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Concertgoers filled Carnegie Hall on a rainy Thursday in October 1922 for a 35-piece performance by the Ukrainian National Choir. It was the first stop on an American tour to promote Ukrainian culture after the fall of the short-lived independent Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1921 to the Bolsheviks.
Tucked into the first half of the performance was a brief acappella arrangement of a pagan New Year’s folk tale called “Shchedryk” (meaning bountiful in Ukrainian) composed by Ukrainian music teacher, Mykola Leontovych.
Little did the crowd know that they were seeing the debut of a melody that would be recast by an American school teacher of Ukrainian descent and become one of the most famous Christmas songs in modern times — “Carol of the Bells.”
From the Ukrainian countryside to Kevin McAlister’s house
In 1908, Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych was forced to flee his job as a singing teacher at a railway school in Hryshyno, Donetsk Oblast, after ongoing pressure from local authorities for his participation in riots during the Russian Revolution of 1905.
After fleeing, he settled in the town of Tulchyn in his native Vinnytsia Oblast, where he took up teaching and composing choral works based on Ukrainian folk songs, including “Shchedryk.”
The song that would become famous for harmonizing multiple voices was first performed during a Christmas concert by the student choir of the University of Kyiv on Dec. 29, 1916.
Today, the place where Ukrainians and English speakers are most likely to hear the melody is in the 1992 comedy "Home Alone." As one of the first cultural imports from the West after declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it consistently ranks in the top 10 most-watched movies in Ukraine.
Former conductor of the Boston Pops, John Williams, who also scored the film, told the New York Times, “I don’t particularly recall who suggested its inclusion in the film, but it was used to great effect in the church scene where the young protagonist first decides to protect his home from the villains of the story.”
The holiday film’s theme of defending your home against invaders resonates today as Ukraine celebrates Christmas during Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The original song was not a Christmas carol
It’s unclear when the first Christmas folk songs appeared, but what’s shared across many cultures is that their plots were not originally about Christmas.
Carols in English, "yules" in German and "koliady" in many Slavic languages historically have had plots that focus on pagan customs related to New Year’s celebrations. In Ukrainian this genre is called "shchedrivky," hence the original song title of “Shchedryk.”
Prior to the adoption of Christianity and the Julian calendar in 988, Ukrainians celebrated the new year in April with a carol-filled festival called "Malanka" or "Shchedryi Vechir" which means bountiful evening.
The song tells the story of a swallow returning in spring to find a man with a beautiful wife whose estate is filled with healthy livestock and money. These lyrics follow the tradition of the "shchedrivky" genre which praises the host of the house, compliments their family, and wishes them prosperity.
The murder of a rising star
Leontovych’s work interpreting folk songs in the 1910s quickly made him a master of Ukrainian music and a target for the rising Bolsheviks.
After Ukraine declared independence from the tsarist regime in 1918, Leontovych returned to Kyiv where he taught at the recently established Music and Drama Institute and worked closely with Oleksandr Koshyts to develop the repertoire for the Ukrainian National Choir.
The choir aimed to increase awareness of Ukrainian culture abroad in order to gain support for the newly formed state. During the two years of European touring between 1919-21, 80 singers performed in 45 cities across 10 countries in Europe.
The second leg of the European tour premiered in Paris with a series of shows at the Champs-Elysees Theatre which concluded with a matinee on Sunday, Jan. 23, 1921.
Just hours earlier, Leontovych had been shot in his father’s home by an undercover agent of the Soviet secret police known as Cheka. He had come to spend the Orthodox Christmas season with his family. The agent had posed as a traveler in need of lodging, then shot him in his sleep.
The murder of a rising star of Ukrainian music contributed to the larger Soviet goal of obliterating the Ukrainian intelligentsia – a strikingly similar story to the murder of conductor Yuriy Kerpatenko in 2022 after he refused to perform in a Russian organized online day of music in the occupied city of Kherson.
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Shchedryk reaches America
In late September 1922, a skeleton choral crew of 50 singers took the Ukrainian National Choir’s show to North America. Before the tour, they spent a week in New York City recording their most popular works with Brunswick record company including the first known recording of “Shchedryk.”
The song was performed at Carnegie Hall on Thursday, Oct. 5, 1922. The New York Tribune called the choir, “a marvel of technical skill.” A correspondent for the The Globe and Commercial wrote that the audience was “captivated by this choral singing.” Since then, the Ukrainian version of the song has been performed 70 times in Carnegie Hall alone.
‘Carol of the Bells’ is born
Among the Ukrainian National Choir’s audience was Peter Wilhousky, a choral director and New York City public school administrator of Ukrainian descent. When he heard “Shchedryk" he was inspired by the bell-like melody of the song and asked the performers for notes.
Wilhousky wrote a letter to the Ukrainian musicologist Roman Sawycky noting that, “Since the young people would not sing in Ukrainian, I had to write English lyrics. I removed the Ukrainian words about “swallows” and instead focused on the cheerful ringing of bells that I heard in the music.” Thus, ‘Carol of the Bells’ was born.
The English language version was first recorded in 1936 by Wilhousky’s school choir during a popular radio program called "Music Appreciation Hour" hosted by the National Broadcasting Company. Shortly after its debut, the English sheet music was published inspiring performances nationwide.
An Christmas classic, endlessly reinvented
There are over 150 arrangements of the English language version today including blockbuster versions from symphonic rock groups like Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Mannheim Steamroller whose Christmas album including their version has sold over 6 million copies worldwide.
Vocal group Pentatonix took their “Carols of the Bells” viral in 2012 with over 193 million views on YouTube where you can also find deep cuts from Christmas albums by country star LeAnne Rimes and Beyonce during her time with Destiny’s Child.
The melody also served as a symbol of light and hope in the 2022 Ukrainian-Polish historical drama, "Shchedryk," which tells the story of three families united by the common grief of life under the Third Reich.
A Facebook post about the film’s release by Derzhkino, the Ukrainian state cinema, notes that, “it is difficult for us (Ukrainians) to feel the traditional spirit of Christmas, and the sounds of sirens may be louder than the sounds of carols, but we respect our traditions and are proud of our "Shchedryk" by Mykola Leontovich, which is known all over the world!”
Note from the Kyiv Independent:
The Kyiv Independent's winter collection pays homage to this quintessential Christmas melody with an embroidered "Carol of the Bells" design by Ukrainian artist Polina Olkhovnikova. Ring in the holiday spirit with a touch of Ukrainian heritage.
Stay warm with Ukrainian traditions this winter. Shop our seasonal merch collection.
shop now
