"Shchedryk", adapted by Mykola Leontovych, is to be placed on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
This is reported by the Department of information Activities and public relations of the Vinnytsia regional state administration, Ukrinform reports.
According to the report, the director of the Ukrainian Center for Cultural Studies Iryna Frenkel is engaged in adding the world-famous song "Shchedryk" arranged by Mykola Lentovich, known in the English version as Carol of the Bells, to the UNESCO list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
It is noted that this process will last almost two years and will be implemented in three stages. First (until June 2021), "Shchedryk" will be included in the local list of the NCS, and by October of this year, it should be placed on the National List of the intangible cultural heritage of Ukraine.
Then it will be submitted for inclusion in the list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity by the International Organization UNESCO. By estimates, this stage will begin in December 2021 and last until September 2022.
These events are timed to coincide with the centenary of the first implementation of Shchedryk in the United States, as the first project of cultural diplomacy in the history of modern Ukraine.
On October 5, 1922, the Ukrainian Choir of Oleksandr Koshits gave its premiere concert at the most prestigious concert hall in New York, Carnegie Hall. It was on this day that the American premiere of "Shchedryk" took place.
"Shchedryk" is a world-famous work for the choir of the Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych, which was created in the early twentieth century. After the popular Ukrainian-born American composer Pyotr Vilgovsky wrote a number of English lyrics to the song "Shchedryk" in 1936, his English version, known as "Carol of the Bells" (Carol of the Bells), became one of the most popular Christmas songs in the world.
100 years ago, the text of the Ukrainian Shchedryk was also translated into French, Flemish and Spanish.