Isidor Vorobkevych, in modern sources Sydir Vorobkevych (5 May 1836, Chernivtsi - 19 September 1903, ibid.) was a Ukrainian Bukovinian writer, composer, musical and cultural figure, Orthodox priest, teacher, editor of Bukovyna magazines, and artist. He had pseudonyms: Danylo Mlaka, Demko Makoviychuk, Morozenko, Semen Khrin, Isidor Vorobkevych, S. Volokh, and others. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph (1902).
He was born on 5 May 1836 in Chernivtsi to a philosophy and theology teacher. He was left an orphan in his childhood, along with his sister and younger brother Hryhorii, who also became a well-known public and cultural figure and writer in Bukovyna. He was brought up by his grandparents in the town of Kitsmani, where he received his primary education (he studied at a German-language 4th grade school).
His great-grandfather escaped from Lithuania and was called Skalski Mlaka de Orobko, and his grandfather changed Orobko to Vorobkevich [source?] Part of the surname Mlaka became Sydor's favourite pseudonym. His father, Ivan, was a professor of religion and philosophy at the Chernivtsi Gymnasium (then a lyceum). His mother died in 1840. Five years later, his father died, and Sydir and his brother Hryhorii were left orphaned. Their grandfather, the Kitsman archpriest Mykhailo Vorobkevych, took his grandchildren to live in the town of Kitsman. The first education in Kitsman was given to the children by their grandmother Paraskeva. She taught them to love their native language, song and people. From the lips of his grandmother, Sydir heard a lot of fairy tales, songs, and folk stories about Cossacks and Turks. The poet's grandfather knew many stories about the Cossacks, Ukraine, Uman, Zalizniak, and Gonta.
He studied at the Chernivtsi Gymnasium, then at the Theological Seminary, graduating in 1861, where he began composing poetry and music. Later, he was a priest in Bukovyna villages, where he studied folklore and the way of life of the local population.
He studied music privately with Professor F. Krenn of the Vienna Conservatory. In 1868, he passed the exam for the title of singing teacher and choir regent at the Vienna Conservatory. From 1867 he taught singing at the Chernivtsi Theological Seminary and Gymnasium, and from 1875 - at the Faculty of Theology of Chernivtsi University[source?] As a composer, he composed literary songs and psalms, composed choral works, solo songs and operettas, and wrote melodies to his own poems.
He died on 19 September 1903 in Chernivtsi and was buried in the city cemetery.
Creativity
Spivanik (a collection of songs) compiled by Sydir Vorobkevych. Published in Vienna in 1910.
Sydir Vorobkevych's literary career began in 1863, when his first five poems were published in the collection Halychanyn under the general title Thoughts from Bukovyna. In 1877, he published the first Bukovynian almanac, Ruska Hata. He was one of the founders and editors of the magazine "Bukovynska Zoria".
While working at Chernivtsi University, he headed the Ruthenian Literary Society, and from 1876 - the student society Soyuz. In 1887, Sydir Vorobkevych headed the Ruskyi Narodnyi Dmytro (Russian People's House) in Chernivtsi.
Sydir Vorobkevych wrote in Ukrainian, German, and Romanian. His literary works include poems, short stories, and novels of a realistic and romantic nature. He developed the themes of the historical past: the story "Turkish Prisoners" (1865), the poem "Nechai" (1868), the dramas "Petro Sahaidachnyi" (1884), "Kochubey and Mazepa" (1891), the comedy "Pan Mandator", wrote about the plight of the peasantry: the poems "Recruits" (1865), "Panska pimstva [source?]" (1878). He was one of the first in Ukrainian literature to depict the life of workers (the drama "Prodigal Son").
S. Vorobkevych's talent was most fully manifested in his lyrical poems, where the poet "scatters a great wealth of life observations, illuminated by the quiet brilliance of a sincere, deep, human and people-loving sense" (I. Franko). The characteristic features of Vorobkevych's poetry are melodiousness and closeness to folklore sources (the poem "The black raven flies, flies...", etc.). Many of his works are characterised by humour.
Sidor Vorobkevych's poem "Native Language", set to music by the author, has become a textbook. Many of Vorobkevych's works have been translated into Bulgarian, German, Russian, and other languages.
While teaching at the Chernivtsi Theological Seminary, gymnasium, and university, Sydir Vorobkevych paid much attention to young people: he compiled songbooks for primary school, created manuals on music theory and singing, etc. Acting both as a composer and a writer, he created many poems and songs for children ("Native Language", "These are our dear, high Carpathians", "Vesnianka", "Autumn"). After a trip to Kyiv (1874), Vorobkevych wrote two men's choruses, "Our King River Dnipro" and "I was born over the Dnipro, that's why I am a Cossack".
During his lifetime, the writer published a collection of poems "Over the Prut" (1901) with the participation of Ivan Franko.
The poet wrote a number of short stories, novellas, essays and humorous stories ("Nero", "Skanderbeg's Sabre", "Cleopatra", "Ivan the Terrible"). He is the author of the series of articles "Our Composers", in which a prominent place is given to the composer M. I. Glinka. He is the author of many literary and musical works of various genres - songs and choruses, romances, operettas. He composed music to the words of Taras Shevchenko, Yuriy Fedkovych, Ivan Franko, V. Alexandri, M. Eminescu, and V. Bumbak. He also acted as a music teacher; in particular, the outstanding Austrian musicologist of Ukrainian origin Yevseviy Mandychevsky was his student.
According to Ivan Franko, S. Vorobkevych was one of the "first larks of the new spring of our national revival".
