Priest of the UGCC, composer, conductor, public figure. Brother of singer Oleksandr Nyzhankivskyi, father of composer, pianist and music critic Nestor Nyzhankivskyi.
Biography
He was born in the village of Mali Didushychi (now Stryi district, Lviv region). He studied at the Drohobytsky Gymnasium, the Lviv Academic Gymnasium and the Lviv Theological Seminary. After graduating from the seminary, he married Olena Bachynska. He was ordained a priest in December 1892 and appointed to the position of an employee in Berezhany (1893–1894). In 1896–1897, he was the administrator of the parish in the village of Dovzhanka. In 1897, he passed the exam to become a music teacher at the Prague Conservatory. In 1899–1900, he was the parish priest of the village of Kachanivka.
From 1901, he was first an administrator (until 1902), and then a parish priest in Zavadov near Stryi, where he initiated the creation of the Monument to Taras Shevchenko.
O. Ostap Nyzhankivskyi was one of the younger representatives of the musical movement in Galicia in the 1980s, an organizer of musical life in Galicia. In 1885, he founded the music publishing house "Musical Library" (1885–1887), which published the works of Ukrainian composers, in particular, Anatoly Vahnyanin, Mykola Lysenko (for the first time in Galicia), Pyotr Nishchynskyi, Mykhailo Verbytskyi, Sydor Vorobkevych and others. Active propagandist of Ukrainian choral art founder, conductor of the "Boyan" society in Berezhany (1892), conductor of "Boyan" in Lviv (1895–1896), Stryu (1900–1914).
In September 1914, with his participation, the riflemen took the oath of the USS Legion in Strya (call of centurion Dmytro Vitovskyi). At that time, he was the abbot of the church in the village of Zavadiv, near Strya.
Took an active part in the organization and holding of Shevchenko concerts in Lviv, Ternopil, Drohobych, and Stryi. One of the organizers of the Ukrainian dairy cooperative in Galicia, the initiator of the creation of the "Regional Agricultural and Dairy Union" (hereinafter referred to as the "Maslosoyuz", founded in 1907 in Stryi; in 1908–1914, he was its director).
Stretch mark The tomb of the composer O. Nyzhankivskyi.
In 1918–1919, Fr. Ostap Nyzhankivskyi was a member of the Ukrainian National Council of the ZUNR-ZO of the UNR, headed the district commissariat of Stryi region. On November 1, 1918, a yellow-blue flag flew on the mast near the Stryi town hall. Later, due to the offensive of Polish troops, a new era began - the era of armed struggle for the Ukrainian state. On May 13, 1919, Polish troops occupied Stryi, shootings and repressions began. The first victim was Fr. Ostap Nyzhankivskyi. Deceived by the Strya elder Potocki, who promised him safety, given his humane attitude towards the Poles, Nyzhankivskyi remained in the city and in May 1919, after being arrested by the Polish occupation authorities, he was shot without trial in Strya. In addition, the occupiers took away 800,000 crowns of the "imposed treasury" that were entrusted to him for safekeeping.
During the May offensive of the Polish troops, Polish political prisoners were waiting for their release in the cells of the Strya prison, alive and well - the leaders of the Polish Military Organization, among others - the Stryan industrialist Jan Verstein, who was to be the guide of the Polish underground to Strya. The order to leave the Polish prisoners in the prison alive and unharmed was issued by the head of the Field Court of the III Galician Corps, Captain-Judge Antin Feigel. Mr. Yan was not very grateful for the life given to him by the authorities, against whom he was preparing a rebellion during the war: Public opinion in Strya accused him of causing the arrest and execution of Fr. Ostap Nyzhankivskyi. Not having any grounds for this, Jan Vershtein accused Panotc Nyzhankivskyi that "as a well-known Haidamat leader" in Strya, he directed the defeat of the Polish underground, and prepared a field trial of the arrested undergrounds.
He was buried in the cemetery in Stryi in the family tomb together with his wife Olena Nyzhankivska (Bachynska).
Art
Father Ostap Nyzhankivskyi had an extremely bright musical talent; was not able to develop it properly. He realized himself most fully in the genres traditional for Galician music - spiritual and secular choirs, solos, vocal ensembles, arrangements of folk songs (Ukrainian, other Slavic peoples), which he collected in separate "Vyazanka". Sensitively perceiving the latest Western European artistic trends, primarily romantic ones, Fr. Nyzhankivskyi tried to turn to a not very common, new for most Ukrainians of Galicia instrument - the piano, writing several miniatures for it and a larger fantasy "Vitrogon".
His vocal and choral works are dominated by strong dramatic feelings, sharp contrasts, and an intense play of musical colors. That is why T. Shevchenko's poems were so close to him, to which he created real vocal "pearls", the solo songs "The Wind in the Grove" and, especially, "The summer of youth has passed." The second poet, exceptionally in tune with the inner world of the artist, was Yurii Fedkovich, the "Bukovin nightingale", who inspired him to create the choral scene "Gulyala" with the characteristic sharp juxtaposition of the pictures of a carefree holiday and the mental suffering of the main character, and in addition, the lyrical monologue "From rubble ".
Songi "God, look at our land" by Ivan Dutsk and Ostap Nyzhankivskyi from the Vienna edition of 1916.
Nyzhankivskyi is the author of choral works popular to this day ("Walking", "Z okrushki" to the words of Yuriy Fedkovich, "Knitting of Slavic Hymns" and solo songs based on T. Shevchenko's poems - "The wind bends in the grove", "The summers have passed" , "Our thought, our song", for voice from the piano "Don't marry me", "And I prayed", "Evening song", "Oh don't forget", "In the green grove"), solo ensembles to the words of Ukrainian poets , many choral works, arrangements of folk songs (collection "Ukrainian-Rusyn folk songs", 1907). The author of carols "God is born", "In Bethlehem a great secret has appeared", "In Bethlehem now there is news".
Awards
Gold Cross of Merit with a crown on the ribbon of the Medal for Bravery (1918).
Commemoration
A street in Lviv, on which the Lviv Academy of Music is located, as well as a street and a park in Stryu, are named after Nyzhankivskyi.
