Petro Ivanovych Berezhansky (born in the early seventeenth century - died after 1655) was a seventeenth-century Ukrainian singer and translator. He was probably the son of Ivan Berezhansky, a well-known Ukrainian Orthodox figure in Volyn from the Berezhansky family, who fled to Kyiv in 1636 to save his life after the suppression of the burghers' uprising in Ostroh.
Biography
Ivan Berezhanskyi was born in the early seventeenth century. His place of birth is unknown.
He studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla College and sang in its chapel.
On 8 April 1652, he arrived in Moscow at the head of a large group of singers (G. Ivanenko, Y. Ilyenko, M. Bykovsky, I. Nektarev, R. Pavlenko, S. Tymofiienko, and others). Later, one more singer, Oleksandr Vasylenko, arrived from Kyiv and after a month in Moscow, he asked to go back to Kyiv. The six singers went to St Andrew's Monastery in Moscow, to the Choir of the Sovereign's Singing Dyaks, and Berezhansky and another singer, probably also a student of the college, were to translate Petro Mohyla's book Litos at the Embassy's order in the Trinity Court. Later, he was transferred to live in Zamoskvorechchia with the master tailor Karp Kryvyi; there he completed the translation of Litos. After that, Berezhansky returned to the Ambassador's Office, where he probably worked as a translator.
Berezhansky asked the Tsar and Patriarch Nikon to allow him to live in the Dudyn Monastery in the Novgorod district, where Ukrainian monks-emigrants from the Pryluky Gustyn Holy Trinity Monastery, who had left for the Moscow state in May 1638 after the defeat of the 1637-1638 uprising, lived. This request was not granted.
In June 1652, Berezhansky wrote to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, asking for the promised salary for him and other Kyivan singers, as they were dying "hungry and cold". He was awarded "10 money instead of 6 daily feed". In June 1652, other singers also wrote to the tsar about this issue, asking for permission to return to Kyiv, but probably did not receive a positive response. Berezhansky also asked to return to Ukraine or to be transferred to St Andrew's Monastery in Moscow or the Donskoy Monastery of the Virgin Mary in Moscow. He was probably denied. He stayed for 5 weeks with the Kyiv master builder Barnabas, then fell ill and went through Kaluga to Bryansk (1655), where he stayed at the Bryansk-Swedish Assumption Monastery of the Oryol diocese. There he was informed by Ilya Zamyatii, a cook at the monastery, that Berezhanskyi wanted to flee abroad. During the interrogation, Berezhansky denied the accusation, but by order of the Bryansk voivode G.D. Dolgorukov, he was arrested. His fate is unknown.
