Barabash I.

Kharkiv National Teacher’s Training University

named after G. Skovoroda

Imperial Russian Music Society Teachers contribution

to development of enlightenment and pedagogic activity in Ukraine.

Thanks to a swift progress of music art in Ukraine in the middle of the 19-th century some departments of Imperial Russian Music Society (IRMS) were opened there. These departments located in the East of Ukraine overcame lots of difficulties such as lack of money, absence of buildings for studying, insufficient skill of teachers. They managed to do it due to selfless labor, devotion to enlightenment ideas, managerial abilities and teacher talent of managers of IRMS departments.

The development of different areas is a result of seminal labor of people who shared the same views. And managers played one of the main roles. To describe Ilja Slatin (the founder and the director for almost 50 years of the IRMS department in Kharkiv) we should emphasize his following qualities: communicativeness, creativity, responsibility, purposefulness, rationality, professionalism and managment abilities.

The financial situation in the department quite often was very difficult but due to the talent and selfless labor of Slatin the problems were being solved. For example the first year of being a director Slatin also was a head of the piano’s department and all this time he was working for free. Repeatedly key performers of that time were coming to Kharkiv invited by Slatin and were giving concerts for the benefit of IMRS. Most of them were Slatin’s own friends among them Taneev, Chaikovskiy, the brothers Rubinshtein, Rahmaninov, Ippolitov-Ivanov and others.

One more interesting person with outstanding talent deserves our attention. In 1905 in Kherson Yakov Diumin became a director of music classes. Thanks to his efforts and energetic activity music classes came to an exemplary state and drew attention of townspeople. From the very first days of classes’ existence young population of Kherson was filling classrooms of IMRS. After such successful start on the 1^st of September, 1908 music classes were reorganized in to Music College where not only special but also general subjects were taught.

Diumin also did a lot to widespread art of singing amongst country people. To achieve this goal in 1908 he founded on constant summer choir courses which were useful first of all for country teachers. In addition to summer choir courses in 1911 in Kherson summer bandmaster courses were opened under the Music College, where mainly country teachers studied. These courses existed for a few years and their main goal was training of managers and directors of folk country orchestras. Diumin as a director of symphonic orchestra under the department of IMRS initiated public concerts which were open for townspeople.

The department with music classes under IMRS also was founded in Dnipropetrovsk (Katerinoslav) in 1898. The director of new musical educational establishment was P.Gubarev. He presented a few own pianos to classes and than spent his own money for maintenance of music instruments.

The main role in the process of establishing music classes in Odessa was played by Petro Sokalskiy. He was very talented educator, music public figure, who worked selflessly and founded music classes under the Society of Music Lovers. In 1883 Sokalskiy’s classes were included into IMRS. Thanks to such activity of Sokalskiy higher music education in Odessa received the basic for its further development.

The similar history happened in Poltava. There the role of inspirer and main organizer belonged to Akhsharumov a violinist-virtuoso. He surrounded himself by few amateurs and made the chamber circle that later turned into the symphony orchestra. Symphony concerts conducted by Akhsharumov became regular and popular amongst townspeople. That’s why no one was surprised when a new department of IRMS was founded in Poltava. Of course its head was Akhsharumov.

The list of talented and unselfish personalities who were forming professional music education in Ukraine can be continued. But this topic will be described more detail in my next article. Right now I just want to say that life of these professionals is a good example for generation of young musicians and it should inspire modern cultural and educational workers to selfless labor. We have to remember own history and try to build new system of education on the basic of previous experience. The activity of the educationalists of the XIX-th century in the area of music pedagogic has shown us a very high level of professionalism.

Literature:

1. Київ музичний. К.: Наукова думка. – 1982.

2. Корній Л. Історія української музики. Київ – Нью-Йорк: Видавництво М.П. Коць. – 2001.

3. Одесская консерватория: Славные имена, новые страницы I сб. ст.: Учебное пособие по истории отечественной культуры для средних и высших музыкальных учебных заведений / Ред. Маркова Е.Н. – Одесса, 1998.

4. Тихомирова Т. Становление музыкальной культуры Харькова: // Слобода. – 1994. – 26 октября.