Mykhailo Mykolaiovych Baran (3 March 1928, Khmeliska, Skalatsky district (now Ternopil district), Ternopil region - 15 January 2004, Lviv) was a Ukrainian bandura player, artist, sculptor, Honoured Artist of Ukraine. Winner of the 1st Republican Competition of Kobzars. His wife is Sofia Baran. Father of cymbalist Taras Baran (1959-2018) and Orest Baran (1955).
Childhood and family
Mykhailo Baran was born on 3 March 1928 in the village of Khmeliska, Skalatsky district, Ternopil region (now Ternopil district, Ternopil region) in a conscious Ukrainian family that took an active part in the liberation struggle for Ukraine's independence.
Mykhailo's father, Mykola Baran (1897-1969, originally from the village of Rechychany, Lviv region), participated in the battles in the Naddniprianshchyna as part of the UGA. He was persecuted for this, so he was forced to move to the Ternopil region. Here he worked at a starch factory as a manager and even designed powerful mechanisms for threshing grain. However, the Polish, German, and Soviet occupiers persecuted Mykhailo Baran's family.
Mykhailo's older brother, Hryhorii (1917), led the Prosvita in Khmeliska and was a member of the OUN, which led to his arrest by the Polish occupiers, and in 1941 Hryhorii was tortured by the NKVD.
His brother Stepan (1919-1971) was also engaged in patriotic work, but after being drafted into the Red Army in 1941, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, served his time in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and then received a new sentence of execution. However, after a while, it was commuted to 25 years in a concentration camp. He served 17 of them. He died in 1971 of a heart attack.
The third brother Vasyl (1921-1944) had the greatest influence on the formation of Mykhailo Baran as a future artist. However, during the Second World War, he was arrested by the Nazis. Thanks to the personal intervention of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytskyi, he was released from prison in Zolochiv. However, on 4 September 1944, Vasyl Baran was arrested by the NKVD, and on 26 November 1944, Vasyl was shot without any charges in the city of Chortkiv.
The constant persecution of the Baran family had a significant impact on the development and views of the young artist. Mykhailo Baran was also influenced by the atmosphere in the family, where members of the Prosvita were frequent guests, and patriotic conversations and discussions of new Ukrainian literature took place. At the same time, the family had to hide from persecution by both the Nazis and the Soviet authorities, so they lived in Ternopil and Lviv regions. However, this did not prevent my father's arrest in 1949, when he was imprisoned for 10 years. However, after 7 years, he returned and became the manager of a mill in the village of Soluki in the Lviv region. After that, he was arrested again. In that situation, he was forced to change his surname to Baranovsky.
Youth
To escape the KGB persecution, Mykhailo Baran became a soldier - he served in the Soviet army for 5 years, and was a paramedic and an artist in the army. At first, Mykhailo Baran learned to draw, taking private lessons from R. Khrobak and R. Chystohanov. At the same time, he learned to play the violin and guitar, and in 1958 - the bandura, and his teacher was the composer Volodymyr Lystopad.
He performed together with famous musicians Volodymyr Pronyk, Volodymyr Dychak, brothers Bohdan and Roman Zeplynskyi, kobzar Yevhen Adamtsevych and others. Five times he successfully passed the entrance exams to the Ivan Franko State University of Lviv and the Institute of Arts (Lviv National Academy of Arts), but was never enrolled because he came from a family of repressed people. He managed to get an education only during the "thaw" period, when he managed to enter the Lviv Cultural and Educational School, where he received a degree in leading a folk instruments orchestra. At the same time, in 1979, he received a diploma in music and singing from the Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical Institute.
Musical activity
Since 1962, Mykhailo Baran has been an active promoter of choral and kobza art in the Lviv region, and in 1974-1990 he was the deputy head of the Lviv branch of the Music Society of Ukraine.
Since 1962, Mykhailo Baran has been creating and directing ensembles and chapels of bandura players at labour collectives in Lviv region, teaching them bandura playing and singing: in 1962-1975, the Dibrova Chapel of 40 members from Lviv; in 1964-1969, the Troianda Ensemble of 18 members of the Promin knitting company; in 1969-1973, the Zarnitsia Ensemble of 18 members of the Kinescope plant; in 1970-1987, the Vyshyvanka Chapel of 18 members of the Kinescope plant. the Vyshyvanka Choir, consisting of 35 members from the Lviv Airport; in 1973-1976, the Kalyna Ensemble, consisting of 20 members from the Lviv Cooperative College; in 1970-1971 the Topolenka ensemble of 45 members from secondary schools in Lviv; in 1975-1976, the choir of the village of Pnikut "Niva"; in 1977-1988, the choir "Zhayvir" of the Research Institute of the village of Obroshyne; in 1986-1989, the ensemble "Silver Strings" from among workers and employees from Lviv.
Trio of bandura players "Zhayvory"
Since 1965, the family trio of bandura players "Zhayvory" consisting of Mykhailo Baran and his sons Orest (born in 1955) and Taras (1959-2018) has been performing in the cities and villages of Ukraine.
In their concerts, in addition to banduras and singing, they played wind instruments, namely: various types of flutes, zholomyha, kuvytsia, rib, okaryna (cuckoo), drymba, frilka, telenka, and cymbals.
