Mykola Leontovych - Commemoration

Commemoration

On February 1, 1921, nine days after Leontovych's death, a large number of artists, professors, and students of the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama in Kiev gathered to commemorate him, as is expected according to Christian tradition. They established the Committee for the Memory of Mykola Leontovych, which later became the All-Ukrainian Mykola Leontovych Music Society, and promoted Ukrainian music until 1928.

Ukrainian writer and politician of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Pavlo Tychyna, was an admirer of Leontovych and wrote about the composer's death in prose. Poets Maksym Rylskyi and Mykola Bazhan also dedicated poetry to him.

The name of Leontovych is carried by musical groups, such as the Leontovych Bandurist Capella, and by educational institutions such as the Vinnytsia College of Arts and Culture. Streets in Kiev and other cities have been named after him. There is a memorial museum dedicated to him in the city of Tulchyn, and another was established in 1977 in the village of Markivka where he was buried.

In 2002, to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the composer's birth, the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi held an all-Ukrainian scientific conference entitled "Mykola Leontovych and modern education and science," with guests from the Ukrainian ministry of education and science, the Ukrainian composers' Union, and many local authorities. During this event the city held a ceremonial opening of a memorial plaque to the composer, placed next to the old building formerly used by the Podollia Theological Seminary.