Mykola Arkas

Mykola Mykolayovych Arkas was born on 7 January 1853 [O.S. 26 December 1852], in Mykolaiv in the Russian Empire (now in modern Ukraine).[1] His grandfather Andreas Arkas, the son of an Orthodox priest from the Greek city of Patras, was invited to teach classical languages and history at the Nikolayev Naval School in Saint Petersburg. He published the dictionaries for 12 languages, all of which he spoke. He moved with his family to Russia with the help of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Mykola Arkas was a son of the Russian admiral Nikolay Andreyevich Arkas, who was the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, a founder of steam navigation and trade on the Black Sea and a founder of Caspian Sea Fleet, (1816–1881) and the Ukrainian Sophia Bogdanovich.

Mykola received his all-round education in the Law School of St. Petersburg and completed his studies in physics and mathematics at the University of Odessa. After completing his studies (1875–1881), in accordance with the family tradition, he joined the Imperial Russian Navy.

Upon completion of naval service in 1881 Arkas obtained a magistracy in Kherson. In his leisure time, he collected and recorded folk songs, also studying the history of Ukraine. His teacher, Petro Nishchynsky, who was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, and writer, had an influence upon Mykola; the latter tried to master musical knowledge independently, to develop his composer's skills and writing music.

Mykola Arkas died on 26 March 1909 [O.S. 13 March], in Mykolaiv,[1] where he was buried in the family chapel in the town cemetery.

Arkas's artistic contributions include about 80 compositions for solo-singing, vocal ensembles and arrangements of folk songs. His opera "Kateryna" (1890) is the most significant work of Mykola Arkas, adapted as from Taras Shevchenko's poem of the same title. This work brought recognition to Mykola Arkas and became the first Ukrainian lyrical folk opera. Performances of "Kateryna" were a great success, first playing in Moscow by Mark Kropivnitskiy's troupe in 1899, and later in Minsk, Vilnius and Kiev.

Arkas was the founder and chairman of the "Prosvita" cultural and educational society in Mykolaiv. At his own expense he opened a public school that taught in Ukrainian, as the dominant teaching language in schools was Russian.

In 1908 in St. Petersburg, a book by Mykola Arkas — "History of Ukraine-Rus" — was published under the editorship of Ukrainian writer Vasyl Domaniczky. The book was written in Ukrainian.

• In October 1992 in Myoklaiv there was open a monument to Mykola Arkas (by sculptor O.Zdykhovskiy)[2]
• In 2003 a postage stamp was released in Ukraine dedicated to Mykola Arkas

• Arkas, M. History of Ukraine-Rus. "Obshchestvennaia Polza" Association. 1908.
• Dytyniak Maria Ukrainian Composers – A Bio-bibliographic Guide – Research report No. 14, 1896, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Canada.
• Kaufman L. M. M. – Arkas – Narys pro zhyttia i tvorchist', Kiev, 1958.
• Shkvarets, Valentin P. (2002). "Chapters 1-3". Микола Миколайович Аркас: життя, творчість, діяльність [Mykola Mykolayovych Arkas: life, creativity, activity] (in Ukrainian). Mykolaiv, Ukraine: Mykolaiv Educational and Scientific Center of Odesa National University named after I.I. Mechnikova. ISBN 966-7149-22-6.

• Mykola Arkas – Encyclopedia of Ukraine