It would not be an exaggeration to say that almost every Ukrainian child in the world knows at least one Taras Shevchenko poem set to music. It could be “Zapovit” (Testament), “Dumy Moyi” (My Thoughts), or “Reve ta Stohne Dnipr Shyrokyi” (The Wide Dnipro Roars and Moans). For most children it would probably be “Sadok Vyshnevyi Kolo Khaty” (The Sour Cherry Orchard near the House).
Shevchenko did not intend to write songs, but the language of his poems was so musical – as Ukrainian is – that they became beloved Ukrainian folk songs, some already during his lifetime. Music had always been a part of his life. When he was a child, he was surrounded by Ukrainian folk songs, and mentioned them often in his poetry. A lullaby he remembered, the songs his mother, sisters and playmate Oksana sang, the dumy from Kozak times that his grandfather remembered, the folk songs he heard all around him – they all found their way into his works. He either just mentioned them, or actually included the lyrics in his poems.
In writing about his childhood, Shevchenko remembered his mother’s song: “As my mother swaddled me she sang, and poured her melancholy and grief into her child” (“Yakby vy znaly, panychi” – If you only knew, lords). Shevchenko listened to the songs sung by the serfs in his village both during their work and at short-lived rest. In his travels he met Ukrainians, and they often sang. He wrote in his journal that, returning from exile, by chance he listened to a Ukrainian violinist, a serf: “I will never have enough of these sincere, deeply moving songs. I thank you, my fortuitous gracious serf Paganini.”
Ukrainian songs were a balm to Shevchenko when he was exiled and imprisoned. In Kos-Aral, Kazakhstan, he wrote: “I will walk along the sea, and think of my woe, will remember Ukraine, and will sing a song. It will console me.”
Artist Viktor V. Kovalyov, who lived with Shevchenko in 1841, reminisced that the latter liked to relax by singing, and would say “Now, boys, let’s sing!” The friends would forget their hard life by singing away. Shevchenko would include his own poetry, which he set to music, such as “Oy, poviy vitre, z dalekoho luhu ta rozlyi nashu tuhu” (O, blow wind from the far meadow, and take away our sadness). Shevchenko’s friend, composer Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (known for the opera “Zaporozhets za Dunayem” — The Zaporohian Kozak beyond the Danube) dedicated his composition “Stoyit Yavir nad Vodoyu” (The Maple Stands at the Riverbank) to Shevchenko.
He especially loved singing to his brother serfs. During his infrequent trips to Ukraine, Shevchenko, already a free man, visited Kachanivka, the park on the estate of the Tarnovsky family in the Chernihiv region. Andriy Kot, the old nurseryman of the park, pointed to the Shevchenko Oak and remembered his own father telling him about that visit: “Here, under this oak, my father and other serfs gathered in the evenings to listen to Shevchenko sing to them. He sang, and the people wept.”
When in St. Petersburg, in 1858 Shevchenko met Ira Aldridge, the black Shakespearian actor from New York who performed in Europe. They became friends and found a common language – singing traditional Ukrainian folk melodies and Negro spirituals to each other.
Shevchenko had a beautiful dramatic tenor and loved to sing. He had a phenomenal memory and remembered a song after hearing it once. He felt the emotion of the songs. One of his contemporaries wrote, “As if just now, I see him finishing a song, with his voice trembling and a tear running from his eye onto his long mustache.” After winning his freedom, when he attended receptions among the nobility, he was often requested to sing Ukrainian folk songs – and everyone stopped to listen. Among his beloved folk songs were:“Oy, ziydy, ziydy, ty, zirochko ta vechirniaya” (Come out, come out, evening star), “Ta nema hirsh v sviti nikomu, yak siroti molodomu” (No one in the world has it worse than a poor young wretch), “Ta zabilily snihy” (The snows glow white), “Teche richka nevelychka” (The little river flows), “Oy, hylia, hylia, siri husy, hylia na Dunay” (Go, grey geese, to the Danube), “Shumyt hude dibrovonka” (The grove rustles and hums) and “Oy, ne shumy luzhe, zelenyi bairache” (O, don’t rustle, meadow, you green ravine).
It would be a fulfilling, beautiful event if someone organized a concert not only of the many compositions set to Shevchenko’s poetry, which we have heard so often, but also of the many folk and historical, chumak and other songs that Shevchenko loved and sang.
“Our duma, our song will never die, never perish. People, in it is where our glory lies, the glory of Ukraine” (from Shevchenko’s poem “Do Osnovianenka” – Dedicated to Osnovianenko)
Sources:
Macenko, Pavlo. “Taras Shevchenko v Ukrainskii Muzytsi” in Shevchenkivskyi Almanakh dlia Vidmichennia Sotykh Rokovyn Smerty Tarasa Shevchenka 1861-1961. Winnipeg: Ukrainskyi Holos/Vydavnytstvo Tryzub, 1961.
Kolomiyets, V., Ivanova, O. “Narodna Pisnia v Zhytti i Tvorchosti Tarasa Shevchenka.” Ternytsia.