1496 it had been rebuilt, and by the 16th century it was one of the most wealthy and popular monasteries in Ukraine. Through the ages its benefactors included Hetmans Ivan Mazepa and Ivan Skoropadsky.

The church was closed after the Communists came to power; it was destroyed in 1936.

The decree to rebuild the church was signed in 1995 by President Leonid Kuchma, who was present at the blessing ceremony, along with Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko, Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko, Cabinet officials, Parliament deputies and sports stars, including Ukraine's two boxing brothers, Olympic champion heavyweight boxer Volodymyr Klychko and former world kick-boxing champion Vitalii Klychko.

More than 3,000 onlookers were in attendance. Historical figures of Ss. Volodymyr and Olha, the mother and son rulers of Kyivan Rus' who brought Christianity to Ukraine in 988, as well as Hetman Mazepa and a variety of kozaks and Kyivan Rus' druzhynnyky (soldiers) were represented by actors dressed in period costumes.

The colorful ceremony that prefaced the blessing of the bell tower by Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate, included traditional Ukrainian dances and a performance by Kyiv's Tchaikovsky Conservatory Choir.

The reconstruction of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery also has included renovation of the square before it and the development of a plaza that joins the St. Michael's Belltower with St. Sophia Sobor, about 300 meters to the north.

Along the plaza stands a three-part memorial to St. Olha, who introduced Christianity to her son, Grand Prince Volodymyr; Ss. Cyril and Methodius, the developers of the Slavic alphabet; and St. Andrew, the apostle who, according to legend, first saw the hills of Kyiv along the Dnipro River and foresaw the future establishment of the city.

With the reworking of the square, the Great Famine Memorial honoring the victims of Stalin's artificially induced genocide of 1932-1933 - which upon its construction in 1993 was criticized by many for being hidden away in a secluded spot, now stands at the foot of the bell tower to the left of the main entryway into the monastery.

The construction of the monastery complex and the church itself, which will be built to look as it did in the 16th century, also has begun. The target date for the completion of renovations of the monastery complex is the year 2000, in time for the celebrations of the second millennium of Christianity.