Ostap Veresai
Encyclopedia
Minstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...
and kobzar
Kobzar
A Kobzar was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment.-Tradition:Kobzars were often blind, and became predominantly so by the 1800s...
from the Poltava Governorate
Poltava Governorate
The Poltava Governorate or Government of Poltava was a guberniya in the historical Left-bank Ukraine region of the Russian Empire, which was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Malorossiya Governorate which was split between the Chernigov Governorate and Poltava Governorate with an...
(now Chernihiv poblast) of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(in today's Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). He, like no other, helped in the popularity of kobzar art not only in his country, but also outside its borders.
Childhood
Ostap Veresai was born in the village of Kaliuzhentsi, PrylukyPryluky
Pryluky or Priluki is a city located on the Udai River in the Chernihiv Oblast, north-central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Prylutsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate municipality within the oblast...
county, Poltava Governorate
Poltava Governorate
The Poltava Governorate or Government of Poltava was a guberniya in the historical Left-bank Ukraine region of the Russian Empire, which was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Malorossiya Governorate which was split between the Chernigov Governorate and Poltava Governorate with an...
to a serf
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
family of a blind violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist. Mykyta Veresai, the father, was blind from birth, but was musically very talented and learned to play the violin, which he used in order to earn a living for his family. Mykyta had only one child - Ostap. At the age of 4, the future kobzar
Kobzar
A Kobzar was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment.-Tradition:Kobzars were often blind, and became predominantly so by the 1800s...
became sick and lost his sight.
From an early age Ostap was interested in music and the bandura
Bandura
Bandura refers to a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument. It combines elements of a box zither and lute, as well as its lute-like predecessor, the kobza...
. As he himself said "...when a kobzar came to my father's house, I would stand near him, and I do not know who was more excited. The kobzar would suggest: 'You Mykyto give this boy to learn, maybe he becomes a kobzar.'"
When Ostap turned 15, his father apprenticed him to a kobzar in a village Berezhivka not far away to his home. Ostap spent only a week with him.
After spending four years at home, Ostap again attempted to undertake studies under a kobzar. A neighbour took him to the market in Romen, where many kobzars would gather, and where Ostap found the kobzar Yefym Andriyshevsky and was formally apprenticed to him for three years.
After the death of Andriyshevsky, Ostap was apprenticed to Semen Koshoviy from the village of Holinka. Ostap spent 9 months with him. He was very strict and exploited the young novice.
In total, Ostap studied for a total of one incomplete year rather than the traditional 3 years.
Popularity
The first folklorist to turn his attention to Ostap was the Russian painter Lev Zhemchuzhnikov. In 1852-56 he spent a considerable time in Ukraine. The painter visited the Galagan estate in Sokyryntsi near PrylukyPryluky
Pryluky or Priluki is a city located on the Udai River in the Chernihiv Oblast, north-central Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Prylutsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate municipality within the oblast...
. Ostap at that time was an inhabitant of Sokyryntsi. He had married. When he met up with Zhemchuzhnikov, and they became friends.
In 1871, Galagan took Veresai to Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
for the opening of the "Pavlo Galagan Collegium" in order to show all his guests the kobzar from Sokyryntsi. Veresai had, up until that moment, only performed in a village setting.
It is possible that it is on this trip Lysenko
Mykola Lysenko
Mykola Vitaliiovych Lysenko was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist.- Biography :Lysenko was born in Hrynky, Kremenchuk Povit, Poltava Governorate, the son of Vitaliy Romanovich Lysenko . From childhood he became very interested in the folksongs of Ukrainian peasants and...
recorded the melodies of dumy
Duma (epic)
A Duma is a sung epic poem which originated in Ukraine during the Hetmanate Era in the sixteenth century...
(sung epic poems) and songs which became the basis for his study "The characteristics of musical peculiarities of Ukrainian dumy and songs performed by the kobzar Veresai." The ethnographer P. Chubinsky also recorded almost all of the texts to the songs and dumy which Veresai had in his repertoire.
In 1873, the directors of the Southern Russian division of the Russian Imperial Geographic Society, under the chairmanship of Galagan, met for an unscheduled meeting of the Society - initiated by Galagan - with the goal of introducing Veresai to its members as an example of ancient Ukrainian poetic works
Ukrainian literature
Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian literature had a difficult development because, due to constant foreign domination over Ukrainian territories, there was often a significant difference between the spoken and written language...
. At the meeting the following papers were read:
- Ostap Veresai - one of the last Ukrainian kobzars - by O. Rusov
- The Characteristics of musical peculiarities of Ukrainian dumy and songs performed by the kobzar Veresai" - by Mykola LysenkoMykola LysenkoMykola Vitaliiovych Lysenko was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist.- Biography :Lysenko was born in Hrynky, Kremenchuk Povit, Poltava Governorate, the son of Vitaliy Romanovich Lysenko . From childhood he became very interested in the folksongs of Ukrainian peasants and...
.
Those present had the chance to listen to Veresai, who performed the dumy
Duma (epic)
A Duma is a sung epic poem which originated in Ukraine during the Hetmanate Era in the sixteenth century...
