Ukrainian composers against the “Ukrainization” of Tchaikovsky

The leadership of the National Music Academy of Ukraine, despite last year’s protests by students and part of the teachers and the conclusion of the Institute of National Remembrance, is trying to keep the name of the Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky in the title. Some of the former graduates publicly opposed it, and some even went on a single picket.

“What is Tchaikovsky now? – says in the comment UP. Culture composer Ilya Razumeyko. – In the summer of 2022, the St. Petersburg orchestra came to Mariupol and played Tchaikovsky’s symphony on the square in front of the destroyed drama theater. When they captured Tskhinvali in 2008, the pro-Putin Ossetian Gergiev came (conductor Valery Gergiev, figure on the sanctions list of Ukraine – UP. Culture) – and played Tchaikovsky there. It’s stupidly their imperial tool“.

The day before, on February 26, a graduate of the Razumeyko Music Academy went on a single picket to the building of the NMAU on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. In his hands, the author of modern Ukrainian operas recognized throughout the world held a poster with the inscription: “Little Russian NMAU – shame for Ukraine”.

“It wasn’t even a protest. I went out to talk to these people. To outside Facebook to see the living faces of people who study at the Tchaikovsky Academy – and they are satisfied with it. And they agree with this either actively – and tell tales about the Cossack Chaika, or passively – “well, I’m studying myself, and I’m “outside politics”. But both of these are completely “Russian” positions. Inside this building on the Maidan – the spirit of Russia. This is the most terrible thing. You open the door – and there is the USSR, Russia in its worst form. I can imagine exactly such an atmosphere in the Moscow Tchaikovsky Academy, where people also say: “well, we are for the SVO” or “we don’t talk about war, we just play classical music“, the composer is convinced.

According to Razumeik, after last year’s student and teacher protests, the situation at the conservatory became even worse: “Because passionate, best teachers quit themselves. This, for example, Volodymyr Sirenko – the legendary conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, Alla Zagaykevich – the author of the opera “Embroidered”, Yury Chekan – the author of many musicological studies, Olena Korchova – the author of a book about Ukrainian modernism. Many passion students have also either left abroad, or such repressions are applied to them, for example, not giving them a place in a postgraduate or master’s program. This is done by the rector and the heads of departments that support such a policy. This is such a corruption-nepotism system“.

The composer emphasizes that Tchaikovsky’s name in the name of the NMAU is only the tip of the iceberg: “This is such a symptom that the system is completely sick inside. Soviet, “Russian”, “Russian-style” and terrible in many ways“.

“People who can barely walk teach there, they are led by the hand. They go there, bully students – and get big salaries. There are huge salaries – and this is money from the budget of Ukraine. They actually receive huge funds from the budget, they are protected as a national institution from mobilization, they have scholarships from the budget“, Razumeyko adds.

A few days ago, Razumeik’s colleagues published an open appeal in which they disagreed with the decision of the round table held at the Music Academy a few days before the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion, on February 20. In it, it was proposed to implement the “return of outstanding Ukrainians home”: we are talking about artists appropriated by the aggressor country, – Kazimir Malevich, Ilya Repin, Ivan Aivazovsky, Dmytro Bortnyansky etc. The composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky is listed last.

One of the initiators of the appeal, a member of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine, a candidate of art history and a graduate of NAU Andriy Bondarenko in conversation with UP. Culture explains that he is outraged at the attempt to “put” Tchaikovsky on the same list as Repin, Malevich, etc.

“What concerns me personally most about this is such unprofessionalism. Because there are historical facts that prove that Tchaikovsky was Russian. This is both his biography and his self-identification. How do we differ from Russians? Including the fact that the Russians are trying to distort history for the purpose of propaganda. And when I see that the teachers of the conservatory are engaged in creating myths and spreading lies, it just triggers me. Especially since this is my alma mater. And when I see that the academic council of this institution, management, teachers are spreading outright misinformation about Tchaikovsky – this is absolutely unacceptable“, – says Bondarenko.

About 20 composers became the first signatories of the appeal: among them Zoltan Almashi, Alla Zagaikevich, Ivan Taranenko and others. As of the evening of February 27, almost 580 people signed the petition.

“There is such a thing as respect for self-identification. We are fighting for the right to be Ukrainians, for the right to communicate in Ukrainian, to be recognized. Petro Ilyich also had the right to identify himself as a Russian. It turns out that the participants of the round table deny the right to self-identification“, – he continues.

Bondarenko emphasizes that today the issue of renaming NMAU “much wider than just a sign on a conservatory door“. “I believe that we, as Ukrainian composers, should turn to Ukrainian themes, the Ukrainian language. Actually, as Mykola Lysenko did. Tchaikovsky basically did it on Russian themes, Russian poems. And it turns out that if we recognize Tchaikovsky as Ukrainian, as some people want, then we open the way to the fact that Ukrainian artists can calmly ignore the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian literature, as Tchaikovsky did“, – explains his position.

The composer adds that he does not work at the conservatory, so he does not undertake to judge the motives of the rector or the academic council: “The only thing I can say is that when I studied at the conservatory, it was 20 years ago, more than half of the teachers there had pro-Russian views, communicated in Russian, and taught in Russian. Already after me, there were student speeches in 2012 demanding that the educational process be conducted at least in Ukrainian. That is, most likely, pro-Russian teachers still prevail there. I think this is the reason“.

Razumeyko also emphasizes the problem with the management and teaching staff of the academy: “They cling to Tchaikovsky to the last, using such absolutely schizophrenic arguments as the genetic examination of Tchaikovsky’s origin and so on, which have no relation to reality and to how he positioned himself. This is the position of the rector and also of a significant part of the staff, who are afraid not of Tchaikovsky, but of what they are. And they are Soviet teachers who never spoke Ukrainian, who never respected Ukrainian culture and the country in which they live. And this is a significant part of the team that needs lustration“.

Protests around the name of NMAU

In June 2022, the academic council of the National Academy of Music voted to keep the Russian composer’s name in the title and appealed to Volodymyr Zelenskyi about “the danger of manipulating Tchaikovsky’s name as an imperial narrative.”

At the time, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy stated that a public discussion was needed regarding renaming the conservatory.

In turn, the teachers of the music academy opposed the management’s decision and began to resign one by one. The best teachers of NMAU left: musicologists Olena Korchova and Yurii Chekan, conductor Volodymyr Sirenko, composer Alla Zagaykevich. Then the students organized a protest, but the management of the academy ignored it.

In December 2022, at the meeting, the NMAU team did not want to remove the name of the Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky from its title.

Then the writer Ostap Ukrainets drew attention to one of the attendees at the meeting, the employee of the Music Academy, Zoya Semenivna Mednikova. According to him, she is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory and denies Russian aggression.

In March 2023, students and teachers of NMAU went on a new protest. However, it did not give results either.

In November 2023, the National Academy of Music semi-secretly re-elected Maksym Tymoshenko as rector. He came to this position in 2018 as a result of the competition, replacing Volodymyr Rozhko, who managed the conservatory for 14 years.