1 year ago
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‘Tis the holiday season and the bells are ringing. Almost everyone has probably heard numerous versions of the popular Christmas song “Carol of the Bells.” But few people know that this song was actually adapted from a traditional Ukrainian folk chant, “Shchedryk.”
And “Shchedryk” has taken on even more significance this holiday season because a century ago the folk song became a symbol of Ukrainians’ desire for freedom at a time when the country was being occupied by Soviet Russian invaders in the aftermath of World War I. “The story of Shchedryk is the story of the Ukrainian fight for independence,” said Tina Peresunko, a leading expert on the song’s history who is currently a research fellow at the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv.
