Songs of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen

Songs of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Songs created by the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (USS) during the First World War (1914–18). They included marching songs, love songs, laments, and humorous songs. The chief creators of these songs were Mykhailo Haivoronsky (conductor of the USS orchestra), Roman Kupchynsky, and Lev Lepky. Many of the songs of the USS have been arranged for choir or for solo voice, by composers such as Stanyslav Liudkevych, Lev Revutsky, Oleksander Koshyts, Antin Rudnytsky, and Nestor Nyzhankivsky. Labeled as ‘nationalistic’ and banned in Soviet Ukraine, this genre of song soared in popularity in Ukraine during the late 1980s with the liberalization following glasnost, and in independent Ukraine.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]