‘Carol of the Bells’ Once Filled the Air Here. Now It’s Only Bombs.

Mykola Leontovych, the Ukrainian composer of the famed festive song, lived in the eastern city of Pokrovsk. Months of Russian assaults have erased most tributes to his life there.

The Ukrainian singer Maryna Krut, wearing a flak jacket, sat by the entrance sign to the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk and plucked the strings of her bandura, a traditional Ukrainian instrument. The distinctive opening notes of “Shchedryk,” a Ukrainian song known in English as “Carol of the Bells,” filled the air.

It was a moment of musical defiance, just before Christmas last year. Russian forces were less than three miles from Pokrovsk, but Ukrainians were determined to hold the city, a military stronghold. For Ms. Krut, there was also the weight of a cherished cultural heritage. Pokrovsk had once been home to Mykola Leontovych, the composer of “Shchedryk.”

“It’s hard to imagine Christmas anywhere in the world without ‘Shchedryk,’” Ms. Krut wrote in a social media post that included a video of her performance. “As you sing carols this year, remember the price of our ‘Shchedryk.’”

Today, the carol’s notes no longer drift over Pokrovsk. As Ukraine marks its fourth Christmas at war, Russia controls nearly the entire city, which lies in ruins. Through relentless assaults in recent months, Moscow’s troops captured markers of Leontovych’s legacy one by one: the park where his statue once stood, the music school named after him, the building where he assembled choirs in the early 20th century. Combat now unfolds on a street that once bore his name.

The fall of Pokrovsk would be a major setback for Ukraine, making it the largest city taken by Russia in two years. It would give the Kremlin a strategic base to pursue its goal of taking over the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine. And it would weaken Kyiv’s negotiating position as it discusses a possible peace deal.

For Ukrainians, particularly the tens of thousands who fled Pokrovsk, the city’s capture would mean that a beloved carol will now be forever tinged with loss.

Yevhen Hryhorovych, head of the Pokrovsk Leontovych music school, which has relocated farther west, said, “When I hear ‘Shchedryk,’ I think of Pokrovsk — a city almost destroyed, children who have lost their homes.”

He added, “For us, it will never again be just a festive melody.”

For decades, Pokrovsk was known as a mining city, its skyline punctuated by towering shafts and slag heaps. But in the late 2010s, as Moscow fueled pro-Kremlin separatist movements across eastern Ukraine, local leaders recast the city’s image around its Ukrainian identity.

Leontovych was a natural anchor for that effort. Working as a music teacher in Pokrovsk, then called Hryshyno, from 1904 to 1908, he championed Ukrainian music and supported antigovernment strikes. That put him in the cross hairs of the authorities of the Russian Empire, which governed most of today’s Ukraine and banned him from performing Ukrainian songs, said Tina Peresunko, a Ukrainian researcher who specializes in the history of “Shchedryk.”

Facing mounting pressure, Leontovych fled to western Ukraine, his birthplace. But his pro-Ukrainian activism had made him a marked man, Ms. Peresunko said, and in 1921, he was killed by an agent of the Soviet security services.

Leontovych is believed to have composed “Shchedryk” several years after leaving Pokrovsk. Still, the local authorities have leaned into the connection in recent years. In 2017, they added a swallow, the subject of the carol, to the city’s coat of arms. The following year, they unveiled a statue of the composer. A pedestal declared, somewhat boldly, “Here, ‘Shchedryk’ was born.”

The song ultimately became known in English through Peter J. Wilhousky, a Ukrainian American music director who wrote new lyrics in 1936 with the title “Carol of the Bells.”

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, “Shchedryk” became a potent cultural tool, sung by traveling Ukrainian choirs worldwide to rally support for their nation. The campaign echoed the carol’s first global journey a century earlier, when a Ukrainian choir toured Europe and America to seek backing for Ukraine’s independence fight against Bolshevik Russia.

In December 2022, a Ukrainian choir performed “Shchedryk” at Carnegie Hall to mark the 100th anniversary of its premiere there. By then, Ukraine had repelled Russia’s initial invasion and driven its troops back to the east and south. Residents were returning to Pokrovsk, hopeful that the tide of the war had turned. The local Leontovych music school reopened its doors.

In spring 2024, however, danger returned. Russian advances in the east had made Pokrovsk Russia’s next target. By August, Russian troops were less than 12 miles away. The music school relocated to another city. Workers dismantled the Leontovych statue and put it in a safe place.

As residents packed and fled, Ukrainian soldiers moved in. They were aware of the cultural dimension of the battle awaiting them. “Pokrovsk is directly known for Mykola Leontovych,” said Viacheslav Shevchuk, a drone battalion commander in Ukraine’s 68th Brigade who joined the city’s defense. “The overwhelming majority of servicemen know this.”

When Russian troops entered Pokrovsk this summer, they advanced from the south toward the park where the Leontovych statue once stood, using the wooded area to move unnoticed. Mr. Shevchuk said that a small-arms firefight near the park had forced his unit to withdraw urgently. By late October, Russian forces had taken the park, according to battlefield maps.

From the park, Russian troops “dispersed throughout the entire city” in a rapid advance, Mr. Shevchuk said. They quickly reached the music school named after Leontovych, just a few streets away. Fighting gutted the building, leaving its exterior walls blackened by fire, according to a photograph provided by Mr. Hryhorovych, the school’s head.

Russian forces then moved northward, cutting through Pokrovsk’s city center and reaching the railway station in mid-November. Just across the tracks stood a single-story building with a plaque affixed to its white walls that read, “In this school, from 1904 to 1908, the outstanding Ukrainian composer N. D. Leontovych worked as a music teacher.”

The school had once echoed with the rehearsals of students and railway workers whom Leontovych had assembled into a choir. Together, they toured the region, performing a wide repertoire of his compositions and folk songs, and helping to lay “the foundation of the cultural life of the city,” said Angelina Rozhkova, head of the Pokrovsk Historical Museum.

Now, the old school building was caught in fierce fighting.

Mr. Shevchuk provided drone footage, verified by The New York Times, showing the site all but destroyed, its roof riddled with holes and its beams exposed.

As Russian troops seized the building this month, Ms. Peresunko, the researcher, opened an exhibition in Kyiv tracing the history of “Shchedryk.” It includes reminders of Leontovych’s time in Pokrovsk, including a photograph of him with his wife and daughter.

Ms. Peresunko mourned the old school building’s loss, but noted that Leontovych’s greatest legacy, “Shchedryk,” continued to spread, a testament to Ukraine’s resilience. “It’s also a song of hope,” she said.

In recent days, many concerts featuring the carol have been held across Ukraine, including one at a bombed-out power station, where an orchestra played against a backdrop of twisted pipes and metal beams.

Ms. Krut, the singer, also performed “Shchedryk” at a concert on Saturday. This time, she was standing not in Pokrovsk, but on a stage in Kyiv. As she played, her thoughts were with Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield, she said.

“Shchedryk is a thin red thread that binds us all together, its skein stretching across the whole of Ukraine,” Ms. Krut said in a written comment. “But it begins at the front line.”

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