The Unknown Story of ‘Carol of the Bells’
As Christmas approaches and the acquainted chimes of Carol of the Bells start to fill the air, it’s simple to be swept up within the festive spirit—the twinkling lights, the heat of household gatherings, and the hopes for peace. Christmas is coming – the season of goodwill, a celebration of sunshine amidst the darkness of winter.
…Hark how the bells
Candy silver bells
All appear to say
Throw cares away…
But, as we revel within the pleasure of this iconic tune, few know the deeper, untold story behind it. What if I advised you that this beloved melody, synonymous with Christmas, truly has its roots in Ukraine, a rustic now locked in a fierce battle for survival towards Russian aggression? Furthermore, what if I advised you that the music of Carol of the Bells, based mostly on the Ukrainian people track Shchedryk, was organized within the metropolis of Pokrovsk – a spot now on the very coronary heart of Ukraine’s resistance?
Pokrovsk: the Music Begins
The sheet music for Carol of the Bells, printed in New York in 1936 by Carl Fisher, identifies it as a Ukrainian Christmas carol, with music composed by Mykola Leontovych and lyrics by Peter Wilhousky. This description is repeated in numerous editions of the track, that are carried out worldwide each Christmas. Nevertheless, oddly sufficient, the music piece has no precise connection to Christmas: it’s not a carol, and isn’t even related to winter.
In Ukrainian, Shchedryk means ‘The Beneficiant One’, derived from the Ukrainian phrase ‘shchedryj’, which interprets to ‘bountiful’. Shchedryk is a conventional Ukrainian track celebrating the arrival of the brand new 12 months and the prosperity it guarantees. Its roots lie in historic pre-Christian traditions, which marked the start of the 12 months with the arrival of spring. Shchedryk’s unique narrative includes a swallow flying into a house to herald luck and abundance:
The swallow has flown in,
She started to chirp…
Shchedryk’s easy four-note ostinato was remodeled right into a choral masterpiece by Mykola Leontovych (1877–1921), a Ukrainian composer and conductor. From 1904 to 1908, Leontovych lived within the village of Hryshyno – now Pokrovsk. Throughout these years, whereas instructing music on the native railway faculty, Leontovych started shaping the primary model of Shchedryk, setting the stage for what would later change into an emblem of Christmas worldwide.
Earlier than Russia’s full-scale invasion, the reminiscence of Mykola Leontovych was deeply woven into Pokrovsk’s identification. Town of 69,000 residents honored the composer in numerous methods. A avenue and the biggest youngsters’s music faculty within the area have been named after him. Two memorial plaques commemorated his presence—one on the constructing the place he had taught and one other on the railway station. Moreover, the native historic museum hosted an exhibition devoted to his life and work.
Furthermore, after 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and escalated its hybrid battle in Donbas, Leontovych’s legacy turned a type of cultural self-defense for Pokrovsk. By commemorating Leontovych town sought to say its Ukrainian identification within the face of the encroaching ‘Russian World’ (Russkiy Mir). In 2016, throughout Ukraine’s decommunization drive, town modified its identify from Krasnoarmeysk, a Soviet-era identify glorifying the Pink Military, to Pokrovsk, a reputation that displays Ukrainian traditions and distances town from Russia and the Soviet previous. The next 12 months, town adopted a brand new coat of arms, that includes a swallow from Leontovych’s Shchedryk—a poignant image of spring and renewal. This rebranding was a part of a broader effort to reassert town’s cultural and nationwide identification. In 2018, a monument to Leontovych was unveiled, solidifying his function as an emblem of Ukraine’s cultural resilience towards the Russian Empire.
Immediately, the Pokrovsk that when celebrated Leontovych is not any extra. Russia’s invasion has decreased town to ruins.
