When the Ukrainian alpenhorn, the trembita, sounded on Market Square, there was so much power in that sound, it seemed as though the volume of air in peoples’ chests expanded. Then the bandura began to sing, and the eyes of the people who had gathered on the square sparkled with joy. True, there were not so many onlookers as in the days when Ostap Stakhiv used to sing songs to the accompaniment of his bandura. He was the first person in Ukraine to organize a folk theater in 1987.
What kind of music do we need on the Feast of the Jordan, which is the final chord of the Christmas festivities? Why are our folk groups no longer attracting large audiences?
I have an idea for a project and I’m sure it will be a success. These days it is not enough just to put together a group of talented performers. It takes a combination of authentic instruments and modern synthesizers, the right kind of lighting, amplifiers, and lots of extra equipment that costs a lot of money. Also, you need promotion and a number of other things that folk groups have little use for. That is why they are accused of producing the old-fashioned, hackneyed musical art that seems to be stuck in ancient times and is incapable of raising itself to a higher technical level. Of course, you can cultivate antiquity for a handful of aesthetes or people who love authentic music. Things like that are necessary, but you have to make changes in order to attract young people and larger audiences.
When and why did you become interested in folklore?
I grew up in a remote village that didn’t even have a bus stop. So our village community lived in its own isolated world. In contrast, our creative folk talent thrived. At Christmas people would go from house to house singing carols and performing the Ukrainian vertep, or puppet theater. I didn’t take part in the festivities because my father was the principal of the local school. If I did, some well-wishing” neighbor would report me to the local department of public education. My Dad and Mom (she was a schoolteacher) kept telling me: “Don’t go there because we’ll lose our jobs.” So I didn’t, but I kept telling myself that one day I would sing Christmas and New Year’s carols at the top of my voice.
I dreamed of becoming a performer since childhood. For a year I attended a music school that was located a few kilometers from my house, so I had to walk to the nearest bus station and then take several buses. (I also had to walk four kilometers to my public school.) Eventually, my parents took pity on me and arranged for me to enroll in a boarding school in Rohatyn. When I was 10 years old and visiting my parents every weekend, a young fellow would pick me up in the evening, put my accordion over his shoulder, and I would walk proudly by his side to the village club to play at dances. People looked at me differently compared to my peers, and something like fame was already turning my head. I was also considered a local version of Robertino Loretti. But this only lasted until my voice changed.
To a certain extent your folk theater opened the floodgates, and then the process became irreversible. People started singing carols openly in Lviv.
Well, things were not that simple. After graduating from a music college in Lviv, and then the conservatory, I worked at the regional philharmonic society, then the Vatra group, singing and playing the bandura. I went on many concert tours of the Soviet Union. Somehow I found out that concerts of church music were being staged on a grand scale in Moscow. I realized that soon we would have them in Ukraine and that I had to do something to make them happen sooner. So in 1987 I organized my folk theater at the Hnat Khotkevych Palace of Culture. I designed it specially to perform authentic folk music. We prepared our first program for the New Year. Of course, we didn’t dare sing Christmas carols. But we sang New Year’s carols, led the traditional goat on a leash, and celebrated the Malanka, the old New Year’s Eve. We staged scenes that had nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ; we celebrated the New Year cycle, but in a neutral manner. In 1988 we started getting ready to perform Christmas carols, secretly at first. Some of the performers refused, saying it would be a waste of time because we wouldn’t get permission. But others agreed to take the risk. The director of the Culture of Palace was a Russian named Arbuzov, who was a difficult person. I told him, “I’ll put together an interesting program but you have to protect us.” And he protected us, and when Rostyslav Bratun published his article in Literaturna hazeta about how folk creativity should be cultivated, this gave me fresh inspiration and courage.
We put up posters a few days before the performance, but when the oblast party committee learned the news, all hell broke loose. Arbuzov was the first to suffer; they made him change the program, and this was on Dec. 24, the Roman Catholic Christmas Eve. I rushed over to Bratun and some other famous people, telling them I would be simply crucified if they didn’t help me. The inspectors watched as we carried the shopka, the little manger, on stage, and when Herod made his entrance, we started singing Christmas carols to beat the band. They found the first part of the performance more or less acceptable, but when it came to Jesus Christ, we found it psychologically difficult to perform while gazing at the twisted expressions on the faces of the Communist Party representatives. We had specially invited people to the hall, so when the commission was getting ready to leave after the performance, people started shouting, “Discuss the performance in our presence!” and blocked the exits.
Bratun was the first to take the floor. He held the floor for 45 minutes, dwelling on the meaning of folk creativity, traditions, and how much the nation needs all this to develop its culture. After he finished speaking, none of the party functionaries could utter a word, that’s how convincing Bratun’s arguments were. One of the commission members asked us to remove the image of the Virgin Mary and the manger from the stage.
Did you?
