Mykhailo Verkhatskyi: Materials for a Biography

Abstract

The article is about the outstanding Ukrainian director, theater expert, patriarch of Ukrainian theater pedagogy, laboratory director, secretary of the director's staff of «Berezіl» Les Kurbas, professor of the Kyiv Theater Institute Mykhailo Polijektovych Verkhatskyi. He is also known as a student and employee of Kurbas, the author of reports on directing and acting, articles and memoirs about Les Kurbas. Based on the correspondence between his student V.S. Vasylko and the wife of L. Kurbas, it was established that it was thanks to the careful notes of Mykhailo Polievktovich that the priceless «Director's Diary» of L. Kurbas has been preserved to this day. At one time, he also copied a lot of Kurbas texts, as well as saved part of the manuscript materials from Kharkiv that were related to Kurbas, at the first opportunity he disassembled them, prepared them for printing, transferred them to the museum and thereby preserved them for future generations. It is also a great merit of M. Verkhatskyi to develop the theoretical legacy of L. Kurbas and pass it on to the next theater generations. It turned out that he was among those students of Kurbas who sought to tell the truth about one of the prominent figures of the shot revival. For this, he was forced to leave Ukraine for sixteen years, escaping from persecution. In 1936, M. Verkhatskyi left for Uzbekistan. But even in distant Uzbekistan, he does not forget the lessons of Kurbas. In Tashkent, Mykhailo Polievktovich becomes the founder of the theater institute, its first director, starting the scientific history of the Uzbek theater and training theater experts, actors and directors. In 1952, M. Verkhatskyi returned to Ukraine and began teaching at the Kyiv State Institute of Theater Arts (now the Kyiv National University of Theater, Film and Television named after I. K. Karpenko-Kary). The teacher worked at the acting department and in the period 1958–1963 he headed it and also taught directing. Namely this pedagogical period of his work researchers consider to be the most fruitful and mature. It is noted that after returning to Kyiv, he tried to restore the honest name of his teacher – Les Kurbas. The pedigree of M. Verkhatskyi was investigated and it was established that his ancestors lived in Krolevets and the Andriyivka village of Hadyatsky district of Poltava province (now Sumy region).