Whenever I visit the glorious Cossack town of Lokhvytsia in Poltava oblast, I always look closely at its old buildings and the scenic spots that I remember from childhood. Yet with every passing year I see fewer familiar faces among the passersby. The older generation is dying along with its epoch, leaving behind sad memories of the old homes and names jealously preserved by grateful posterity.
In 1901, on crowded Lubenska Street (today: Taras Shevchenko Street) the scaffolding was dismantled to reveal the beautiful structure of the People’s Home. Designed by the prominent Ukrainian architect and artist Vasyl Krychevsky (1872-1952), it was commissioned by the provincial administration and local intelligentsia. It was a real theater with a large hall, balconies, gallery, orchestra pit, makeup rooms, and a foyer.
The building consisted of wood structures with a clearly outlined facade that made it even more attractive. The overall impression was enhanced by the Venetian windows with carved frames. The side one-story extensions were divided into three connected triangular gables above the doors and two windows.
The People’s Home was opened in Lokhvytsia with great pomp. In 1902, the newspaper Kievskaia starina published the valuable notes of Olena Pchilka (1848-1930) about this event. “At the beginning of last July, word spread throughout the town of Hadiach, in Poltava gubernia, where I was spending the summer, that a people’s home would be opened in nearby Lokhvytsia. We, the residents of Hadiach, as the closest neighbors of the Lokhvytsians, believed that this would be a festive occasion for all of Poltava gubernia, so some of us, including this author, along with my brother A. Drahomanov, a physician, went to Lokhvytsia to take part in the festivities. There, like real tourists whom no one knew, we started looking for the new and important site, the People’s Home. Of course, we had no problems finding it. There was a crowd on the stairs leading to the place. The doors were wide open. The divine service had ended, and someone was on stage finishing a report on the history of its construction. After the official report Mr. V. Rusynov [marshal of the provincial nobility — [author] gave a lecture on the importance of the theater in general and the national theater in particular...”
Pchilka writes that the next person to appear on stage, to the accompaniment of a standing ovation, was Mykola Storozhenko (1836-1906), their fellow countryman, now a guest from Moscow, historian, and vice-president of the new Shakespeare Society in England, who had made a tangible contribution to the development of culture in the county. In particular, he donated many books to the local public library. During the ceremony Storozhenko delivered a “remarkably inspired” lecture on Shevchenko. This was followed by the premiere of Ivan Kotliarevsky’s Natalka Poltavka, which proved to be a great success, with Rusynov’s wife playing the role of Natalka and a guest star from Kharkiv, Marko Kropyvnytsky, in the role of Vyborny.
From then on Lokhvytsia became an important theater center visited by touring Russian and Ukrainian drama groups, particularly those managed by the Poltava philanthropist and impresario F. Volyk, among whom were such giants of Ukrainian drama as Maria Zankovetska, Marko Kropyvnytsky, Ivan Marianenko, and Mykola Sadovsky. Actors from the Society of Russian Drama Theaters, then headed by the outstanding stage director and choreographer Marius Petipa (1849-1910), staged their premiere of Gorky’s The Lower Depths in Lokhvytsia. According to contemporaries, it was a great success.
A semiprofessional drama company was founded in Lokhvytsia toward the end of the 19th century, which acquired a permanent stage once the People’s Home was opened. The bulk of the troupe consisted of local intellectuals, teachers from the modern (non- classical secondary) school and high school for girls, church choir singers, as well as gifted young workers and peasants. For many years the company was led by the talented director and musician M. Diakov. His productions included the works of Karpenko-Kary, Kropyvnytsky, Starytsky, Chekhov, and Shakespeare.
The members of the Lokhvytsia company acquired their superlative dramatic skills from professional actors and musicians, who performed in the town several times a year. In 1902, the People’s Home hosted a tour of Mykola Lysenko’s choir, conducted by H. Horodovenko, who worked in Lokhvytsia as a schoolteacher in 1907-09. In the early 1920s Nikolai Tolstiakov (1880-1930), the noted composer, conductor, and former choirmaster of the Mariinsky Theater, worked productively at the People’s Home in Lokhvytsia, where he conducted the local choir Rukh and toured the towns and villages of Poltava gubernia.
The creative activities of the “father of Ukrainian theater,” the playwright, stage director, and actor Marko Kropyvnytsky (1840- 1910), was closely associated with Lokhvytsia, where the famous director toured with his troupe many times. After a tour of Odesa, he wrote: “Now we are going to Lokhvytsia because they have a real theater there.” He befriended the local drama company and the writer Arkhyp Teslenko (1882-1911). Following his advice, Teslenko founded an amateur drama group in his native village of Kharkivtsi.
