Golenevsky Ivan Kindratovych (*1723, Kyiv - †after 1786) was a singer, poet and translator from Latin and Polish. A graduate of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
He was born into the family of a Kyiv artisan. Around 1733, he entered the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and completed almost a full course of study. He took a course in piotics from S. Laskoronsky. Perhaps it was from him that he learnt the Baroque style, which is very noticeable in his odes written in St Petersburg. At that time, the famous representative of the new school of poetics, H. Slonimskyi, also taught at the KMA, who undoubtedly also had an influence on the formation of Holenevskyi as a poet.
Ivan Kindratovych had a wonderful tenor and sang in the choir of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. His voice, as his contemporaries said, was "from God", and Kyivans admired him, and the halls were packed at his concerts at the KMA. There is a testimony of an old Kyiv burgher from 1809, where he mentions that Golen, i.e. Golenevsky, sang better than A. Vedel. A.G. Razumovsky, a former singer himself, invited him to St. Petersburg in 1744. Golenevsky was a soloist in the court choir for 26 years, receiving a salary of 70 rubles. He repeatedly tried to leave St. Petersburg, but was not allowed to leave.
In 1764, he turned to the confessor of Empress Catherine II F. Kubinsky, with whom he had studied at the KMA, to help him get a place as a theatre supervisor; in 1769, Golenevsky asked Empress Catherine II for a position as secretary of the State Medical Board or postmaster at the Moscow Yama office. However, only in 1770, after a "loss of voice", he was dismissed as a warrant officer with a salary of 300 rubles and appointed as a collegiate translator from Latin and Polish (which he had learnt perfectly at the KMA) to the Pskov Provincial Chancellery.
In 1779, he resigned due to eye disease and was appointed to the Kursk governor's office as a translator. In 1780 he became a titular adviser. From 1785 he served as a judge of the Tula Lower Court.
Works.
Golenevsky is the author of several odes dedicated mainly to the rulers of Muscovy: Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1751; 1754; 1762) and Empress Catherine II (1762; 1772). While living in St. Petersburg, he was periodically published in the magazines "Monthly Essays" and "Truten". In his Ode on the Day of Catherine's Coronation (1762), he condemned the Polish confederates for their violent actions against Ukrainians and their faith. In 1774, he translated from Polish a speech by Bishop G. Koniszky of Mstislav, Orsha, and Mogilev, with whom he had studied at the KMA, to King Stanisław August Poniatowski about the oppression of the Orthodox in Poland.
