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<\/a>I had not realized until a couple of years ago that the \u201cCarol of the Bells\u201d stems from Ukraine.\u00a0 If I did<\/em> ever know it before, I had forgotten:\u00a0 \u201cThe Ukrainian Choir Bringing New Meaning To A Classic Holiday Song\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Shchedryk<\/em> (from the Ukrainian \u0429\u0435\u0434\u0440\u0438\u0439 \u0432\u0435\u0447i\u0440 [Shchedry Vechir<\/em>], meaning \u201cBountiful Evening\u201d) is a Ukrainian shchedrivka <\/em>or New Year\u2019s carol.\u00a0 In its original form, which has no connection to Christmas, the song is known in English as \u201cThe Little Swallow.\u201d\u00a0 Arranged by the Ukrainian composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, teacher, and priest Mykola Leontovych in 1916, five years before he was murdered by a Soviet agent in 1921 while visiting his parents to celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 Married, with at least one child, he had turned forty-four years of age just a few weeks before.<\/span><\/p>\n Shchedryk<\/em> tells the story of a swallow that flies into a home to sing of the wealth that will come to the family living in it with the following spring.\u00a0 The song was originally written to be sung on the night of 13 January, which is New Year\u2019s Eve (Shchedry Vechir<\/em>, or \u201cBountiful Evening\u201d) in the Julian Calendar (December 31 in the Old Style).\u00a0 Students at Kyiv University were apparently the first to perform it.\u00a0 Following a performance of the original song by Alexander Koshetz\u2019s Ukrainian National Chorus at Carnegie Hall on 5 October 1921 \u2014 about nine months after Mykola Leontovych\u2019s murder \u2014 <\/span> Peter J. Wilhousky<\/span> adapted Shchedryk<\/em> as an English-language Christmas carol entitled \u201cCarol of the Bells.\u201d\u00a0 Wilhousky copyrighted and published his new lyrics (which are entirely independent of the original Ukrainian words to the song) in 1936, and it became very popular in the United States \u2014 and very strongly associated with Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n A beautiful rendition of the piece, with Wilhousky\u2019s lyrics, is\u00a0\u201cCarol of the Bells | The Tabernacle Choir.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 It is my Christmas musical selection for this post.<\/p>\n I feel inclined to share a little story \u2014 very slightly related to Christmas \u2014 that I\u2019ve shared before. \u00a0Some may have missed it.<\/p>\n Twenty or more years ago, I think, I was browsing a biography of the eminent British political philosopher and essayist Sir Isaiah Berlin, who died at the age of 87 in 1997. Sir Isaiah had a remarkable career that rather unexpectedly made him a celebrity. The famous British philosopher A. J. Ayer reported that, once, when he was introduced at a London party as \u201cthe cleverest man in England,\u201d someone exclaimed, \u201cOh, so you must be Isaiah Berlin.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Isaiah Berlin spent the years of World War II in Washington, D.C., and New York City, where his charm and wit and erudition \u2014 and probably his Englishness, as well \u2014 gained him access into the most exalted circles of American academic and political life. And he used those contacts to garner information about American attitudes and intentions that he then quietly passed on to a very appreciative British prime minister, Winston Churchill, who was eager for anything he could glean about Britain\u2019s vitally important allies in the United States. But Churchill had never actually met his highly valued source of American background information.<\/p>\n During roughly the same period, it happens that the prominent American songwriter Irving Berlin was also devoting a substantial portion of his talents to the support of the war effort \u2014 though, of course, in a very different way.<\/p>\n In early February 1944, Clementine Churchill told her husband that Irving Berlin was in London. She thought it might be appropriate, in view of the composer\u2019s generous patriotic efforts, for her husband to greet Berlin, to shake his hand and thank him, and perhaps to pose for a quick photograph with him. To her surprise and puzzlement, however, her husband insisted that Berlin come to the prime minister\u2019s official residence for a formal meal.<\/p>\n At the end of lunch, Churchill turned and said, \u201cNow, Mr Berlin, tell us what in your opinion is the likelihood of my dear friend, the President, being re-elected for a fourth term.\u201d Berlin, who spoke in a heavy Brooklyn accent, said he felt sure that Roosevelt\u2019s great name would ensure him victory. He added for good measure, \u201cBut if he won\u2019t stand [for re-election] again, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll vote at all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean,\u201d asked Churchill, \u201cthat you think you\u2019ll have a vote?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI sincerely hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n Churchill muttered that it was a good sign of Anglo-American cooperation if the Professor had a vote in America. Churchill\u2019s subsequent questions about the state and volume of war production in the States elicited only vague and noncommittal replies. Churchill, growing exasperated, asked Berlin when he thought the war would end. \u201cMr Prime Minister, I shall tell my children and grandchildren that Winston Churchill asked me that question.\u201d By now thoroughly confused, Churchill asked what was the most important thing that Mr Berlin had written. He replied, \u201cWhite Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n Sensing social disaster, Clementine Churchill said gently that they should all be grateful to Mr Berlin because he had been so generous. \u201cGenerous?\u201d her husband growled, looking about him in consternation. By this time, Churchill\u2019s secretary, Jock Colville, was gently kicking the Prime Minister under the table. \u201cWhat are you kicking me for?\u201d Churchill growled, and then turned his back on Berlin. Shortly thereafter the lunch broke up. Berlin returned to the hotel where he was staying with the producer Alexander Korda. He reported that it had been a puzzling lunch. He did not exactly seem to hit it off with the Prime Minister.[2]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Within a short while, when Churchill learned what had really happened, he roared with laughter at the misunderstanding and all was well. In fact, as the story got around, it cemented Isaiah Berlin\u2019s reputation as a man to be taken seriously far beyond the exalted academic enclave of All Souls, Oxford.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [1] \u00a0Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin; A Life<\/em> (New York: Metropolitan\u00a0Books. 1998), 170.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [2] \u00a0Ibid., 125-26.<\/p>\n I used this story in my \u201cEditor\u2019s Introduction: Perceptions and Expectations\u201d for the FARMS Review of Books<\/em> 11\/1 (1999): v\u2013x, in order to illustrate how powerfully our expectations<\/em> of what we\u2019ll see can influence what we actually do<\/em> see. \u00a0Of course, like everything else that I\u2019ve written, that article was nothing but a tissue of vicious ad hominems<\/em> and mean-spirited lies.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 I had not realized until a couple of years ago that the \u201cCarol of the Bells\u201d stems from Ukraine.\u00a0 If I did ever know it before, I had forgotten:\u00a0 \u201cThe Ukrainian Choir Bringing New Meaning To A Classic Holiday Song\u201d Shchedryk (from the Ukrainian \u0429\u0435\u0434\u0440\u0438\u0439 \u0432\u0435\u0447i\u0440 [Shchedry Vechir], meaning \u201cBountiful Evening\u201d) is a Ukrainian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":94421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38293,25235,38287,38290,32967,28251],"class_list":["post-108343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-white-christmas","tag-churchill","tag-irving-berlin","tag-isaiah-berlin","tag-shchedrivka","tag-ukraine"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>