Ukrainian Bell Carol is a tune most Americans are familiar with. It’s used in far too many places to count, and even if people don’t know the name, they’ve surely heard it. The Bell Carol was written in the eastern region of Ukraine called the Donbass, specifically the city of Pokrovsk. Here’s a not so fun fact though, this city was recently destroyed.
Ukrainian Bell Carol was composed by Mykola Leontovych in 1916, with the song initially called “Shchedryk.” It was commissioned by Oleksander Koshyts, the conductor of a major Ukrainian choir. The song initially wasn’t associated with Christmas, with the folk song it was based on the arrival of the “new year” and existing as a happy omen. Koshyts would end up taking Schedryk across the world, with the song eventually being discovered by an American composer after a performance at Carnegie Hall. The composer, Peter Wilhousky, adapted the song into “Carol of the Bells” in 1936. This was the version of the song that became closely associated with Christmas.
Leontovych wrote the initial piece in Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk is a city located in the Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine. The closest American equivalent to an oblast would be a state. The city was decently large, with around 60,000 residents living there before the Russian invasion. That’s around 15,000 more people than South Brunswick, which has a population of around 45,000. The town was founded in the 18th century under the Russian Empire, which this region of Ukraine was a part of until the Russian Revolution, where the Donbass was conquered by the Soviet Union. It would remain part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic until the collapse of the Soviet Union, where it became an integral part of Ukraine. Now, Russia has militarily occupied the town after a brutal battle for the city which lasted for upwards of 18 months, and cost tens of thousands of lives. A truly disgusting waste of human life.
Currently, the city is a husk of its former self. Its population has largely been scattered across Ukraine, with tens of thousands of people not being able to go back to their homes. One of the worst parts is that barely anyone even knows about this. While we in South Brunswick listen to “Ukrainian Bell Carol” while spending time with our families this holiday season, the people of Pokrovsk, people who live in the place where that song was created, sit without a unified community. Empty chairs at Ukrainian dinner tables represent those who were killed by the Russian onslaught. It is a truly tragic situation. The destruction of Pokrovsk was a horrific tragedy, symbolizing the demolition of holiday cheer in the face of the horrors of war.
