Carol Of The Bells once filled the air here. Now it’s only bombs.

Summary

• Ukraine's Pokrovsk, linked to composer Mykola Leontovych of "Shchedryk" (Carol of the Bells), is nearly captured by Russia, a strategic and symbolic loss.
• Russian forces destroyed landmarks of Leontovych's legacy, including a music school and statue, impacting Ukrainian cultural identity and wartime morale.
• Despite Pokrovsk's destruction, "Shchedryk" persists as a symbol of Ukrainian resilience, performed globally to rally support and evoke hope.

KYIV, Ukraine – 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 2024. Russian forces were less than 5km 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 Ukraine’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.

Mr 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 anti-government strikes. That put him in the crosshairs of the authorities of the Russian Empire, which governed most of today’s Ukraine and banned him from performing Ukrainian songs, said Ms Tina Peresunko, a Ukrainian researcher who specialises 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, 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, 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 travelling 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 the United States to seek backing for Ukraine’s independence fight against Bolshevik Russia.

In December 2022, a Ukrainian choir performed Shchedryk at Carnegie Hall in New York City 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 20km 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 Mr Viacheslav Shevchuk, a drone battalion commander in Ukraine’s 68th Brigade who joined the city’s defence. “The overwhelming majority of servicemen know this.”

When Russian troops entered Pokrovsk this summer, they advanced from the south towards 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 northwards, cutting through Pokrovsk’s city centre and reaching the railway station in mid-November. Just across the tracks stood a single-storey 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 Ms 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.

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 Dec 20. 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,” Krut said in a written comment.

“But it begins at the front line.” NYTIMES