Dionysii (Denys) Fedorovych Bonkivskyi (16 April 1816, Voronovytsia, now an urban-type settlement of Vinnytsia district, Vinnytsia region, Ukraine - 30 August 1881, Bohuslav, now one of the district centres of Kyiv region) was a Ukrainian poet, composer, and translator (transcriptions of his surname Bonkovskyi and Bankovskyi are also found in the literature).
Biographical information
He was born on 16 April 1816 in the town of Voronovytsia, Bratslav district, Podillia province (now a village in Vinnytsia district, Vinnytsia region). He was a Pole by birth. He lived in Podillia.
In 1834-1838, he worked as a clerk in the Novohrad-Volyn Zemstvo Court, and then briefly in the Radomysl Zemstvo Court (Radomysl district, Kyiv province). From 1838 he was a secretary in the office of the Kyiv civil governor.
He died on 30 August 1881 in Bohuslav (now one of the district centres of the Kyiv region). The date and place of death were established by Mykola Shudria.
Creativity.
He had no musical education, and his friends wrote down the melodies he created. Bonkovsky is the author of the lyrics and music of the songs:
"Gandzya",
"Hey, I'm a Cossack, my name is Volia",
"Cossack Boredom",
"Tropak" ("Oh, I'd go to the music"),
"Where Goryn was dispersed", etc.
He composed melodies:
to Taras Shevchenko's poem "Why do I need black eyebrows" (became a folk song).
to I. Zawadski's poem "Where the Way is Black".
He translated poems by Polish romantics into Ukrainian from Polish:
"Song about Our Land" by Vincent Pol (1860),
"Zaverukha. A Ukrainian Tale" by Tomasz August Olizarowski, a participant in the 1830-1831 uprising.
Bonkovsky's poetic and musical works were published in the 19th and 20th centuries.
He was the author of the article "On the Music of Folk Songs" (1869), in which he described the peculiarities of Ukrainian musical folklore.
Publication of works
Bonkovsky's works were published in a number of editions. Among them:
Songs and romances of Ukrainian poets - Kyiv: Soviet writer, 1956, vol. 2, p. 300.
Inspired by the Ukrainian Muse (Polish poets who wrote in Ukrainian) - Kyiv: Soviet writer, 1971, pp. 101-109 (biographical information on pp. 32, 290-292).
Songs of literary origin... - Kyiv, 1978.
