#taras kompanichenko

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beautiful Ukranian Cossack folk song  Їхав козак за Дунай (Cossack rode beyond Danube) by  Taras Kompanichenko

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@theophan-o Look what I've found on youtube today!

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Before continuing with the Khmelnytsky songs, I wanted to draw attention to another song from the concert that Гей, браття козаки was from: Мене забудь (Forget me), also based on a poem by Stepan Rudansky (Степан Руданський). This has nothing to do with Cossack rebellions, but is simply an incredibly sad and beautiful love song - and I can so well imagine Bohun singing it in the evenings in rebuilt Rozłogi after the end of the novel...

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Songs about the Khmelnytsky uprising, part 4: Ой Морозе, Морозенку

Insufficient language skills have been starting to make things difficult for me with these music posts, but it’s high time that I finally post one of the most famous and at the same time mysterious folk songs related to the Khmelnytsky uprising. Unlike some of the others, this one still gets performed a lot, so there are lots of versions on Youtube – both traditional and operatic ones – and I’ve chosen this one by Vasyl Kyrylych (Василь Кирилич) entirely based on its musical beauty. It’s worth mentioning however that the lyrics don’t correspond exactly to one of the most widespread versions and are even missing some stanzas – but that's the case for many of them, and the story itself is essentially the same.

What makes the song so mysterious – or, to say it more bluntly: confusing ;) – is that its plot and its hero don’t seem to fit together. Because the hero, Станіслав Мрозовицький / Stanisław Mrozowicki, called Морозенко, is supposed to have fought on Khmelnytsky’s side in the uprising and have died in the battle at Zbarazh (Збараж) in 1649 – but the song, at least the way it is sung today, states that he was killed by Tatars, and his corpse placed on the famous kurgan of Savur-Mohyla (Савур-могила), which is… a very long way from Zbarazh.

So the question is: Who is this really about? The Cossack who died at Zbarazh, but then the identity of his enemies (and so the place of his death) got changed later on? Or someone else who really got killed by Tatars at Savur-Mohyla but, maybe because of a similar name or some other coincidence, was confused with the Morozenko from the Khmelnytsky uprising? A mixture of both, because the fates of two people got merged together in one song to form one half-fictional character, representative of many Cossack heroes from the past?

The frustrating thing is: I don’t know. And it’s extra frustrating because I do know where the answer can probably be found, but, because of aforementioned bad language skills, I’m unable to properly make use of that source. There’s a whole series of videos by Pavlo Nechitailo (Павло Нечитайло) and Taras Kompanichenko (Тарас Компаніченко) dedicated to songs from Khmelnytsky’s time, and one of the videos is specifically about the history of this particular song – and I… don’t understand more than some widely scattered words here and there.

But even if I don’t understand it myself, I can still post it for those who can and might be interested. Just as a warning: what I did learn from it (because it’s in the video description) is that today, the song is only a lament, but in the past, it was much more detailed as far as the horrible death of the hero is concerned. So… I suppose whoever is interested in the Khmelnytsky uprising and/or has made it to the end of Sienkiewicz’s Trylogia isn’t that easily surprised by gory lyrics, but, as I don’t know how bad it gets, I thought I’d warn for it.

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Songs about the Khmelnytsky uprising, part 2: Гей, браття козаки

(The video should start at 49:33 automatically - but if it doesn't, that's where the song can be found.)

This is one of my personal favourites. Not only for the beautiful music (though that doubtlessly is a reason ;)), but also because it is based on a 19th century poem by Stepan Rudansky (Степан Руданський) which is highly interesting with regard to later perceptions of the uprising.

For, while some songs written by contemporaries for contemporaries are so full of references to specific events that one has to have some background knowledge - or one just doesn't understand what the singer is talking about -, this one's so timeless, one wouldn't even know for sure which rebellion it is about if it wasn't originally called "Khmelnytsky's song" (Пісня Хмельницького) before it became known by its first few words: Гей, браття-козаки...

Which gives readers, as well as singers and their audiences, some interesting choices how to interpret the song. It is of course perfectly plausible to assume that the person inciting the Cossacks to rebellion here is Khmelnytsky himself, and, when he reminds them that they are just as strong as their ancestors, and have sabres and horses just like them, he could refer to even earlier Cossack rebellions. At least one wouldn't be able to proof that this isn't all the author wanted to say. But it's just as possible to think of the ancestors as the participants of the Khmelnytsky uprising - and immediately the reminder to the Cossacks that they have horses and sabres just like them (and are therefore able to fill the graves in the steppe with the bones of their enemies once again!) gets quite a different meaning...

This second way of understanding the lyrics is made escpecially easy by the fact that the enemy is only referred to as such: by the generic word "enemy" (ворог). Songs about the Khmelnytsky uprising written by contemporaries that are really about its specific events and only about its specific events are usually quite clear as to who that enemy is: it's the Polish noblemen, and if you listen to two or three of these songs, you'll probably hear the word ляхи at least a dozen times ;) If a 19th century poem, by contrast, vaguely talks of "the enemy", this does stand out – especially if the message is all about teaching that enemy a lesson and defending the Cossacks’ freedom and dignity once again…

This song is also fascinating because it shows how much the perception of Khmelnytsky varied two hundred years after the uprising. Because on the one hand, there’s considerable criticism of the Treaty of Pereyaslav and its aftermath at this time – it’s even part of the famous poem by Pavlo Chubynsky (Павло Чубинський) that, in a modified version without these lines, was turned into the Ukrainian national anthem:

Ой Богдане, Богдане, славний наш гетьмане! Нащо віддав Україну москалям поганим?!

Oh Bohdan, Bohdan, our glorious hetman! / Why did you give Ukraine to the bad moskali?!

(And as a side note, this particular part of the poem never ceases to amaze me, because… it’s basically one line for flattering him, and one line for telling him he really messed up. Which sounds funny when one puts it like this, but – there’s undeniable skill in summing up the complicated relationship with a historical character this simply in just two lines of poetry.)

At the same time, recalling the Khmelnytsky uprising the way Rudansky does it has obvious subversive potential. It is used to remind the descendants of the rebels what they are capable of, and to warn the enemy about the consequences of “mocking Cossacks”. And the message, of course, is not confined to the 19th century: the reason that I linked this particular performance of the song – not just by this artist, but also from this one concert – is that it makes full use of the song’s potential even for today. Because the first time, the lyrics are sung in their original form – but at the end, when the singer repeats a few lines, he replaces that purposefully indistinct word “enemy” by who exactly it is nowadays…

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I've just realised I've never posted the song here that brought me to the fandom. Initially, after discovering it, I looked for more music about the Khmelnytsky uprising - but what I found, quite soon after clicking here and there, was the movie. And then the most typo-ridden translation of the novel you can imagine. It took me a while to get used to it, but in the end, Bohun and all the other characters prevailed over both weird spelling* and weird grammar - and that's how the madness started :)

*The most irritating thing, in the bad spelling department, was the word "ataman" consistently written with double t. It wasn't even a typo, because the translator did it every single time the word appeared in the text. I mean, yes... that guy may attack you. That still doesn't mean you should write him with double t ;)

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Another song that's always been a Bohun song for me - about an orphan dreaming of being a falcon (and an eagle).

There's even an article on Wikipedia about it which has both the original lyrics and an English version: