The 1930s
For almost the entire decade, Ukrainian lands remained divided: present-day territories of Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions were under Polish control, Chernivtsi region was ruled by Romania, Transcarpathia was part of Czechoslovakia, while the South, North, and East of Ukraine were occupied by the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin. The totalitarian dictatorship had devastating effects on all spheres of public life, including culture. The Holodomor, a man-made famine orchestrated by the government, took the lives of millions of Ukrainians, alongside mass dekulakisation1, deportation, forced collectivisation2, and repression of those whom the party labelled ‘enemies of the people’, i.e. intellectuals, artists, and the political elite. Modernist trends in art were replaced by primitive ‘socialist realism’, which glorified the Soviet regime. Numerous unions of writers, composers, artists, and architects were established, curtailing stylistic and artistic searches, imposing censorship, and severing ties with cultural figures abroad, including Ukrainian émigrés. A group of young Kharkiv residents, who united under the Association of Proletarian Musicians of Ukraine, claimed to be the exponents of the ‘only correct’ views on music.
The USSR decimated an entire generation of Ukrainian intellectuals — the constellation of artists who fell victim to repression are now known as the Executed Renaissance. Victims of Stalin’s terror included lyricists Kostiantyn Bohuslavskyi, Vasyl Stupnytskyi, and Pavlo Tolstiakov; composers and folklorists Vasyl Verkhovynets and Hnat Khotkevych; musicologists Yurii Masiutyn (Yurmas) and Dmytro Revutskyi; choirmasters Oleksandr Horilyi, Borys Levytskyi, and Serhii Papa-Athanasopoulos; and opera singer Mykhailo Donets. Nearly the entire ensemble of kobzars3 from the First Exemplary Bandurist4. Chapel and many other artists from kobzar associations were repressed.
The USSR decimated an entire generation of Ukrainian intellectuals — the constellation of artists who fell victim to repression are now known as the Executed Renaissance. Stalin’s terror wiped out composers, choirmasters, singers, music theorists, and folklorists, namely Kostiantyn Bohuslavskyi, Vasyl Stupnytskyi, Pavlo Tolstiakov, Vasyl Verkhovynets, Hnat Khotkevych, Dmytro Revutskyi and Ya. Yurmas, Oleksandr Horilyi, Borys Levytskyi, O. Nedzelnytskyi, Serhii Papa-Athanasopoulos, L. Kharchenko, O. Shcherbakov, N. Hrabovska, Mykhailo Donets, nearly the entire ensemble of kobzars from the First Exemplary Bandura Chapel and many other artists from kobzar associations.
After a brief period of prosperity for Ukrainian culture in the 1920s, the Soviet government tightened the noose and started to control artists.
Choral art, closely associated with church music, suffered significantly as Soviet policies aimed to eradicate it. The regime conducted ideological purges, removed choristers and conductors with questionable social backgrounds, banned previously approved concert programmes, and demanded the replacement of the 1920s musical heritage with upbeat songs and patriotic odes through self-financing. These repressive actions demoralised choral movement participants and, leading to the widespread dissolution of professional and amateur choirs.
Artists of the Ukrainian National Choir, founded by emigrants in 1921
During this period, Halychyna’s musical culture stood out. In the interwar years, Lviv becamea vibrant centre of musical life, entertainment, and leisure, with Western influences bringing jazz traditions. Dance orchestras (jazz bands) and revellers (male quartets with jazz accompaniment) dominated the concert stages. One of the first performers of entertainment music in the city was the jazz group led by Leonid Yablonskyi (Yabtsio), which included Stepan Huminilovych, Anatolii Kos Anatolskyi, Bohdan Vesolovskyi, and Irena Yarosevych — students of the Lysenko Higher Music Institute. Among the popular Lviv band’s first songs were ‘Paraska’, ‘Ty i tvoi chorni ochi’ [‘You and Your Dark Eyes’), and ‘Pryide shche chas’ [‘The Time Will Come’].
Besides jazz,the ‘light song’ genre, particularly tango, rapidly gained popularity in Lviv, where Ukrainian composers skilfully refined this genre. In interwar Lviv, musicians working in the tango genre included Yaroslav Barnych, Orest Kurochka,Volodymyr Trytiak, Bohdan Vesolovskyi, and the early works of Yevhen Kozak and Anatolii Kos-Anatolskyi. One of the most famous songs of this genre, still popular today, is ‘Hutsulka Ksenia’, composed by Yaroslav Barnych in 1934.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol divided Europe into spheres of influence between the USSR and Germany. With the outbreak of World War II and German aggression against Poland, the Soviet Union seized the opportunity: and on 17 September, the Red Army occupied the western lands of Ukraine.
The Lviv Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Conservatory (later named after Mykola Lysenko), the Trembita Chapel, and the Philharmonic with its symphony orchestra were granted state status, signifying the Soviet Union’s control over artistic expression and dictating what and how artists should create.
1. Dekulakisation(Ukrainian: rozkurkulennia) was the Soviet campaign of political repressions,including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of kulaks (wealthypeasants) and their families.
2. Collectivisation is the policyaimed to integrate individual landholdings and labour into nominallycollectively-controlled and openly or directly state-controlled farms.
3. Kobzar is a traditional Ukrainian bard, often blind, who performed epic ballads (dumy) and folk songs, accompanying themselves on the bandura or kobza. They played a key role in preserving Ukrainian culture and history through oral tradition.
4. Bandurist is a person who plays a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument known as the bandura.
Kyiv, 6-A Pyrohova St