Of course not! No one would even consider the possibility. During the performance the hall was packed, with people standing in the aisles, the corridors, the orchestra pit, and behind the stage. And this happened every time we performed throughout January. I’m not telling you this to remind you of my personal triumph, but to stress that our nation gravitates strongly to its traditions and sources. When the trembita sounded for the first time on Market Square this year, the crowd froze, listening to it as though it were the voice of God.
Today, of course, thanks to electronic instruments you can reproduce any kind of sound: dulcimers, cow-flutes, and banduras. But these sounds do not produce the same kind of energy — strong, authentic, the kind that swallows you up. When you hear authentic musical instruments, you perceive their sounds in a different way. Ukrainian melodies and our folklore are a treasure-trove that has yet to be discovered by the rest of the world.
By the way, do you know that our New Year’s song “Shchedryk” [known in North America as The Carol of the Bells — Ed.], is performed in North America in a variety of ways? Or that the melody of our song “Syva zozulenka” (The Gray Cuckoo) is as fine as anything out there, and that there are many other folk songs that could become international hits?
I want to do a world folklore project consisting of two parts portraying the pre-Christian and Christian periods. I should point out that there is a lot of interweaving here. From the pre- Christian era we have the composition “Slava ridnym Boham” (Glory to Our Gods), which is about the Sun, Perun, Veles, Dazhboh — our old Ukrainian deities. This is a large stratum of culture that must be singled out and identified. Sometimes the impression is that our national traditions and folklore emerged only during the Christian period. One thing has to merge into the next one: joined to our love of nature and our extraordinarily close connection with it are great spirituality and the universal love that Jesus brought. If you comprehend all this, it is easier to understand your fellow humans and the world.
As one of the organizers of the World Championship of Performing Arts in Hollywood, you must have a better idea about the extent to which Ukrainian art is interesting to the rest of the world. How does Ukrainian talent rate in these competitions?
Ukrainian art is very well accepted abroad. Ukrainians win practically every year in one genre or another. This competition has existed since 2001. This summer it will be held on July 19-26. We are now selecting delegations and communicating with various agencies.
Why do we know so little about this competition in Ukraine? Why are the winners not promoted here?
Because every winner’s agency will have to pay for a publicity appearance on television. Ukraine cannot afford to promote its talents on international channels. Frankly speaking, the only advantage these winners enjoy is the possibility to sign a contract and to learn. Some performers decide to stay in the US, and they regard this as their biggest reward. But I think this is a dubious reward because Hollywood is such a cosmopolitan body that no one stands a chance of revealing individual — let alone national — talents there. On the one hand, there is the possibility of gaining international acclaim, something you can only dream about; on the other, you discover that you no longer belong to yourself; you have to represent world cosmopolitan art, with producers shaping you whichever way they choose, not what you think is your way. You are the proverbial puppet on a string, not an individual with his own voice.
What’s the alternative?
You have to choose to remain true to yourself and create your own world (at home you are more often than not doomed to a penniless existence), or agree with what your foreign impresarios want from you and make money. Then you are simply selling your talent. This is what happens most of the time.
You have to understand: to make someone listen to us, we have to build our individuality and spirituality brick by brick. Only a huge and powerful lobby can influence the politics in Hollywood — and not just Hollywood. First, we have to prove our right to speak and then turn on the microphones.
Is it really necessary to prove something?
Well, we can prove nothing and stew in our own juices. But we have to remember that when people mention Poland, they think about Chopin, and when they talk about Italy, they think of someone like Caruso. This rule applies everywhere. Ukraine’s brand is not its political system or the faces of its political leaders but its national culture. You know, when people talk about Ukraine, for some reason they mention migrant workers, and sometimes the women who work in dubious places (I am not blaming anyone, I am simply stating facts; I am stating this sadly as a Ukrainian abroad, who knows the situation well). And unfortunately, this situation will not change until Ukraine realizes that it is not just ordinary people who should love their culture, but the highest echelons of the state should also prove their love and care in terms of budget allocations, investments, programs, and support for talented youth.
Our conversation implies that for the time being Ukraine should be represented by folk art.
Folk art is a remarkable cultural stratum; it comprises a huge treasury of which we ourselves are not always aware. The fact that our agriculture is in a neglected state today is partially connected to the fact that we are forgetting our roots, our connection with nature, about the fact that our spirituality and well-being have completely defined roots. The fact that fields today are standing uncultivated and neglected is proof that our people have lost respect for their land, that they no longer feel that laboring on the land is important and honorable work.
If we learn once again to listen to ourselves and our land, if we turn our faces to our folk traditions and the behests that Ukrainians have handed down to each other from our great-grandfathers, then we will start living better. I am in no way opposed to technological progress, I am not against innovative technologies or against well-being and an easier life that progress brings. But why should I destroy my spirit by becoming a slave to all this?
