Oleksandr Mishchenko’s creative universalism
Authors: Yehorov Yehor 
Published: August 2024

Statement of the problem. Creative universalism in various structural manifestations appears as an artistic and philosophical type of thinking, characteristic of a number of prominent Ukrainian musicians of the 20th – early 21st centuries, in particular, representatives of the button accordion art. Among them there is the outstanding Ukrainian button accordionist, the Honored Artist of Ukraine, Professor Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Mishchenko (1956–2018), which realized himself as a performer, a teacher, an arranger, and a musical scientist. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The object of the research is the creative universalism as a type of thinking; the subject of the research is the creative personality of Oleksandr Mishchenko. To reveal the topic of the study, historiographical method, biographical, and phenomenological approaches were applied, as well as the scientific concept of "activity universalism" by O. Komenda (2020) was introduced in order to reveal the essence of creative versatility inherent in Oleksandr Mishchenko’s personality. The scientific novelty of this study is determined by the approach to the researching the artistic personality of O. Mishchenko from the positions of creative universalism. Research results and conclusions. In the light of the theory of creative universalism of the individual, a panoramic overview of the creative path and work of O. Mishchenko is presented; little-known facts of his creative biography were collected and systematized for the first time. The directions of the artist’s creative activity (performance, pedagogy, arranging, conducting, scientific research) are singled out and the degree of their significance in the structure of his creative personality is assessed. As a result, the artistic and performing component of the creative personality of O. Mishchenko was noted as the leading one, while its other components acquire the status of auxiliary ones. O. Mishchenko’s high reputation as a performer is confirmed by his title of “Honored Artist of Ukraine” and primarily is associated with his concert work for twenty years in a bayan duet with the bright bayan performer Ihor Sniedkov. After completing the duet page of his work, O. Mishchenko continued his concert activity, performing as a bayanist-soloist with various orchestras (there were nine of them in his solo career) and conductors from Kyiv and Kharkiv (available information about 12 conductors), as well as in a duet with clarinet, piano, as part of an instrumental quintet.At the age of 55, O. Mishchenko recorded the CD with the National Orchestra of Folk and Popular Music (conducted by S. Litvinenko). In total, the artist’s creative arsenal includes 55 unique recordings for the funds of Ukrainian states radio companies. As a master of bayan arrangement, O. Mishchenko published six sheet music collections for an ensemble of button accordion players, which include about 40 works arranged by him, among them there are 11 large-scale works (A. Corelli, A. Vivaldi, G. F. Telemann, J. S. Bach, W. A. Mozart). This facet of O. Mishchenko’s universalism is so significant that it constitutes a separate hypostasis of his creative personality. As a researcher, O. Mishchenko is the author of more than 40 publications. In addition to sheet music collections with transcriptions for bayan, among them there are numerous methodological works devoted to practical and theoretical issues of the formation, development and improvement of the bayan playing technique, stylistic interpretation, arrangement and editing bayan works, musicmaking in the bayan ensemble. As one can see, O. Mishchenko’s scientific interests are focused on the art of bayan playing, therefore, despite the significance and enormous practical value of his research activity, which is another facet of the artist’s creative universality, we still consider it as auxiliary. The “bayan-centric” direction of various components of O. Mishchenko’s musical activity, as a result, led to the creation of his own author’s school of bayan performance, which became an organic component of the Kharkiv school of button accordion art. For 38 years, constantly working at the Department of Folk Instruments of Ukraine, Kharkiv I.P. Kotlyarevsky National University of Arts, O. Mishchenko brought up several generations of successful students, a significant number of whom became laureates of all-Ukrainian and international competitions. So, the unique and already historical figure of O. Mishchenko vividly represents the phenomenon of creative universalism in its performing version, which consists in the active focus of the artist on the musical world of the button accordion. It is the systemic unity and correlation of all types of creative activity realized by the Master in the spiritual-artistic space of bayan art, which in his interpretation becomes truly limitless, constitutes the essence of the phenomenon of the universal creative personality of O. Mishchenko.