Carol of the Bells and Ukraine

From the blockbuster hit, Home Alone, to choirs in Carnegie Hall, and concert halls the world over, a Ukrainian composition, Carol of the Bells, sets the tone for Christmas celebrations.

102nd Anniversary

2022 was the 100th anniversary of the Christmas song, Carol of the Bells, composed by Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych.  Leontovych was a music teacher, arranger, and composer in the city of Vovchansk, 5km from the Russian border.

Vovchansk used to be home to about 17,000 people before the full-scale invasion. In early May 2024, the Russians began storming the city. In the summer, only 50 civilians were still in Vovchansk, those who could not evacuate due to the occupation and were held hostage by Russian troops. Today, Vovchansk is one more Ukrainian city that was. A horrific crime in the list of thousands more.

Think of Ukraine

I’m writing this story to share the Ukrainian origin of one of the world’s most popular pieces of Christmas music. My favourite Christmas presentation, the Edmonton Singing Christmas Tree, often opens with an original orchestration of Carol of the Bells by Emmanuel Fonte. When you hear the music this Christmas, think of Ukraine.

Mykola Leontovych believed in the power of song to bolster people’s spirits. Everywhere he worked he created choirs. During strikes and protests against Czar Nicholas II’s leadership in 1905, Leontovych organized a choir of workers to perform at meetings. They would sing arrangements of Ukrainian, Jewish, Armenian, Polish and Russian folk songs. It got him into trouble. Eventually he was sent back to his home province in what is now central Ukraine.

In 1919, the President of Ukraine commissioned a choir of the country’s best voices and sent them on an international tour. They would “sing for the independence of Ukraine.”

Over the next two years the Ukrainian National Chorus performed hundreds of concerts in 45 cities in 10 European countries, dressed in tuxedos and gowns, signaling to the world that the Ukrainian People’s Republic was a modern country. Their most popular song by far was Leontovych’s composition, ‘Shchedryk.’

1921

But by 1921 the Bolsheviks had completely overrun the state. They sent in thousands of secret police to root out “counter-revolutionaries,” which in practice meant not only political opponents but intellectuals, religious leaders and members of the bourgeoisie.

One of their targets was Mykola Leontovych. In a cruel twist on the Nativity story, a man approached Leontovych’s parents while Leontovych was visiting them during the Eastern Orthodox celebration of Christmas, wondering if they might have a room for him for the night. They opened their doors to the stranger, who spent the night sleeping in the same room as their son. At dawn the agent pulled out a rifle and shot him. Leontovych was later declared a martyr of the Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian Church.

The Ukrainian Choir continued to tour the world including America. On Oct. 5, 1922, the choir performed at Carnegie Hall In the crowd that night was a 20-year-old music student named Peter J. Wilhousky.

Bells

The song reminded him of bells, so he set out to write new lyrics along those lines for a radio program. “Hark! How the bells,” the song begins, and in three verses imagines bells pealing all across the land, announcing “Christmas is here/ bringing good cheer.”

After the radio show performance, Wilhousky received so many requests for the music that he published it, in 1936, under the title “Carol of the Bells. Ukrainian Carol,” with attribution to himself and Leontovych. The song took off.

See and hear the 1922 version of the song. Enjoy an orchestral rendition of the song.

Stand with Ukraine. Keep the light of the world in front of Ukrainians this Christmas season. Support loads of love McJoyful parties for children.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

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