Kira Shamaieva's Contribution to the Study of Music Culture of Elisavetgrad
Authors: Sikorska Iryna 
Published: February 2024

The relevance of the study. Kira Shamaieva's selfless dedicated service to Music in Ukrainian piano performance, musicology and pedagogy has lasted for more than 60 years. Shamaieva is a direct participant or eyewitness of a great number of significant events, she knew personally many famous figures, and possesses great knowledge about Ukrainian musical history.

Several musically gifted related families resided in Yelysavethrad of the late 19th – early 20th. Thus, the city was considered a prominent artistic center in the South of the Russian Empire. It’s worth mentioning that Yelysavethrad was standing at the crossroads of German, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish cultures. For the first time, Shamaieva's historiographical contribution to this topic is analyzed from the point of view of musical regionalism and science biography. Exploring the scientific and creative contribution of K. Shamaieva to the studies of the creative activity of prominent musicians, associated with Yelysavethrad (Kirovograd/Kropyvnytskyi), such as Karol Szymanowski, Heinrich Neuhaus, and the Blumenfelds family, their environment and the context field of their art is the main objective of the paper.

So we have to solve a number of tasks, such as: to study K. Shamaieva’s biographic moments, related to the stated topic, to identify and systematize her articles, devoted to H. Neuhaus and the Blumenfelds family, to single out and emphasize the most important ideas and conclusions, to trace the resonance of these works and their possible prospects –to implement.

Methods. It was used: biographical – for the studying Shamaieva’s biography; analytical – to analyze the literature on this issue and her articles; historical – to comment and identify the significance of meetings in the K. Shamaieva’s life; interviews with K. Shamaieva during January, 2022 – to clarify some details; and also – a source method for studying the context.

The main results and conclusions of the study. It was found, that only once K. Shamaieva turned to the K. Szymanowski’s compositions: in 1962,April 7 she performed his Eight Etudes, op. 38 in a chamber concert at the Great Hall of the Kyiv Conservatory(as a part of the conference, dedicated to the 25th anniversary of his death).

As it was observed, theme «Heinrich Neuhaus in Kyiv» goes throughout all Shamaieva’s musicological activity. She heard about that person from her friend Iryna Ivanova (who had also been friends with S. Richter since childhood, introduced Kira to him in 1950) and her husband Lev Naumov (they both studied in H. Neuhaus’ class at Moscow Conservatory, graduate school; later on became his assistants). In 1952, K. Shamaieva listened to H. Neuhaus performance in the Kyiv Philharmonic. Thanks to her piano teacher O. Kholodna (a graduate of H. Neuhaus) she acquainted with him. Later on she attended his concerts and open lessons. O. Kholodna suggested the direction of later Shamaieva’s sresearches. As a result, a number of articles were published and then it’s grown into a candidate's thesis («Concert Life in Kyiv 1919–1832»).

It was noted, that topics «Felix Blumenfeld in Kyiv», «Stanislav Blumenfeld and his school», «The Blumenfelds Family» are closely intertwined with the mentioned discourse. Special emphasis is made on source science aspect: K. Shamaieva's research is based on a systematic study of the Kyiv press, archival funds and memories of contemporaries. The results of her researches were published in Ukrainian, Russian, German and Polish article collections.

It’s proved, that K. Shamaieva's articles, devoted to the personalities of H. Neuhaus and the Blumenfelds family, became a valuable contribution to Ukrainian musical regionalism and biographic. Their study will serve to strengthen intercultural relations and will be a valuable contribution to the Ukrainian encyclopedism.