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Khotkevych (Хоткевич) Hnat Martynovich
(1877—1938)

Hnat Khotkevych was a Ukrainian writer, ethnographer, playwright, composer, musicologist, and bandurist.

His mother was a domestic worker. Little is known about his father, who left the family in the mid-1880s. As a youth he learned to play the piano and violin and later learned to play the bandura through observing the blind folk players of the region. He completed his tertiary studies in engineering.

Khotkevych was a renaissance man and was multi-talented. Although he was trained as a professional engineer, he is known more as a prolific Ukrainian literary figure, and also as a dramatist, composer and ethnographer, and founder of the modern bandura art.

Khotkevych initially began writing as a student having his first stories published in 1897 - "The Georgian lady". Later appeared "The Prodical Son" (1898), "Analogies of life" (1901). "Mountain Aquarelles" (1914). His first major successful work was a novel about life in the Carpathian mountains - "The stone soul" which first appeared in 1911. Other novels followed. "Aviron" (1928), "Berestechko", "Tarasyk". An 8 volume collection of his writing were published in 1928. Many of his unpublished works however have been lost.

Khotkevych's winning formula for writing was to incorporate original folkloric and ethnographic material, in particular folks songs, tales, customs and even dialectical and lingual differences of the region or time which he as writing about. He included many aspects of the modernist style popular in Ukraine at the time.

As a youth he had the chance of seeing a number of theatrical performances in Kharkiv. He was so taken by these performances that in the summers he organized a theatre in the village of Derkachi for all the peasants.

In 1903 he organized a Ukrainian workers theatre in Kharkiv which was also hugely successful. He produced and wrote over 50 plays. Because his activities addresses social and national issues he was forced to emigrate in 1905 to Halychyna which at that time, was under Austro-Hungarian rule.

In 1910 whilst in Halychyna he once again organized a theatrical troupe made up of illiterate Hutsuls who had great success touring Western Ukraine with ethnographic plays he had created.

In 1912 he returned to Kharkiv and renewed the activities of the Kharkiv Ukrainian Theatre until his exile.

He continued writing plays, the most interesting was the work Bohdan Khmelnytsky which chronicle the life and times of the renown kozak leader in the mid 1600's.

In 1936 he played the role in the film "Nazar Stodolya", which appeared in 1937, but was however removed from showings.

Khotkevych wrote a number of studies on the history of "the Folk theatre in Galicia", and "the Theatre in 1848".

As a student Khotkevych became well known for his bandura playing. He first purchased an instrument in 1894, and first performed on stage as a soloist in 1896. When he was expelled from the Kharkiv Polytechnical Institute he joined Mykola Lysenko's touring choir as a bandura soloist. At a young age he was a renown virtuoso of the bandura.

In 1902, he was asked to read a paper on the music and traditions of the folk bandurists known as kobzars at the XIIth Archeological Conference held in Kharkiv in 1902. He prepared a paper and organized a concert which became the first performance of a bandura ensemble in history.

The Kobzar enemble at the XIIth Archeological Conference in Kharkiv in 1902Since that time this artform became hugely popular throughout Ukraine.

After emigrating to Austria-Hungary in 1906 he traversed Halychyna with concerts of bandura music. In 1907, he wrote the first bandura handbook which was published in 1909 in Lviv.

In 1910, he had one of his bandura compositions - Odarochka - published in Kyiv. He returned to Central Ukraine in 1912 and was soon arrested, jailed and later exiled to Russia. He returned to Kharkiv only in 1917 where he taught Ukrainian Literature and Language at the Kharkiv Zoological College.

In 1920 he organised a Ukrainian choir that performed ethnographic choral works and in he 20's had numerous compositions published.

From 1926 on, he taught the first conservatory level courses in bandura at the Kharkiv Muz Dram Institute. A new textbook for the bandura was partially published (the 3 final books were lost at the publishing house). A collection of his compositions for the bandura was prepared but was also lost by the publishing house. Only a handful of students completed these courses such as Leonid Haydamaka, O. Herashchenko, O. Hayevsky, I. Oleshko, and Hryhory Bazhul. Some were arrested in the early 30's, others found their way out to the West during WWII.

In 1928, Khotkevych became the director of a special Bandura Studio, organized to retrain and convert the Poltava Bandurist Capella to play in the Kharkiv style. He composed and arranged numerous works for this ensemble. In 1931 the ensemble received the privilege of being the first Soviet ensemble to be invited to tour North America. Unfortunately the tour did not take place and Khotkevych was removed from the directorship of the ensemble in 1932. All of his pieces and arrangements being subsequently banned.

Apart from his musical performance and compositions, Khotkevych also produced a number of books on Ukrainian folk instruments, and the bandura specifically. These books were also banned from 1932.

From 1928 Khotkevych began to have difficulties in all his publishing endeavours. Initially manuscripts began to disappear at publishing houses and in the mail. Works had to be submitted 3 or 4 times and then they were often sabotaged in the publishing houses. Khotkevych wrote numerous letters to complain, but little was done.

From 1931, he underwent numerous personal attacks in the Soviet press, which ultimately resulted in all his music and writing being banned in 1932 and his losing all employment.

In 1933 his family starved during the Great Famine as he was not given ration cards because he was unemployed. In 1934 in an attempt to kill him the was pushed under a train and was hospitalised for a period.

In 1938 during the Stalinist purges, he was arrested, tortured and secretly sentenced to death in 1938. Soviet sources initially falsely stated that he was sent to Siberia for 10 years without the right to correspond. False death certificates were issued to state that he died in 1943. He died on October 8, 1938.

Ukraine, 2002.12.21, Ivano-Frankovsk. Hnat Khotkevych

Ukraine, 2002, Hnat Khotkevych

Ukraine, 2007, Hnat Khotkevych