Recently, the holiday began. The Ukrainian Cossacks’ Day and defenders of Ukraine gradually become recognized and popular. Greeting to the defenders of the Fatherland, the descendants of the glorious Cossacks remembers a beautiful, but slightly forgotten song “Gay Sokol”, written by our countryman Tymko Padurro. This song has become popular both among Ukrainians and Poles, and it transmits the feeling of our Slavic spirit.
Tymko Padurra, a traveler-musician, a poet-lyre, a Ukrainian of descent (his ancestors from Transcarpathia), made an invaluable contribution to the development of Ukrainian and Polish culture, successfully and positively influenced the rapprochement of the two Slavic peoples.
The master of the Ukrainian artistic word came to light in 1801 in the village of Illintsi, Lipovetsky district, Kiev province. Timko Paduro was descended from the old noble family of the Right-Bank Ukraine, whose genus in the XVIII century was owned by the village of Berezivka near Zhytomyr. His father, Jan Padurra, graduated from college (educational institution) in Zhitomir at the Jesuit monastery, in 1790 received a diploma in the rank of jury explorer. Angelina Pankovskaya, the mother of the poet, is a nobleman. From his childhood in Timok there arose a heartfelt interest and devoted love to Ukrainian folklore.
After graduating from the Lyceum in 1825, he traveled to the Volyn lands, alternately lives in the estates of famous powers Sangushki, Rzhevsky and eventually arrived in Zhytomyr to his older brother Josef, who serves as secretary in the Volyn provincial marshal Petr Moshinsky (in Ukraine, the XVIII century Marshal gentry was called provincial or district the leader of the nobility). He met Brother with active participants of the Decembrist movement and participants of the Polish Patriotic Society. He participated in the secret “August Zhytomyr Slavic Assembly”, where he, in a fervent speech in defense of the rights of the Ukrainian nation, declared himself “a representative of the Ukrainian people”. At this meeting, Serhiy Muraviev-Apostol, the descendant of hetman D.Apostol, who was moved by the words of Paduro, gave him a ring for great respect.
In Zhytomyr, Padurra works in archives, libraries of wealthy noblemen, and studies old-age books and manuscripts. Often he travels to Kiev, where he long visits the Metropolitan of Kiev Euphemia Bolkhovytina, an inspirational collector of Ukrainian antiquity. Repeatedly he comes to Korostishiv to Gustav Olizar – a poet, publicist, a well-known politician. Particularly friendly relations with Padurra formed with Ukrainophile Vaclav Rzhevsky, a colorful and interesting person, who traversed all of Volyn and Kyiv region in peasant clothing and lyre, studying the customs, the life of the Ukrainian people. He sings constantly in creative search, writes poetry and songs, deals with translations into Bielorussian, Mickiewicz’s works in Ukrainian.
In 1840 there was a strange period when the poems of Padurra, who personally did not give their works to the press, themselves found the way to the reader. The popularity of the Ukrainian singer has grown, and attention has increasingly grown to his work.
In 1842 a collection of poetry “Singing” was published in Lviv, a valuable feature of which was a preface in which the compiler, Kaetan Yablonsky, explains to the reader the peculiarities of Ukrainian poetry, geography, and social structure of the Cossacks. The collection also included the Ukrainian Duma “Prince Roman Sanguszko, the Starost Vinnitsa and Zhytomyr in 1565”, which spoke about the historical events of the XVI century, military campaigns and battles with Muscovites and Tatars. The artistic action is carried out in Zhytomyr. And two years later, a new success: the next book of poems “Ukrainian songs with notes” appears. Melodies to their texts were created by the author himself, and in the future – by many prominent musicians, including Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko.
The work of Padurra has given birth to a whole line in the Polish literature, which was called Ukrainomania, where it was frank, genuine admiration and admiration for all Ukrainians.
Since 1850, the author has always lived in his native Makhnivka, with his newer and more recent historical works: Ivan Mazepa, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Ivan Sirko, Ukrainian Cossacks, Ukrainian Singers and many others.
Numerous lyrical legacy of the poet was issued after his death.
The poet has created his unique and unique artistic world in which he lived and worked. The 70-year-old Timco Paduro died in 1871. He was buried in his family estate near Berdichev. In 2016, local ethnographers found a ground-gravel stove covered with earth, which reads “In memory of Tomasz Padurra, songwriter of Ukraine”.
The words of his song “Lirnyk” appeared as prophetic:
Do not worry my host – I do not go bribe.
So I will sit down, sing, sing and I will go.
Sang and went, and dissolved in numerous legends and rumors.

Sergey Sobchuk
Member of the National Union of Local History of Ukraine
Anna Sobchuk, co-author

Translated by Aliona Matushevich