Leipzig-Kyiv — Formation of Mykola Lysenko as a National Composer (1842-1880)

A 2025 exhibition dedicated to the first four decades of the life of Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko (1842-1912) — from his birth on 22 March 1842 in Hrynky, Poltava governorate, to his return as a formed composer to Kyiv in the late 1870s. The centrepiece is the period of his studies at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1867-1869, where the future composer studied in the piano class of Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) and mastered composition under Carl Reinecke (1824-1910). The Leipzig school formed Lysenko's technical foundation and convinced him of the necessity of building a national Ukrainian musical school to European standards. A separate section is devoted to the ethnographic expeditions of the young Lysenko through the villages of Poltava, Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, where the composer recorded folk songs from the lips of peasant singers. The thousands of song arrangements that Lysenko compiled throughout his life became the foundation of the Ukrainian academic repertoire. A separate block is devoted to Lysenko's friendship with Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), whom the poet met in childhood at the estate of relatives, and to family collaboration with his cousin Mykhailo Starytsky (1840-1904) in Kyiv theatrical life. The exposition places Lysenko's formation in the context of the anti-Ukrainian policy of the Empire — the Valuyev Circular of 1863 and the Ems Decree of 1876.