Ukrainian teacher, conductor, violinist, folklorist, composer, musicologist; Honored Teacher since 1964; Doctor of Philosophy since 1969.
Biography
He was born on March 3, 1912 in the village of Sirmi (now the village of Drotyntsi, Berehovo district, Zakarpattia region, Ukraine) in the family of a landless agricultural worker. He attended a Hungarian-language elementary school in his native village, after which he studied at the Sevlius town school in 1924-1927, where he learned the basics of music. In 1927, he entered the Mukachevo Teachers' Seminary with Russian as the language of instruction. In 1931, with a diploma in elementary school teaching, he began his teaching practice in Rosvyhiv, then in Kaidaniv, and later in Staryi Davydkiv. In each of these villages, he founded school choirs, drama clubs, and developed a wide range of extracurricular activities. At the same time, until 1935, he studied at the Mukachevo Gymnasium by correspondence. After receiving his high school diploma in the same year, he was enrolled in the third year of the Prague Conservatory and enrolled in the first year of the Department of Musical Sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University in Prague. Simultaneously with his studies, in 1936-1938 he directed the Ukrainian choir in Prague.
In the fall of 1938, he successfully completed his studies at the Prague Conservatory and Charles University and returned to Transcarpathian Ukraine with two diplomas in hand. From January 1939, he taught music and singing at the Teacher's Seminary in Sevliush. After the Vienna Arbitration, he was evacuated from Mukachevo and Uzhhorod. After the occupation of Carpathian Ukraine by Hungarian troops in March 1939, he became a teacher at the Sevlius town school, and in 1941 was appointed professor of music and singing at the Uzhhorod Teachers' Seminary, which was subordinated to the new Hungarian government.
In January 1944, he was mobilized and later sent to the front. On the night of April 27 of the same year, in the village of Rakivchyk near Kolomyia, he sided with the Soviet army. He was demobilized in 1945. From 1945 to 1948, he taught music at the Prague Teachers' Seminary. In Prague, he also enrolled as a part-time student at the Music Department of the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University, where he received further musical qualifications in 1947 and passed the state exams on the keyboard. Since 1948, he has directed choirs and musical ensembles in Presov. In 1953, he founded and headed the Ukrainian Song and Dance Ensemble in Medzilabircy in Slovakia from 1953 to 1955, and from 1956 to 1958 he headed the Piddukliany Ukrainian Folk Ensemble in Prešov. At the same time, from 1958 to 1977 he worked at Pavlo Šafáryk University: from 1966 he was the head of the Department of Music Education at the Faculty of Education.
He died in Presov on July 12, 1998. He was buried in Presov, next to his parents and son. On the grave is a marble plaque with a one-word inscription in Ukrainian: "KOSTIUKY".
Creative work
He recorded Ukrainian musical folklore in Transcarpathia, Galicia, folk songs of Ukrainians in Poland, Romania, Presov, and Yugoslavia. He published:
"Folk Songs of Subcarpathian Rusyns" (Uzhhorod, 1944; 1992, co-authored);
"Ukrainian Folk Songs of the Prešov Region (Prešov, 1958, volume 1).
The manuscripts remain in progress:
"Musical Renaissance of Transcarpathia in the period 1918-1938";
"Choral Culture of Transcarpathia and Presov Region";
"Folk songs of the village of Dara" (co-authored).
He is the author of the textbook "Musical Education" (Pryashiv, 1959; 1964; 1966).
The creative heritage of the musician is kept in the funds of the Museum of Ukrainian Culture in Svydnyk.
Honoring him.
In 2012, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the school building in Drotyntsi.
