Vasyl Avramenko - Early Days

Early Days

Vasyl Avramenko was born on March 22, 1895 in Stebliv, a townlet located on the Ros' River approximately 100 km south of Kiev, in present-day Ukraine during the imperial reign of Russia. Orphaned at a young age, he was forced to wander homeless as an adolescent, until he eventually headed east, crossing the vast expanse of Russia towards Siberia, and reunited with his older brothers in Vladivostok, on the coast of the Sea of Japan. There, Vasyl's eldest brother taught him how to read and write, which enabled Vasyl to gain employment at the naval base. This position allowed Avramenko to visit several major Asian ports as a crewman aboard Russian naval vessels; such worldly exposure encouraged in him a greater love of learning, and he returned to study with his brother whenever possible, eventually earning the qualifications to become a primary school teacher. It was during this time that Vasyl Avramenko saw a production of Ivan Kotliarevsky's operetta Natalka Poltavka in Vladivostok, which Avramenko later recounted as having been the first experience of viewing his fellow Ukrainians on stage.

Avramenko's wandering soul soon encouraged him to leave Vladivostok. As he was travelling south towards China, World War I broke out and he was pressed into service for the Empire. After receiving basic training, he was sent off to fight at the Russian front.

After the war, Avramenko returned to his homeland where he was surrounded by a revived sense of Ukrainian nationalism, with many clamoring for an independent Ukraine. Wanting to learn more about his Ukrainian culture, in 1918 he enrolled at the Kiev Conservatory. There, he would find his calling in the classroom of Vasyl Verkhovynets, a musicologist and ethnologist who had adapted Ukrainian folk dances for the stage. Verkhovynets' theories of Ukrainian dance, which he based on his theatrical training and his extensive research of the village dances of Central Ukraine, would inspire Avramenko to live the life of an artist: after graduating from the Institute, he began performing with Joseph Stadnyk's performers in Stanyslaviv (present-day Ivano-Frankivsk), and later joined Verkhovynets as a member of the famed theatrical troupe of Mykola Sadovsky in the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi. During this time, Avramenko took copious notes compiling a vocabulary of Ukrainian dances and dance steps, which he would later develop into his life's work. In his book, Ukrainian National Dances, Music, and Costumes, Avramenko acknowledged the work of Verkhovynets' and the Ukrainian theater in preserving and elevating the legacy of dance in Ukraine.

After a brief period of independence, Ukraine once again was overrun by foreign powers. Consequently, Vasyl Avramenko found himself in a Polish internment camp in 1921.