Kropyvnytsky considerably assisted the creative growth of Lokhvytsia’s amateur drama group. He took part in performances and staged plays using mixed urban and rural casts. We learn this from an article carried by the newspaper Poltavsky visnyk (1903), entitled “Apropos of M. Kropyvnytsky’s tour hosted by the People’s Home Theater”:
“About two years ago the noted actor M. L. Kropyvnytsky made an appearance on the stage of the local theater in the village of Piznyky. It was amazing to see a prominent people’s actor surrounded by village youth, who were eagerly listening to his stage instructions. I only wish Kropyvnytsky could take over the folk drama groups that have appeared in various districts of the county.”
The journalist’s wish came true. On Sept. 27 and 28 Kropyvnytsky directed two of his plays in Lokhvytsia: By the Time the Sun Rises, the Dew Will Devour the Eyes and Whiskers. The folk entertainment commission of the People’s Home asked Kropyvnytsky to visit Lokhvytsia several more times to help local drama groups, and the distinguished actor and director agreed.
Performances by the amateur actors of Lokhvytsia were true celebrations of dramatic art for the town residents and people from neighboring villages. For every performance the People’s Home, whose hall seated 500, was packed to overflowing with eager spectators. This was a great school where Ukrainians were taught national culture and learned dramatic skills. Gifted young people from the county enthusiastically staged plays in many villages. The local press mentioned the talented performances of village actors, who had studied under the able guidance of Kropyvnytsky, Diakov, Rusynov, Teslenko (Kharkivtsi), T. and S. Tytarenko, Buts, Ye. Apostol, M. Usenko, M. Apostol (Piznyky), L. Petrenko (Yakhnyky), O. Naumenko, H. Drobot (Lokhvytsia), to mention a few.
At the time instruction in elementary schools and gymnasiums was in Russian; the Ukrainian language was banned. Young people also flocked to the stage because plays by Ukrainian classics were in Ukrainian, and the actors often sang Ukrainian songs.
In the summer of 1903 Maria Zankovetska (1854-1934) visited Lokhvytsia whose residents would long remember this event. This was her first performance in the provinces after touring the big cities of Ukraine and Russia. Rusynov arranged for the greatest possible number of young village youth to see this great actor on stage. Zankovetska was deeply moved by the Lokhvytsia audience. Marianenko, who performed with her, writes in his memoirs: “Our performances were festive events for both the village audiences and us actors, because we were performing precisely for the people for whom most of the plays in our repertoire were written; also because we believed that performing for these people was our first and foremost duty.”
A studio theater was organized on the basis of the People’s Home in 1923. In 1925 it merged with several semiprofessional troupes. This was the nucleus of the Ivan Tobilevych State Workers and Peasants’ Theater, which existed until 1941. Its founders and artistic directors were I. Onyshchenko and I. Syniak. The repertoire included plays based on Shevchenko’s poetry, Karpenko- Kary, Kropyvnytsky, Starytsky, Hrinchenko, Kulish, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Berger, etc.
Lokhvytsia’s drama company was very popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The cast included the talented amateur actors I. Zaslavets, H. Yemets, P. Solonukha, P. Zinchenko, I. Lysenko, M. Kovalenko, H. Miroshnychenko, P. Ponomarenko, and O. Kuzmenko. After learning their dramatic skills on the amateur stage, T. Miroshnychenko, B. Trius, and H. Lytvynenko eventually became professional actors.
In the summer of 1978 I had a memorable meeting at the local art gallery with Natalia Uzhvii, who was touring Ternopil with a troupe of the Ivan Franko Theater. We reminisced about Lokhvytsia. Her blue eyes sparkling, she told me that she had performed at the Lokhvytsia theater in the 1950s and how she was photographed near the monument to Hryhorii Skovoroda. As usual, their tour was a great success, and she was very sad to learn that the People’s Home no longer exists.
After the new structure of the district House of Culture was built in 1974, the old premises stood vacant and neglected. To avoid further problems the local party authorities ordered the old building torn down. No one bothered to preserve this unique monument to culture and art. Eyewitnesses of the demolition say that many residents of Lokhvytsia, especially old people, wept as they watched the destruction of this temple of culture. There was not a single resident who had not experienced the joy of encountering beauty within the walls of this unforgettable historic structure.
Heorhii Shybanov is a Merited Worker of Art of Ukraine.
