Хоровий рух у Наддніпрянській Україні як фактор самоідентифікації українців у ХІХ столітті

Abstract

У статті досліджено особливості хорового руху в Наддніпрянській Україні у ХІХ ст. Простежено його розгортання в умовах постійних утисків, русифікації. Охарактеризовано діяльність хорових осередків, виокремлено роль провідних діячів музичного мистецтва в активізації хорового життя. Розкрито роль хорових колективів у процесі національної самоідентифікації.

В статье исследовано особенности хорового движения в Надднепрянской Украине в XIX в. Прослежено его развертывание в условиях постоянных притеснений, русификации. Охарактеризовано деятельность хоровых ячеек, выделено роль ведущих деятелей музыкального искусства в активизации хоровой жизни. Раскрыто роль хоровых коллективов в процессе национальной самоидентификации.

The 19th century choir movement in Central Ukraine was an organic element of the Ukrainian musical life that was reflecting the aesthetics and the values of Ukrainian society. Nation-building, as defined by Heorhii Kasianov, was most affected by one social stratum in particular: the Ukrainian intellectual elite – a force that became crucial to the benefit of Ukrainian social, political, and cultural life. First and foremost, it focused on the preservation of national cultural traditions. The Ukrainian Project, as elaborated by Roman Shporliuk, was mainly being implemented by educational institutions such as the University of Kharkiv and the University of Kyiv which featured choirs successfully operating within their facilities and academic environments. In the first half of the 19th century, the art of choir music was also being fostered and supported by the church bodies. This refers not only to the church choirs in the larger cities such as Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Odesa, but also to those that were functioning in smaller towns and villages and whose repertoire was dominated by spiritual works and (to a lesser extent) by folk songs, too. Men’s choirs in Kharkiv, Poltava, Pereiaslav seminaries – and, of course, Kyiv Seminary – played a substantial part in the enhancement of the choir movement. Another medium for the promotion of the choir movement was the performance practices pursued by the serfs’ chapels under the auspices of Ukrainian landowning nobility. In the second part of the 19th century the ideas of musical enlightenment became widespread in the Central Ukraine. This process was a component of a larger undertaking to promote and elevate the Ukrainian national culture in general and one of its key figures was Mykola Lysenko who regarded choir culture as a vital social and cultural factor that was crucial to the Awakening of the Ukrainianship and to whom the cause of development of the choir movement was a matter of primary concern in the deployment of national self-identification processes. Choir bands formed by Lysenko showed high quality level of performance and were engaged in promotion of the works written by Ukrainian composers – essentially by their own director, but also by Russian composers which had to be introduced by request and requirement of the Russian imperial authorities. The developments in the choir culture were also supported by the singing bands established in Mykolaiv, Poltava, Katerynoslav as well as by choirs within the regional chapters of the Imperial Russian Society in Kyiv, Kharkiv and some other cities. This period in history is characterised by the awakening of professional musical art, by the artists’ efforts to go beyond the framework of home-based musical culture and onto the stage, and to make their creative products known and available to the attention of broader listening audience. It can be therefore concluded that in the 19th century, Ukrainian choir movement became not only a powerful means to unite the nation and bring it to harmony but also a mechanism to preserve its national self-identification in the condition when no nation-state of its own existed.