The Lviv National Gallery of Arts recently presented a restored iconostasis from Archangel Mykhail Cathedral in the village of Humnysko (Busk raion). This activity was dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Markiian Shashkevych, a prominent poet and initiator of a new Ukrainian literature in Galicia. He was a priest, writer, public activist, champion for the revival of Western Ukrainian lands, and founder of the literary circle Ruthenian Triad. He also initiated the almanac Rusalka Dnistrovaia.
“Father Shashkevych opened the Sanctuary door of this iconostasis every day during the church service (in 1838), and that is why, apart from their high artistic value, they are also memorial. The iconostasis was passed to the Lviv Picture Gallery in the early 1990s, it has been preserved in its branch – the archival premises of the Olesk castle,” said Borys Voznytsky, general director of the Lviv National Gallery of Arts. “The restoration of the iconostasis was carried out in 2008-2009 by the employees of the Lviv branch of the National Research Restoration Center headed by Myroslav Otkovych.”
The restored iconostasis is not big; it follows a classical pattern and is five-tiered. It consists of a vicar row with the Sanctuary door and deacon door, feast row, apostle row with the central icon of the iconostasis “Prayer” (Deisus), prophet’s row, and the Crucifix with the Virgin and St. John the Theologian who crown the iconostasis above. The images of the iconostasis are of different styles and times: icons of the vicar row – “The Leading Virgin” and “Christ the Teacher” – were painted in the 19th century, but most of the icons were painted by masters of icon painting in the late 17th and early 16th and 17th centuries, which represented the famous Zhovkva school of painting.
However, the village of Humnysko is connected not only with the pastoral service of Father Shashkevych, but also with his personal life. In May 1838, having graduated from Lviv Theological Seminary, he was ordained. Soon after marrying Yulia Krushynska, he was assigned to church service. The village of Humnysko is the first church parish where he served for four months. He spent his honeymoon there. Later there were other pastoral parishes, but all in remote villages: Nestanychi and Novosilky, where Shashkevych died of tuberculosis (he was just 39 years old) and was buried in the village cemetery. God gave long life to his widow, who has lived with him only five years: she lived until 92, surviving not only her husband, but also two sons: Sviatoslav, who died aged under one, and Volodymyr, who died, as his father, from tuberculosis in 1846. Krushynska also witnessed the grand reinterrment of her late husband in Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, which was dedicated to the 80th anniversary of his birth.
In 2011 we will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Father Shashkevych. Many things are planned in Lviv for this impressive date: the almanac Rusalka Dnistrovaia, which was written in Lviv 170 years ago but was never published here, will be published through the efforts of NGO King Danylo Art Fund. A memorial plaque in 35 Virmenska Str., where the gymnasium in which the poet studied was located in the 1830s, will be installed.
A literary award named after Shashkevych will be established, and his symphonic works and the opera Olena will be performed for the first time on the stage of the Lviv Opera Theater. The score for this opera is kept in the Stefanyk Research Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and attracted the interest of Myroslav Skoryk.
Unfortunately, even today we do not have a complete academic collection of Shashkevych’s works. There is only a one-volume edition edited by the famous literary critic, folklorist academician Mykhailo Vozniak back in 1912!
The most important thing is to restore the Church of the Holy Spirit which was built back in the 18th century as part of the Lviv Theological Seminary. In September 1939, the church was ruined during a bombardment, and today it reminds about itself only with the surviving church belfry in which the museum “Rusalka Dnistrovaia” has been located for already 20 years. Near the belfry there is a monument to Shashkevych. Once rebuilt, this church will contain the restored iconostasis from the Archangel Mykhail Church in Humnysko and together with the museum and the monument will constitute a single grand memorial complex in memory of Shashkevych in Lviv.
The Day’S FACTFILE
Markiian Shashkevych was born on Nov. 6, 1811, in the village of Pidlissia, Zolochiv district in Galicia, in the family of a priest. He studied at Lviv and Berezhany gymnasiums, and since 1929 in the Greek Catholic Theological Seminary in Lviv. In 1833–37, he founded the Galician literary group Ruthenian Triad. He collected folklore, wrote poetry, prose, and translated Serbian, Czech, and Polish poetry. In 1833–34, he published folklore collections Syn Rusy (Son of Rus’) and Zoria (The Star). In 1837, together with Yakiv Holovatsky and Ivan Vahylevych, he edited the almanac Rusalka Dnistrovaia, which was published in Budapest. The almanac was written in the vernacular language. He died on June 7, 1843, in the village of Novosilky and was buried there. In 1891 he was reinterred in Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv.
