Mykola Petrovych Bakay ( uk, Микола Петрович Бакай) (2 March 1931 – 28 July 1998) was a

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

singer, composer, poet, author and Soviet

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th ...

Biography

Bakay was born in the village of , in the

Pokuttia Pokuttia, also known as Pokuttya or Pokutia ( uk, Покуття, Pokuttya; pl, Pokucie; german: Pokutien; ro, Pocuția), is a historical area of East-Central Europe, situated between the Dniester and Cheremosh rivers and the Carpathian Moun ...

region, which was at that time under

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

rule. Due to the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

he was only able to finish seventh class. In 1947, Bakay together with his family was

deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

. He attempted to escape twice, but was not able to succeed. As punishment he was forcefully settled to work at the logging sites and factories near Omsk. There he studied at the local music school of

Vissarion Shebalin Vissarion Yakovlevich Shebalin (russian: Виссарио́н Я́ковлевич Шебали́н; 29 May 1963) was a Soviet composer. Biography Shebalin was born in Omsk, where his parents were school teachers. He studied in the musical colle ...

and later worked as an actor at the Omsk Theater of Operetta. Bakay returned from the forced settlement in 1960. He moved to Chernivtsi, where he began singing in the Bukovina ensemble of song and dance. He worked together with many of the performers from the ensemble, but especially with the singer and composer Pavlo Dvorsky. They wrote many songs together, Bakay writing the lyrics and Dvorsky writing the music. Mykola Bakay was buried in his native village of .

Legacy

The house of culture in Vynohrad has a theme exhibition that is dedicated to the poet-singer Mykola Bakay. Not far from the building and near the

Taras Shevchenko Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko ( uk, Тарас Григорович Шевченко , pronounced without the middle name; – ), also known as Kobzar Taras, or simply Kobzar (a kobzar is a bard in Ukrainian culture), was a Ukrainian poet, wr ...

monument the first local festival of the Ukrainian song ''Smerykova khata'' took place in 2009 on the day of Illia (Sunday). It was dedicated to the memory of Bakay and his works. The festival opened under the sound of

trembita The trembita (from the old Germanic ''trumba'', "to trumpet") is an alpine horn made of wood. It is common among Ukrainian highlanders Hutsuls who live in western Ukraine, eastern Poland, Slovakia, and northern Romania. In Poland it is known as ...

s and a dance performed by the National amateur ensemble of song and dance "Prykarpattia" from the village of Otynia."Фестин пам’яті Миколи Бакаяy"

References

External links

The festival in the memory of Mykola Bakay

1931 births People from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Ukrainian male poets Ukrainian dissidents 1998 deaths Ukrainian exiles Soviet dissidents 20th-century Ukrainian poets 20th-century Ukrainian male singers {{Europe-singer-stub