Sharon House doesn’t remember exactly where she got the postcard. Probably at a postcard show or ephemera fair. With 1,500 cards in her collection of Washington-related subjects, it can be hard to keep track of specifics. But the card struck the District resident as especially relevant today.
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On the front is a black-and-white photo of nearly two dozen people smiling for the camera. A few men are in suits, but most of the other figures are dressed in some sort of native costume: lavishly embroidered fabrics, ornate headdresses, shiny boots.
“The first word on the back is ‘Ukraine’ or some variation of 'Ukraine,’ ” Sharon wrote. “I don’t know what the rest says.”
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The Cyrillic letters read: “Ukrainians greet Koshetz and Avramenko with bread and salt in Washington on our Easter, May 1, 1932, on the occasion of their performance with a concert in honor of the 200th anniversary of the first President of the United States.”
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Alexander Koshetz and Vasile Avramenko. The two men couldn’t have been more different, but they shared a single aim: to convince North Americans that Ukraine was an independent country and should be free from the suffocating grasp of the Soviet Union. They did it through song and dance, the singers under the direction of arranger and choir director Koshetz, the dancers under choreographer Avramenko.
The year 1932 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of the soldier and politician who had thrown off the yoke of British oppression. Events honoring George Washington were held across the United States all year. They included a multi-city tour by the 300-member Ukrainian Chorus and Ballet.
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“During the Washington Bi-Centennial Tour they were trying to use Ukrainian folk dancing and choral singing to bring Ukrainians and their struggle/demands for independent statehood to the attention of American politicians and the American public,” Canadian historian Orest Martynowych, author of “The Showman and the Ukrainian Cause: Folk Dance, Film and the Life of Vasile Avramenko,” wrote in an email.
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During the brief time when Ukraine was an independent state — between the fall of the czars and the rise of the Bolsheviks — the country’s leadership supported a national chorus under the direction of Koshetz. It toured the world, introducing audiences to Ukraine’s choral tradition, an example of what we might call “soft power.”
In 1921, while the chorus was abroad, Ukraine fell to the Soviets. Now stateless, Koshetz and the singers continued performing. Twinned with Avramenko’s lavish ballet and folk dance productions, they reminded the world of Ukraine’s unique culture.
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The Washington appearance was the first of their 30-city bicentennial tour. Performers arrived by bus the morning of May 1. At some point, they met members of the local Ukrainian community and snapped that photo: the bald Koshetz in a pale overcoat and a Poirot mustache; the severe Avramenko to his right in a dark shirt and jacket.
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Their 8:15 p.m. show was at Washington Auditorium, a 6,000-seat venue at 19th and E streets NW. Among those in attendance were Sen. Royal S. Copeland (D-N.Y.) and the ambassadors from France, Germany and Belgium.
Martynowych said that by 1932, Koshetz and Avramenko were not on the best of terms.
“They were diametrically opposed personalities,” he wrote in the email. “Koshetz was a highly educated, disciplined conductor, arranger and ethnomusicologist; Avramenko was an uneducated, basically self-taught and undisciplined promoter.”
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Though nearly every seat was full, that was primarily because Avramenko had distributed so many free tickets. The backdrop for the show, depicting the U.S. Capitol, had only recently been coated with a fireproof material, creating a stench that filled the room. An 11 a.m. rehearsal had to be postponed until 6 p.m., when the odor had cleared.
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“[As] always happens, that idiot Avramenko ruined everything,” Koshetz later remarked.
Nevertheless, the critics were impressed by the spectacle. The songs, arranged by Koshetz, “proved a musical aggregation of great beauty,” wrote The Washington Post. “The terpsichorean abilities of the ballet equaled the wonderful voices of the chorus. The ballet pictures and dances … were enhanced by the dancers wearing their colorful national costumes.”
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Sen. Royal said the folk art was born from Ukraine’s fertile soil, from the country’s “dramatic and tragic past.”
Martynowych said the bicentennial tour was the first collaboration between Koshetz and Avramenko — and their last. Koshetz died in Winnipeg in 1944 after teaching a summer course there. Avramenko died in New York City in 1981. Neither had ever returned to Ukraine, which wouldn’t gain independence until 1991.
Despite their differences, both men were veritable Johnny Appleseeds of Ukrainian culture, inspiring the establishment of choirs and folk dance schools in far-flung towns and cities across the continent that exist to this day.
As the cold open on last week’s “Saturday Night Live” illustrated — when a Ukrainian chorus from New York sang a hymn — music can reach the heart in ways that words can’t.