Chapter XI · Conclusion
Reading edition
Most of the Ukrainian folk songs are, as a rule, of ancient date. The Serbs are the nearest to the Ukrainians of all Slavs with the quantity, contents and quality of their folk songs.
The leading ideology of these songs is the constant moralization, desire for liberty, and protest against violence. This popular poetry is the true picture of a Ukrainian soul that consciously strives to better conditions of self and of all humanity. Such a nation—such songs!
One of the greatest authorities on the subject, Drahomaniv, says that Ukrainian popular poetry is more of historic than of fictitious and fabulous origin.
Ukrainian folk song naturally had a great influence on national literature. In 1819, Prince Tsertelev published a collection of Ukrainian historic songs. Michael Maksymovich, a Ukrainian professor at the Moscow University, published another compilation of songs in 1827. Among the greatest students and collectors were Ambrose Metlynsky, 1854;[1] Pantaleymon Kulish, 1856; Nicholas Kostomariv, 1859; Alexander Rusov and Paul Chubinsky, 1874; Jacob Holowatsky, Rev. Markian Shashkevich, 1837 (in East Galicia); Osyp Fedkovich, 1860 (in Bukovina).
These collections of folklore made a decisive turn in national literature. Latin and Church Slavonic were abandoned in writing, national consciousness awoke and the Ukrainian masses began the struggle for liberty and independence, both under the Russian and Austro-Hungarian governments. Ivan Kotlarevsky was the first one to introduce the pure living Ukrainian language in his works, 1798, without an admixture of Russianized and Slavonic words. It was this very source that produced the immortal poet Taras Shevchenko, 1814–1861, who is classed with the German Schiller and Goethe, the English Shakespeare, the Polish Mickiewicz and the Russian Pushkin. Among the greatest students and ethnologists of Ukraine are two Kiev professors, Volodymyr Antonovich and Michaylo Drahomaniv, who collected many volumes of Ukrainian folklore; there is a host of other men of erudition, writers and poets who devoted their lives to the investigation of the Ukrainian folklore. Among these were Potebnia, Zhytecky, Manzhura, Hrinchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, Filaret Kolessa, Ohorowych, Horlenko, Sumtsow, Malynka, Kalash, Martynovych, Slastion, Speransky, Domanytsky, Tkachenko-Petrenko, Lysenko, Yerofeew, Zelenyna, Rubets, Marko Vovchok, Franko, Lomykowsky, Tomachynsky, Iwashchenko. Excellent school books of latest date, with treatises on the subject were written by Dr. M. Pachivsky, Prof. Lukachivsky, A. Barvinsky, Serhey Ephremov, Michael Hrushevsky. To quote the German, F. M. Bodenstedt:
“In no other country did the tree of people’s poetry produce such grand fruit; nowhere else did the spirit of a nation reflect so vividly and forcefully in songs as with the Ukrainians. What a sensitive breeze of sorrow, what immaculate human feelings are expressed in these songs sung by a Cossack in a foreign land! What a subtle delicacy in part with heroic force, masculine strength pervade his love songs! A special attention should be called to the tact and purity, as the chief factors of these songs. One cannot help but admit that a nation which sings such songs and is so fond of them—must be far above a low degree of cultural development.... The Ukrainian language is the most melodious among all the Slavic tongues, having great musical properties.”[2]
A Serbian, V. Lukich has this to say: “The Ukrainian language is distinguished for its harmony and beauty, and is the most adaptable to music and singing among the Slavic tongues.”...
“The national poetry of the Ukrainians is the richest one in Europe; it is distinguished for its esthetic properties and poetic inspiration and harmony of wording; it contains something grand, uplifting, the essence of feeling, melancholic and invigorating.”
“... the celebrated Russian music is the music of the Ukraine, and it is the Ukrainian, Gogol, who has opened the way to the Russian romancers of genius.” (Charles Seignobos, Professor at the Sorbonne.)
A race that has such an inexhaustible source of inspiring poetry which denotes a great wealth of spirit, inborn intelligence and talented souls, shall never perish, but its aspirations to a united, free, independent national existence will be realized:
... No one will chain a live soul, No one will chain a live word. The darkness of thraldom will disappear The light of truth will shine, And the children of bondage Shall praise God in Freedom. Taras Shevchenko.