Father of the Ukrainian theater

Ihor Kropyvnytsky, the grandson of the founder of a world-renowned Ukrainian theater, recently told The Day about the importance of Marko Kropyvnytsky. Unfortunately, many facets of the life of his illustrious relative are virtually unknown today.

In the mid-19th century, Ukrainian dramaturgy and the theater were in a profound crisis caused primarily by the colonial policies of Russian tsarism, which were aimed at eliminating any manifestations of Ukrainian spirituality. Suffice to recall the closure in 1817 of the Kyiv Academy, the first and only institution of higher education in Ukraine, the notorious Valuev Circular of 1863, which was aimed at restricting the use of the Ukrainian language, and the 1876 Ems Ukase of Alexander II, which banned the Ukrainian theater.

Ivan Franko noted, “The early 1880s suddenly saw the emergence of a genuine Ukrainian theater. A troupe was formed, which Ukraine had never seen before or later, and which sparked enthusiasm not only in the cities of Ukraine but also in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where audiences had an opportunity to see the finest actors of world caliber. In spite of all difficulties and obstacles, Kropyvnytsky’s theater succeeded in proving that it was on par with Europe’s best national theaters. Created by Kropyvnytsky in the conditions of harsh national oppression, the professional theater was for many years one of the mainstays of the cultural revival of the enslaved Ukrainian nation. Most of our compatriots were uneducated and had no chance to read the beautiful poems and stories of Taras Shevchenko, Marko Vovchok, Ivan Franko, and other Ukrainian writers. Kropyvnytsky’s theater not only gave a powerful impetus to the further development of Ukrainian culture, but also played a crucial sociopolitical role in the life of Ukrainians and became one of the important spiritual foundations on which the independent Ukrainian state was built many decades later.

Kropyvnytsky occupies the most revered place among the prominent figures of the democratic culture at the turn of the 20th century. He was a brilliant personality endowed with unique and versatile talents. He was not only a classical playwright, a brilliant actor, a director-reformist, and founder of a world-class theater but also a well-known poet, composer, music conductor, singer, and translator. He was also known as a talented organizer and theater manager as well as a superb mentor, who found talented individuals among ordinary Ukrainians and painstakingly taught them to become masterful actors.

Kropyvnytsky was a magnificent writer and a fiery political orator, who won over listeners with his speeches. He was a pioneer of realistic painting and decorative art, and the founder of the only children’s theater in the entire Russian Empire.

As one who continued the traditions of the great poet Taras Shevchenko, Kropyvnytsky, who was keenly aware that the Ukrainian ethnos might disappear and become dissolved in the dominant Russian nation, devoted his entire life to the spiritual liberation of the Ukrainian nation. As a playwright and an actor, he used the passionate artistic word to rouse Ukrainians’ national awareness and called upon them to preserve and defend their cultural achievements.

Kropyvnytsky’s theater was a well-spring of Ukrainian culture. The company included future stars of the Ukrainian stage, such as Maria Zankovetska, Mykola Sadovsky, Liubov Linytska, Panas Saksahansky, Ivan Karpenko-Kary, Hanna Zatyrkevych, and Maria Sadovska-Barilotti. All of these brilliant Ukrainian actors were nurtured to stardom by Kropyvnytsky. His contemporaries were entirely correct in calling him “the father of the Ukrainian theater.”

During his long life on the stage, Kropyvnytsky played more than 500 roles from the Ukrainian, Russian, and Western European repertoires. These were true masterpieces in which the actor gained a deep insight into his characters. He strove to be seen and heard in the remotest nooks of the country.

The critics of the day praised Kropyvnytsky with these words: “It was felt that this was not only an extraordinary artistic force on the stage but also an individual who truly loves his national art, and performs on stage as one of the principal and best figures of the Ukrainian theater, its pride and joy.”

Franko pointed out, that “[t]here are few writers who can display such clear, radiant, and magnificent poetry and humor of the national language. That language flows like a powerful current through Kropyvnytsky’s dramas: the author is aware of his ‘gift of the word’ and relishes in the flow of his beautiful colors and shimmers. Songs, jokes, folk sayings, and fables endlessly pour down like pearls and gems.”

Kropyvnytsky was instrumental in creating the professional theater in Ukraine. William Shakespeare, who had done the same in England 400 years earlier, enjoys profound respect and high esteem in his native land. Ukraine has an equal right to be proud of its trail-blazer and honor him at the governmental level, as Britain does its own theatrical pioneer. Historical facts indicate that Kropyvnytsky’s theater became a torch of defiance to imperialist rule and to Valuev, who did not dare stifle the theater in Ukraine.

In this sense, Kropyvnytsky’s mission was historic and revolutionary. A true Ukrainian national leader in those turbulent times, he was on the cusp of an era. The press of St. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire where he frequently went on tour, called Kropyvnytsky “the sun of Ukraine,” regarding him as the most beloved and popular person after the national poet Taras Shevchenko.

As a writer, Kropyvnytsky was the founder of the genre of socio-psychological drama, and the contemporary press compared his plays to the masterpieces of world literature. In the period of unbridled reaction and suppression of everything original, Kropyvnytsky promoted Ukraine and its history, life, and melodious language. The St. Petersburg performances of Ukraine’s theater celebrities were an extraordinary event and a true representation of Ukrainian culture, winning the acclaim and unqualified approval of Russia’s democratic audiences. The contemporary press noted that “the Ukrainians, under the direction of Kropyvnytsky, have left Stanislavsky’s Art Theater trailing behind them for many years.”

