Pavlo Chubynsky

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Pavlo Chubynsky (1839 -January 26, 1884) was a Ukrainian poet and ethnographer whose poem "Shche ne vmerla Ukraina" (Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished) was set to music and adapted as the Ukrainian national anthem.

In 1863 the Lviv journal Meta (The Goal) published the poem but mistakenly ascribed it to Taras Shevchenko. In the same year it was set to music by the Galician composer Michael Verbytsky (1815-1870), first for solo and later choral performance.

This song's catchy melody and patriotic text quickly gained broad acceptance, but Pavlo Chubynsky was persecuted for the rest of his life by anti-Ukranian Russian powers. He was sent to Archangelsk province for "negatively influencing peasants' minds." When his work in that region was recognized internationally by his peers, Chubynsky was sent to Petersburg to work in the Transport Ministry as a low-level official. He eventually became paralyzed in 1880 and died four years later. ^[1]

In 1917 the song with his lyrics was officially adopted as the anthem of the Ukrainian state.