Ukraine’s Musical Ambassadors: The Rise of Shchedryk
With Russia denying Ukraine’s political and cultural independence (in line with Putin, Ukraine is a historic mistake, a man-made state created on Russia’s historic lands; there is no such thing as a such factor as Ukrainian language and Ukrainian tradition), this battle isn’t just a army battle, but in addition a cultural battle. From the outset of the invasion, Russia has relentlessly destroyed Ukraine’s cultural heritage (see: Broken cultural websites in Ukraine verified by UNESCO). For this reason, in response, Ukraine has been actively dismantling symbols of the “Russian World” inside its borders (eradicating monuments to Russian cultural and historic figures and banning place names related to Russia). To outlive as a sovereign nation, Ukraine should safeguard each its territorial and cultural integrity. It should additionally confront the persistent delusion of historic unity with Russia, a story Putin articulated in his 2021 essay, ‘On Historic Unity Between Russians and Ukrainians’ which portrays Ukraine as merely ‘one other Russia’, a ‘buffer zone’, ‘Russia’s historic land’ or a ‘sphere of Russia’s geopolitical curiosity’, moderately than an impartial state.
For Ukraine, the battle for recognition—by way of each army resistance and cultural mobilization—isn’t new. Over a century in the past, the Ukrainian Folks’s Republic (UPR), a quick manifestation of Ukraine’s statehood rising from the collapse of the Russian Empire, used Ukrainian tradition as a instrument of worldwide diplomacy. Amid the bloody turmoil of the Civil Struggle, Ukrainians needed to persuade the West – the victorious Entente powers – that they have been a nation distinct from Russia. To realize this, Ukraine’s authorities used completely different means, together with tradition, notably Ukrainian music.
In early 1919, on the initiative of Symon Petliura, the chief of the Ukrainian Folks’s Republic, the Ukrainian Nationwide Choir, below the path of Oleksandr Koshyts was created to advertise Ukrainian tradition overseas. The choir carried out Ukrainian songs for worldwide audiences, together with in Paris, the place the Peace Convention was happening. The choir’s performances, notably the rendition of Shchedryk garnered vital consideration. Whereas the cultural mission proved extremely profitable—over the course of two years, the Ukrainian Nationwide Choir carried out in 45 cities throughout 10 Western European international locations, performing as cultural ambassadors of Ukraine and producing roughly 600 evaluations within the overseas press—the army and diplomatic efforts of the Ukrainian Folks’s Republic in the end fell brief. The Paris Peace Convention, which was delivered to an finish with the formal inauguration of the League of Nations on 16 January 1920, didn’t formally recognise Ukraine’s independence: the Allied powers largely considered Ukraine as a part of the previous Russian Empire. Missing Western help, the Ukrainian Folks’s Republic ultimately misplaced its army battle to Soviet Russia after years of combating and geopolitical upheaval.
Mykola Leontovych: The Triumph of Music and the Tragedy of Terror
In January 1921, the Ukrainian Nationwide Choir returned to Paris. On the morning of January 23, a Sunday, they delivered a fascinating efficiency on the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. On the coronary heart of this system was Leontovych’s Shchedryk, which left the viewers spellbound. But, because the echoes of Shchedryk resounded in Europe, tragedy unfolded again dwelling in Ukraine: the evening earlier than, Mykola Leontovych fell sufferer to the Soviet Pink Terror, a deliberate marketing campaign by the Bolsheviks to suppress Ukrainian intellectuals and cultural leaders—anybody who may symbolize or encourage a free Ukraine. He was assassinated in his own residence by an undercover Soviet Cheka agent, Afanasy Gryshchenko, who had infiltrated the composer’s household below the guise of friendship. For many years, the precise circumstances of Leontovych’s demise have been saved in secrecy. Solely after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when state archives have been lastly opened, did the reality come to gentle.
The stark distinction between the triumph of Leontovych’s music overseas and the violence that silenced him at house is a chilling reminder of the stakes in Ukraine’s battle for independence.
Crossing the Ocean: Shchedryk within the USA
In September 1922, the Ukrainian Nationwide Choir left Europe for good and moved to the USA. Throughout its first month in America, the choir recorded Shchedryk in a Brunswick studio in New York, marking the primary recording of this iconic piece on American soil. This efficiency was particularly poignant: the composer of Shchedryk had been killed, and the Ukrainian state that had despatched its musical ambassadors not existed on the world’s political map—however the music lived on. By December 1922, the Russian Empire had reemerged because the USSR, and for the following 70 years, Ukraine fell below the management of the Kremlin; solely Shchedryk remained free.