The family trio collaborated in creative programmes with the Taras Shevchenko National Prize Laureate, Doctor of Art History, Honoured Artist of Ukraine, Professor Volodymyr Ovsiichuk, People's Artists of Ukraine Sviatoslav Maksymchuk, Mariia Stefiuk, Neonila Kriukova and others. But it was only with the onset of Ukraine's independence that the trio was able to go on tour abroad. In the 90s, they gave concerts in Austria, France, Sweden, Australia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Hungary, Belgium, Poland, the USA, and Canada. A special concert was held at the Paris City Hall in the presence of the heirs of the French royal family and a concert for the Presidents of France and Ukraine at the Mariinsky Palace.
Cultural and educational activities
During 1974-1990, as deputy chairman of the Lviv branch of the Music Society of Ukraine, he initiated the opening of more than 10 public museums to prominent figures of Ukrainian culture, including: V. Matiusi in the village of Karove, Sokal district, O. and N. Nyzhankivskyi in the city of Stryi and the village of Zavadiv, Stryi district. Also in Radekhiv district, to Oleksandr Myshuga in the village of Vytkiv, Markiyan Shashkevych in the village of Nestanychi, and O. Turyanskyi in the village of Oglyadove.
At his own expense, he restored the tombstone of the great Ukrainian singer Oleksandr Myshuga in the village of Vytkiv.
However, most of all, Mykhailo Baran contributed to the restoration of the grave of Mykhailo Verbytskyi, the composer of the National Anthem of Ukraine. Back in the days of the USSR, he managed to install a metal fence on the grave of the priest-composer in the village of Mlyny in Poland. At the same time, nearby in the village of Uliuch, he mounted a memorial plaque on the portal of a house with a portrait of the music composer Mykhailo Verbytskyi and the creator of the words to the anthem, Pavlo Chubynskyi.
Artistic and poetic heritage
Mykhailo Baran's literary heritage includes poems, songs, prose works, and essays. They were published in the magazines and newspapers Literary Lviv, High Castle, Express, For a Free Ukraine, regional yearbooks Lvivshchyna and Ternopilshchyna, and many others. Mykhailo Baran's poetry and songwriting is recorded in his book "Shchedrin", including the works "Song about Lviv", "Hey in a Clean Field", "Cannons are firing", "We, Sokal residents - Nadbuzhans", "Amber is a River", "Shine, Shine". The book also contains graphics created by Mykhailo Baran: portraits of prominent figures of the past and contemporary kobzars. Mykhailo Baran used a rarely used dot technique of drawing portraits, so he created portraits of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Lesia Ukrainka, Modest Mentsynsky, Oleksiy Chupryna (a bandura player who sang on Chernecha Hill for more than three decades), Mykola Marynovych (general of the ZUNR Army, the first Ukrainian commandant of Lviv in 1918), Markiyan Shashkevych (poet, priest, founder of Ukrainian literature in Galicia), Zenon Zloczowski (priest and composer), Mykola Sarma-Sokolovsky (artist, priest, bandura maker and bandura player), Zenoviy Shtokalok (dentist, unsurpassed bandura player-singer to this day), Yaroslav Barnych (composer, conductor, screenwriter, Ukrainian Insurgent Army soldier).
Mykhailo Baran attached great importance to historical themes, seeing them as the main foundations of kobza dumas. In addition to many artistic and thematic paintings, the artist dedicated to the 400th anniversary of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi's birth a painting-duma, made in the style of graphics, namely with pen and ink. Here, the image of the hetman is successfully combined with the monuments erected in his honour in the cities of Ukraine: Chernihiv, Chyhyryn, Berestechko, Vynohradiv (Zakarpattia oblast), Kaniv, Mostyske (Lviv oblast), and Kyiv, with St Sophia Cathedral in the background. This painting is a rare masterpiece of thought and brushwork in Ukrainian fine art. Mykhailo Baran created such narrative paintings with many Ukrainian artists and heroes, for example: Danylo Halytskyi, Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, Nikon Prudkyi and others.
The works performed by Mykhailo Baran in the field of sacred painting deserve special attention, and perhaps a whole study.
Again and again, we can be amazed at the conviction and courage of the artist, who in 1960, at a time when he was most condemned for his religious and national views, began to restore the spiritual treasury of the Ukrainian nation. It is clear that during the third transportation and installation of the church, which, according to eyewitnesses, did not have a single nail, the images of the wall icons were virtually lost. The artist first worked with a local peasant as a carpenter to create the interior walls of the wooden church, which actually required a new interior. The preparatory work took a lot of time, because only after the carpentry work could he pay attention to the layout and artistic painting of the interior. The most important thought that dawned on the icon painter was to paint the church in the Ukrainian style. Perhaps, even today, an example of a spiritual church created in this style remains almost the only one in Ukraine. It is the Apostles - St Volodymyr and St Olha, and the angels - who are depicted by the artist with elements of Ukrainian embroidery, and the interior walls are painted with Ukrainian patterns. It is also interesting that the choirs on one of the icons depict angels surrounding the Mother of God, singing praises accompanied by a bandura. Almost every one of the icons, including the Evangelists, made by the master, has a frame with a national pattern.
