New York program focuses on archetypes of Ukainian culture (02/09/03)

New York program focuses on archetypes of Ukainian culture

NEW YORK - As part of its series on the "Archetypes of Ukrainian Culture" the Ukrainian Art and Literary Club presented a musical evening titled "Our Christian Land." The event, conducted in conjunction with the New York Bandura Ensemble, was presented on January 17, featuring Lavrentia Turkewicz and Julian Kytasty.

In order to highlight the importance of music as a medium that documents historical and cultural concerns, as part of her introduction, Ms. Turkewicz read the poem "O, Pisna Moya!" (Oh, Thou Song of Mine!)," by Bohdan Lepky (1872-1941), an evocation of the folk song as an all-inspiring force in the struggle for national freedom.

In the evening's program, which featured a repertoire of songs of struggle and liberation, Ms. Turkewicz sang, to the accompaniment of the bandura, a selection of Ukrainian historical and ritual Christmastide songs - i.e., koliadky and shchedrivky - whose motifs refer to the Turks' and Tatars' raids on Ukrainian territory in the 16th-17th centuries.

Noted bandurist Julian Kytasty performed his improvisation of the famous duma, or lyrico-epic recitative, about Marusia Bohuslavka. Relating events of the Kozak period of the 16th-17th centuries, this duma deals with the theme of Turkish captivity.

These songs, in reflecting conditions present during the rule of the Ottoman Empire - from the western regions of Priashiv and Podillia to Eastern Ukraine and Istanbul - refer to heroic feats against the Turks and Tatars, the harsh fate of Turkish captivity and enslavement, and to such specific instances as the deliverance of the monastery at Pochayiv from the Turkish onslaught and the execution of the Kozak Otaman Dmytro Vyshnevetsky, hero of the folk song about Baida. They also carry allusions to the legendary Roksolana, born Nastia Lisovska in Rohatyn, western Ukraine, who was captured by Crimean Tatars in 1520 and sold into slavery. Given the name Roksolana in the sultan's harem, she became the principal wife of Sultan Süleyman I.

In her commentary, Ms. Turkewicz explained that the songs are not precise accounts of historical events: rather, their texts range from allusions to mythologized versions of historical events; consequently, the listener needs to be equipped with certain background knowledge in order to be able to fully appreciate them.

Ms. Turkewicz concluded with the observation that events of the past, in this case the captivity suffered at the hands of the Turks and Tatars, once a threatening presence in Ukraine, were so significant for the Ukrainian collective psyche or memory as to be reflected and expressed in Ukrainian folk songs and epic singing.

| Home Page |