Leontovych Music Society

Leontovych Music Society (Музичне товариство ім. М.А. Леонтовича; Muzychne tovarystvo im. M. A. Leontovycha). A national music society named in honor of Mykola Leontovych formed in Kyiv in 1922 out of the M. Leontovych Memorial Citizens' Committee (est 1921). With branches in Kharkiv, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Chernihiv, Tulchyn, Mykolaiv, Izium, and other cities, it consisted of more than 30 music collectives and more than 300 individuals. Dedicated to Ukrainian musical development, the society organized courses of instruction, concerts, and academic research, in addition to publishing the journal Muzyka. Notable members of the society included Yukhym Mykhailiv (head), Mykhailo Verykivsky, Mykola Hrinchenko, Klyment Kvitka, Pylyp Kozytsky, and Mykola Radziievsky. The society was criticized by Soviet authorities for supposedly propagandizing modern Western styles of music, such as expressionism and constructivism, and gradually was forced to give over control of its branches' activities to the Chief Political Education Committee of the People's Commissariat of Education and to direct its composers to create works ‘for the masses.’ In 1928 the association was restructured as the All-Ukrainian Society of Revolutionary Musicians (VUTORM), which functioned until the creation of the Union of Composers of Ukraine in 1932.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]