The Escape of the three brothers from Oziv from Turkish Captivity, About Fedir the one without kin, the humourous song Shchyhol and the dance melody Kozachok. In addition to the 28 members of the society, there were 60 invited guests. Much attention was turned to Veresai and it was thought that he was the last of his kind. After this meeting, Veresai performed at a number of other academic conferences.
In 1874 he performed at the IIIrd Archeological Conference in Kiev. The French delegate - Alfred Rambaud, published in an article in one of the Paris journals Ukraine and its historic songs wrote:
One wonderful summer evening we gathered in the University garden to listen to the kobzar; he was seated on a stool, and the listeners, whose numbers continued to grow, sat down around him. One lamp, hiding in the greenery, lit up the face of the kobzar, whose voice sounded clearly like the song of a nightingale ... When Ostap performed one of his humorous songs, it is worth while looking at the way he would dance to the accompaniment of the music, while playing difficult notes on the banduraBanduraBandura refers to a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument. It combines elements of a box zither and lute, as well as its lute-like predecessor, the kobza...
. The same can be said about the dancing motive, to which he would beat time with his foot; at this time one could take him as a young kozak, watching how he would make knew bends as if doing kozak dances ... His life is different from those Homeric tales. The villager Ostap Veresai is a direct descendant of the ancient Slavonic singers, he is the legal inheritor of the BoyanBoyanBoyan may refer to:* Boyan , a common Bulgarian given name.*Boyan Botevo, a village in Mineralni bani, in Haskovo Province, Bulgaria* Boyan , town in Wu'an, Hebei, China...
and other nightingales of the past
Veresai became known in the London magazine "Atheneum". In August 1874 the magazine published an article by the English folklorist and writer Ralston - "The kobzar Veresai, and his music..." In the article, which was written as a review of Rusov's article, Ralston gives Veresai the same role as the rhapsodies of ancient Greece.
In February 1875, Veresai was invited by the ethnographic sector of the Russian Geographical Society to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. There, apart from performing at a meeting of the Ethnographic sector, he also performed at a meeting of the Painter's guild, at a breakfast which was organized in memory of Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko
Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...
, and even at the Winter Palace
Winter Palace
The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs. Situated between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and...
, before Princes Sergey
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia was a son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia...
and Pavel Alexandrov
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia was the eighth child of Tsar Alexander II of Russia by his first wife Empress Maria Alexandrovna. His birth was commemorated by the naming of the city of Pavlodar in Kazakhstan...
.
All the performances of the kobzar were accompanied by full halls and were greeted by the audience with extreme warmth. The Petersburg press wrote positive reviews. The newspaper Novosti wrote:
The singer—a seventy year old man, is able to capture the listeners sympathy, and his singing, which is marked by deep artistry and much feeling leaves a deep impression with the listeners. According to the experts, Veresai as a singer, was born with a talent and through his dumas would bring to life ancient Ukraine, with numerous reminiscences of the past
Late life and death
Despite his age, retirement was not an option. In the autumn of 1881 and spring of 1882 he traveled to KievKiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, and the folklorist K. Ukhach-Oxorovych made a complete recording of his repertoire. This recording in comparison with that made by Pavlo Chubinsky in 1873 showed that the 70-year-old kobzar
Kobzar
A Kobzar was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment.-Tradition:Kobzars were often blind, and became predominantly so by the 1800s...
was able to expand his repertoire with three additional dumy, so that at the beginning of the 80s he had in his repertoire nine dumy:
- Storm on the Black Sea
- The recruitment of the Kozak
- The Escape of the three brothers from Oziv
- The poor widow and her three sons
- The Hawk and the Hawklette
- Fedir the one without Kin
- The Captives lament, son of a widow
- Ivan Konovchenko
Veresai died in April 1890 at the age of 87 in Sokyryntsi.
Cultural impact
Through his performances O. Veresai inspired the creation of a genre known as dumkyDumky
Dumka is a musical term introduced from the Ukrainian language, with cognates in other Slavic languages. Originally, it is the diminutive form of the Ukrainian term duma, pl...
(small dumy
Dumy
Dumy is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Wielkie Oczy, within Lubaczów County, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland, close to the border with Ukraine....
). After his St. Petersburg performances dumky were created by composers Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
, Peter Tchaikovsky, Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
and a host of other East European composers.
The performances by this blind man in Petersburg also made an impact on the publication of the Ems ukaz
Ems Ukaz
The Ems Ukaz, or Ems Ukase , was a secret decree of Tsar Alexander II of Russia issued in 1876, banning the use of the Ukrainian language in print, with the exception of reprinting of old documents. The ukaz also forbade the import of Ukrainian publications and the staging of plays or lectures in...
in 1876, which banned the publication of books in the Ukrainian language
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
. Paragraph 3 specifically bans the performance of vocal works in the Ukrainian language on stage and this paragraph is accredited to Lysenko's efforts and Veresai's performances in St. Petersburg. Stage performances by kobzars were only allowed again in 1902 after the XIIth Archeological conference.