How Russia interfered with Carol of the Bells
Carol of the Bells began life in Pre-Christian Ukraine where the new year was celebrated at the start of spring. It was an oral tradition called schedrivky and was about a bird telling a man about all the gifts the arrival of spring has given him like the birth of lambs, new crops and a beautiful woman for the farmer to spend his days with. Ukrainian beauty standards were keen on dark eyebrows which we know according Anthony Potoczniak who determined that one lyric when literally translated from Ukraine to Englsih stated such description.
Schedrivky songs were orally sung by children in what is now Ukraine as well wishing songs for the new year.
In 1916, Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych who was a devout member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, was commissioned to write music for a Christmas concert. By this point, Ukraine had long since adopted Christianity so the new year was being welcomed in December and was now under Russian imperial control. Leontovych’s Schedredryk still had pagan tones (which were devoid of Christmas) in the lyrics but a friend of his rewrote a version of the song with mentions of the Nativity. However, it was Leontovych’s folk-inspired lyrics was what cost him his life.
Under imperial laws in Russia, Ukrainians were subjected to dense restrictions when it came to expressing their culture and the Ukrainian language was forbidden to be used in religious and educational texts. The Ukrainians were forced to assimilate into Russian society and bow down to Russian cultural norms. Ukrainians and Russians are both Slavic ethnicities and their languages are also slavic languages but they were still distinct from one another and have different cultures and values than each other. Even back in the early 20th Century and before that time, Ukrainians didn’t want to be part of Russia!
The limitations were resisted by the Ukrainian people and resititance couldn’t have come at a better time because the Russian Revolution kicked off less than a year later and Ukrainians looked to having a state of their own. In fact there were two Ukrainan independent states but they were short lived no thanks to Russia and the Treaty of Riga. This meant that a Ukrainian choir that was on tour couldn’t return home and later became permanent residents in North American countries like Canada and America.
Leontovych was unlucky! As in January 1922, a man visited Leontovych amid his visit to family in the village of Tuchyn and asked to spend the night. The next day, the guest robbed the property and shot Leontovych to death. It is generally agreed that it was because he was in favour of an independnat Ukraine, which wouldn’t come about until 1991. He was dead for 69 year by then.
It was during the Ukrainian based choir’s tour of North America that the song was made aware to Ukrainian-American Peter Wilhousky, a composer who may have been to a performance by the Ukrainian National Chorus or heard it on a recording put out by Brunswick which inspired him to rewrite it into a Christmas carol that we now know as Carol of the Bells!