Historian Every Saturday: Larysa Semenko. Our Quiet Genius Leontovych (21.12.2024)
A lecture by the historian Larysa Semenko (the “Historian Every Saturday” series) on the composer Mykola Leontovych. Key points: the author of “Shchedryk” (Carol of the Bells); his murder in January 1921 in his father’s house (the village of Markivka), reconstructed from the notes of Hnat Yastrubetsky and the diary of Stepan Vasylchenko; the killer was a Cheka agent; and the Soviet cover-up of the murder (blaming “bandits”, “Petliurists”). A source for the article on the murder of Leontovych.
Key moments
- 1:18 Leontovych — author of 'Shchedryk' (Carol of the Bells)
- 7:57 The 'Markivka tragedy': the murder; the accounts of Yastrubetsky and Vasylchenko
- 26:33 The killer — a Bolshevik Cheka agent (first named by Telezhynsky)
- 26:48 The Soviet cover-up: 'Petliurist', 'Denikinist', 'bandit' — anything but a Chekist