Kropyvnytsky’s dramaturgy is genetically linked with folklore and the finest works of Ukrainian classical literature, including the works of Ivan Kotliarevsky, Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Taras Shevchenko, and Mykola Hohol (Nikolai Gogol). It also shows the marks left by the traditions of such world- famous writers as William Shakespeare, Honore de Balzac, Aleksandr Griboedov, Alexander Pushkin, Aleksandr Ostrovsky, and Leo Tolstoy. What is truly striking is the immense creative and organizational work that Kropyvnytsky accomplished throughout many years, his titanic energy, and devotion to the cause of the theater as a powerful instrument of popular enlightenment.

“We should not forget,” Sofia Tobilevych reminisces, “that the triple burden that Kropyvnytsky shouldered - as a dramatist, actor, and stage director, as well as a teacher of a large group of young actors - called for superhuman efforts and exceptional reserves of energy, nerves, and health. All the actors whom he helped master the acting technique, all his pupils, including Sadovsky and Saksahansky, were in love with Marko as an actor, director, and individual with a big heart.”

Kropyvnytsky engaged in numerous self-denying creative and civic activities. “In my sweet Ukraine there are still no public schools or journals, and even the Ukrainian language is being derided and rejected; there are even attempts to destroy it. Why? Is it because our ancestors left their bones and shed their blood on the land that is called blessed and prosperous, and which was annexed to a related nation, as an equal to an equal? How insulting, painful, and difficult! I am no longer able to tolerate oppressive derision and the shame of an enslaved spirit and morality, and to close my eyes to the gross violation of ordinary human rights and elementary justice. It is time to equalize all the rights of the Ukrainian and Russian languages because only the mother tongue, unrestricted by censorship, allows the possibility to use the oppressed forces successfully for the benefit of our beloved Fatherland,” Kropyvnytsky declared in an address to those who were not indifferent to the Ukrainian people’s destiny.

The artist’s biography contains this significant incident. When Emperor Alexander II, who was enraptured by Kropyvnytsky’s masterful acting during the theater’s performances in St. Petersburg, invited the actor to the Imperial Theater, which would have given him an opportunity to live a better and rich life, Kropyvnytsky refused point-blank. “I don’t need silver, gold, fame, or respect. To betray my people, to be hired by ‘the powers that be’ who scoff at and want to destroy our language?! Never! I would rather work for the benefit of my sweet Ukraine with all my God-given strength, and only then let them judge everything that I have left behind,” he declared.

Despite political pressure and tsarist censorship, Kropyvnytsky courageously overcame all obstacles. He was firmly convinced that the time would come when the people, producing fair and free work, whose praises he constantly sang, would become the creators and masters of their own land and live a full-blooded and rich spiritual life. “We are living in a time when life seems to be rushing by twice as fast as it once did, and it is simply awful to think that you will not live to hear the Truth cry out to Injustice: ‘Hey, scum, you’ve been bossing here too long, drinking mead! Get away from our doorstep and go to the place where you have forced me to stand for so many centuries.’ And the Truth will then surely gain the upper hand. Oh, Good Lord, help me take at least a single breath of fresh air and hear the free singing of ‘La Marseillaise.’”

Kropyvnytsky proclaimed these fiery words even though he was under constant secret police surveillance and the never-ending threat of arrest. But his immense popularity and public affection saved him from prison each time. Through the speeches of the heroes of his plays, such as By the Time the Sun Rises, the Dew Will Devour the Eyes, The Profiteer or the Spider, Give the Heart Freedom and It Will Lead You into Slavery, Olesia, The Silted-Up Springs, After the Inspection, and ardHard Hard Times (a total of 44 plays), he protested against social injustice, exposing the cruelty and arbitrariness of landlords with the passion of a satirist. No wonder the tsarist satraps frequently banned his plays, trying to leech all the truth out of them and break the courageous artist’s unbridled willpower. Incidentally, the outstanding Russian painter Ilya Repin depicted Marko Kropyvnytsky as the helmsman of a Cossack boat that is braving the elements and making its way through a raging sea to reach its destination.

Throughout his life Kropyvnytsky had unbounded respect and love for the Bard. He was the first to convey the passionate words of Shevchenko, the prophet of the Ukrainian nation, to the people. He read his fiery verses with immense skill, moving thousands of enchanted listeners during Shevchenko soirees, where audiences heard “the fiery-hot words blossoming about the Cold Ravine, how the blind would regain their sight, and the living truth ran through them” (Maksym Rylsky).

Kropyvnytsky’s name is also linked with the first public performance of “The Mighty Dnipro Roars,” a song set to Shevchenko’s verses and composed by Danylo Kryzhanivsky. The actor narrowly escaped arrest for violating a tsarist ukase banning “the reading of works and printing of texts to musical notes in the Ukrainian language.” An incident occurred — following a secret police tip-off — in Odesa in 1892, at a soiree in tribute to Ukraine’s national Bard. When Kropyvnytsky began to sing, the audience rose and sang the solemn melody together with him. The frightened gendarmes broke into the hall and started to hustle the people out, which only made Shevchenko’s word resound even louder. Released by Kropyvnytsky’s powerful voice, this song became engrained in the flesh and blood of every Ukrainian, becoming the spiritual anthem of our nation.

Kropyvnytsky frequently helped poor actors and peasants, and donated his royalties to the many amateur companies with which he performed. He welcomed many cultural figures to his country-seat called Zatyshok, and some of his guests lived there for years. For a long time he hosted some relatives of Taras Shevchenko and his confrere, the composer Mykola Lysenko. Among his guests were other artists, actors, and scholars. Zatyshok was a true cultural center of Slobidska Ukraine.

An actor, an artist from head to toe,
He shook the quiet hall with his laughter,
Roused the suppressed crowd with sorrow
And cherished the word, like a diamond.
Blessed is the nation with a son like this,
Where his thorny path led,
From new flowers and ears of grain,
His mother Ukraine wove him an immortal wreath.