National anthem of Ukraine

Pavlo Chubynskyi

Mykhailo Verbytskyi

The Ukrainian national anthem can be traced back to one of the parties of the Ukrainian ethnographer Pavlo Chubynskyi that occurred during the autumn of 1862. Scholars think that the Polish national song "Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła" (lit. 'Poland is not yet lost'), which dates back to 1797 and later became the national anthem of Poland and the Polish Legions, also influenced Chubynskyi's lyrics.[14][15][16] "Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła" was popular among the nations of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that were at that time fighting for their independence; the January Uprising started a few months after Chubynskyi wrote his lyrics.[17] According to a memoirist who was present, Chubynskyi wrote the lyrics spontaneously after listening to Serbian students singing Svetozar Miletić's "Srpska pesma" (lit. 'Serbian song')[18] during a gathering of Serbian and Ukrainian students in a Kyiv apartment.[19]

Chubynskyi's words were rapidly taken up by the earliest Ukrainophiles. In 1862, the head gendarme, Prince Vasily Dolgorukov, exiled Chubynskyi to Arkhangelsk Governorate for the "dangerous influence on the minds of commoners".[20]

The poem was first officially published in 1863 when it appeared in the fourth issue of the Lviv journal Meta;[21][22] the journal mistakenly attributed the poem to Taras Shevchenko.[23] It became popular in the territories that now form part of Western Ukraine, and came to the attention of a member of the Ukrainian clergy, Mykhailo Verbytskyi of the Greek Catholic Church. Inspired by Chubynskyi's lyrics, Verbytskyi, then a prominent composer in Ukraine, decided to set it to music.[24] The lyrics were first published with Verbytskyi's sheet music in 1865.[25] The first choral public performance of the piece was in 1864 at the Ruska Besida Theatre in Lviv.[12]

One of the first recordings of this anthem (then spelled "Szcze ne wmerła Ukrajiny ni sława, ni wola") in Ukrainian was released on a gramophone record by Columbia Phonograph Company during World War I in 1916.[26] As a folk song it was performed by a Ukrainian emigrant from Lviv and New York resident Mykhailo Zazuliak in 1915.[27]

"Shche ne vmerla Ukraina" was not used as a state anthem until 1917 when it was adopted by the Ukrainian People's Republic.[28][29] Still, even between 1917 and 1921, the song was not legislatively adopted as an exclusive state anthem as other anthems were also used at the time.

In 1922, the Ukrainian SSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR with the Russian SFSR, Transcaucasian SFSR, and Byelorussian SSR, which created the Soviet Union. Following the signing of the treaty, "Shche ne vmerla Ukraina" was banned by the Soviet regime. The authorities later decided that each separate Soviet republic could have its anthem, but "Shche ne vmerla Ukraina" was rejected in an attempt to help to suppress separatist sentiments held by Ukrainian Nationalists. In 1939, "Shche ne vmerla Ukraina" was adopted as the official state anthem of Carpatho-Ukraine.[30]

After Joseph Stalin ordered The Internationale to be replaced with a new Soviet anthem in 1944, the other republics of the union were expected to produce their own as well. The Ukrainian government established a commission on the anthem on 23 February 1944.[31] Soviet authorities, after a period of struggle, successfully persuaded public intellectuals to create an anthem with lyrics fitting their political interests and music sterile of any Ukrainian national elements.[32] On 23 February, the Ukrainian chairman Mykhailo Hrechukha started a meeting by reading a synopsis of the anthem-to-be in front of musicians and litterateurs: the Ukrainian nation's union with the Soviets were envisaged for the first stanza; the Ukrainian people, their struggles, and "freedom" under Lenin and Stalin were envisaged for the second stanza; Ukraine's economic and political "flourishing" in the union were envisaged for the third stanza. The refrain was conceived to be used after each stanza, which was considered as a paean to the union of the Soviet peoples and the reunited Ukraine following the Soviet annexation of Eastern Galicia and Volhynia.[33]

Composers worked on the score before the decision on the lyrics; by February 1945, 11 composers were selected as finalists.[34] Anton Lebedynets' score won with an overwhelming majority vote,[35] and the score was adopted as the music of the new Soviet anthem in November 1949.[36] Earlier in January 1948, the lyrics of Pavlo Tychyna and co-author Mykola Bazhan won; due to plagiarism of his text, Oleksa Novytskyi demanded to be listed as a co-author, but to no avail.[37] On 21 November 1949, the new anthem of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was adopted.[29] Borys Yarovynskyi edited and reorchestrated the anthem in 1979.[38]

On 15 January 1992, "Shche ne vmerla Ukraina" was adopted by Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, as the state anthem[12] and was later instituted in the Ukrainian constitution. However, the lyrics for the anthem were not officially adopted until 6 March 2003, when the Verkhovna Rada passed a law on the state anthem of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Закон «Про Державний гімн України»), proposed by then-president Leonid Kuchma. The law proposed Mykhailo Verbytskyi's music and Pavlo Chubynskyi's first stanza and refrain of his poem "Shche ne vmerla Ukraina". However, the first line of the lyrics was to be changed from "Shche ne vmerla Ukraina, i slava, i volia" to "Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy i slava, i volia".[lower-alpha 1] The law was passed with an overwhelming majority of 334 votes out of 450, with only 46 MPs opposing. Only the members of the Socialist Party of Ukraine and the Communist Party of Ukraine refrained from voting. The national anthem that up until then had only officially consisted of Mykhailo Verbytskyi's music, would henceforth also include the modified lyrics of Pavlo Chubynskyi.

The popularity of the Ukrainian anthem has become particularly high in the wake of the Orange Revolution protests of 2004 and Euromaidan of 2013. Ukrainian composer Valentyn Sylvestrov, who participated in Ukrainian protests in Kyiv, characterized the Ukrainian anthem thus:[40]

The Ukrainian anthem is amazing. At first it doesn't impress you at all, but that's only at first glance. Indeed, this anthem was created by Mykhailo Verbytskyi, a clerical composer of the mid-19th century. He lived under the Austrian monarchy and probably was fond of Schubert; he had a euphonic gift — it's clear from his liturgical compositions. He was a church composer. And this patriotic song, he created as a church composer. This chant is a Hallelujah. No other anthem has this! It's a unique piece: the anthem of Ukraine, which at the same time has all the characteristic features of a liturgy's beginning. Some memory of a liturgy, of an all-night vigil, has submerged in this anthem. It seems as if the wind blows in this simple chant, as if tree branches are singing.

During the Euromaidan protests of 2013, the anthem became a revolutionary song for the protesters. In the early weeks of the protests, they sang the national anthem once an hour, led by singer Ruslana.[41] In World Affairs, Nadia Diuk argues that the national anthem was used as "the clarion call of the 'revolution'" during Euromaidan, which added weight to protests that previous ones, such as the Orange Revolution, lacked.[42] In a 2014 survey, after being asked "How has your attitude toward the following changed for the last year?", the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that the attitude towards the Ukrainian national anthem had "improved a lot" in 25.3% of Ukrainians.[43]

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many orchestras in Europe and North America performed the anthem in solidarity with Ukraine and its people.[44] Sporting events in Europe and North America have also performed the anthem to show solidarity as well.

The first verse and chorus of these lyrics constitute a more popular (commonly performed) version of the anthem. Differences from the official edition are italicized.