Vakhnianyn, Anatol

Vakhnianyn, Anatol [Vaxnjanyn, Anatol’] (also Natal), b 19 September 1841 in Siniava, Peremyshl circle, Galicia, d 8 March 1908 in Lviv. (Photo: Anatol Vakhnianyn.) Composer, conductor, writer, and civic figure. He studied at the Greek Catholic Theological Seminary in Lviv, graduated from the University of Vienna (1868), and then taught (from 1870) at the Academic Gymnasium of Lviv. His civic and cultural activity was extensive and included the founding or cofounding of the Sich student society of Vienna (1867), the musical associations Torban (Lviv, 1869) and Boian (Lviv, 1891), and the Lysenko Higher Institute of Music (1903 in its nascent form), which he directed in 1903–6. He also served as the first head of the Prosvita Society in Galicia (1868–70). He was elected to the Galician Diet and the Austrian parliament (1894–1900). His musical works include Kupalo, the first opera in Western Ukraine (to his own libretto, 1870–92); music to plays by Taras Shevchenko, Fedir Zarevych, Omelian Ohonovsky, and Kornylo Ustyianovych; original choral scores to texts by Yurii Fedkovych, Ivan Hushalevych, E. Levytsky, and others; and choral arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. In addition to translating works by Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev, he wrote four novels as well as tales, poems, and articles. His memoirs were published in Lviv in 1908, and a biography, by I. Hrynevetsky, appeared in Kyiv in 1961.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]