From the mid-Nineteen Twenties, the enduring Ukrainian track Shchedryk started its personal life in the USA. Regardless of already being fashionable as Ukrainian music, it confronted makes an attempt by Russians to assert it as their very own, a typical tactic of the Empire—something it couldn’t destroy, it tried to acceptable. A placing instance of this occurred in 1925, when the Russian Artwork Choir in New York included Shchedryk in its repertoire, and the track was featured on Broadway within the musical The Track of the Flame, a manufacturing involving the well-known American composer George Gershwin. Although the musical was in regards to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the creators selected to incorporate Ukrainian people songs, akin to Shchedryk, and labeled them as Russian.
As well as, for American audiences, something related to the Russian Empire/ the Soviet Union was usually labeled (and nonetheless is!) as ‘Russian’, no matter its true origins. This misperception affected Shchedryk a number of instances. In 1926, when Columbia Data launched a recording of Shchedryk, it was labeled as a ‘Russian people carol’, with no point out of Mykola Leontovych.
The primary English model of Shchedryk was created in 1933. Tailored by American conductor Max Cronn, the track was reimagined as The Bluebirds Track, although it was nonetheless mistakenly attributed to Russian origins. The lyrics went as follows:
Bluebirds awing,
Happiness convey,
Twitter and sing,
Telling of spring…
In 1946, the famend American choir carried out by Robert Shaw included a revealing observe of their Christmas Hymns and Carols album for Carol of the Bells: “A typical Russian people carol by Leontovych — a composer about whom we may discover no data.” This lack of knowledge was hardly shocking, given the Soviet regime’s suppression of Ukrainian tradition and the erasure of the historical past of the Ukrainian Folks’s Republic, which saved a lot of Leontovych’s legacy hid till 1991.
Probably the most well-known adaptation of Shchedryk got here in 1936, when Peter Wilhousky, an American conductor of Ukrainian descent, remodeled the track into Carol of the Bells. Wilhousky heard the sound of Christmas bells within the music. He wrote new English lyrics targeted on the joyful ringing, moderately than the track’s unique lyrics a couple of swallow bringing the spring. Carol of the Bells gave Shchedryk a brand new life. Since then, it has been carried out by main distinguished choirs and orchestras, and even turned part of fashionable tradition, with renditions in jazz, rock, and different genres (See: the Tabernacle Choir, Pentatonix, the Piano Guys, New York Philharmonic and lots of, many extra)
The melody of Mykola Leontovych has additionally captured the American movie trade. For the reason that Thirties, the track has featured in over 100 American movies and tv reveals. Among the many most well-known are Dwelling Alone, The Muppet Present, South Park, and lots of others.
Past the silver display, the track has change into a staple within the promoting world. Since a minimum of 1973, the enduring melody has been utilized by among the world’s most recognizable manufacturers of their advert campaigns.
One appears to listen to
Phrases of fine cheer
From in all places
Filling the air
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas
For the reason that starting of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has discovered itself trapped in what appears like a perpetual February. In Ukrainian, February known as ‘лютий’ – lyutyi, a phrase that carries a double which means: it refers each to the month itself and to one thing fierce or merciless. This linguistic nuance completely encapsulates the essence of the month—a time when harsh winter winds lower by way of the air, and nature appears to carry its breath, ready for the arrival of spring.
As Russia’s aggression continues, Ukraine endures a protracted, brutal winter—a protracted interval of struggling marked by the storm of battle. But, regardless of this, Ukraine celebrates Christmas. In 2023, many Ukrainian Orthodox Christians shifted their Christmas celebration from January 7 to December 25, breaking away from Russian Orthodox custom and, symbolically, from Russia itself.
Within the depths of this darkish winter, Shchedryk—the track born from Ukraine’s coronary heart— shines as a present to the world. It’s a testomony to Ukraine’s resilience, its cultural spirit, and its timeless hope for renewal and freedom. Because the acquainted chimes of Carol of the Bells ring by way of the air this Christmas, allow us to hear them not solely as a celebration of vacation pleasure but in addition as a reminder of Ukraine’s fierce battle for sovereignty and peace.
Merry Christmas, with hope from Ukraine.
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As a global lawyer and Ukrainian citizen, my insights into Russia’s invasion come from my roles as a authorized skilled, witness, and sufferer of the battle. Whereas I attempt to current an goal evaluation, my private involvement and the tough realities of dwelling by way of Russia’s aggression might introduce a level of bias. It is vital for me to transparently acknowledge this threat offering context about my background and perspective from which I write.
