The melody of the "KPI March" is familiar to every Kyiv Polytechnic. However, not everyone knows the name of its author. It is a pity, because Volodymyr Dmytrovych Chubynsky, who wrote the music and words of this solemn work, also once studied at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, and became not only an engineer-teacher, but also a composer and a poet. Actually, the song was his real destiny. Unfortunately, due to the tragic circumstances of Volodymyr Chubynsky's life, his name did not become widely known, although there were all grounds for that. He would have turned 90 on December 1…
Every time I come to the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, I try to be near the main building as close as possible to the moment when the minute hand of the clock above the entrance completes the next circle and it will play lovely melody from my youth. This is where my student life began, my Kyiv and my adult biography. And unresolved memories come to life…
I try to imagine the feelings that troubled the ardent young man in 1948, Volodya Chubynsky, who came here from Kryvyi Rih to enter the engineering and pedagogical faculty. How, perhaps, he enlightenedly perceived the generally gloomy buildings of the institute at that time! Hopes for a better future outweighed the drama of the life experience of an 18-year-old boy who was born near Kyiv, in Gostomel, in a family of teachers. The Chubynsky and Vyshnevsky families came from Boryspil. However, Kateryna Chubynska and Dmytro Vyshnevsky were forced to "travel" through the Kyiv region, often changing jobs. The reason was the "noble origin" of the grandchildren of the famous Pavlo Chubynsky, whom both tsarism and Stalin's punitive system considered their enemies for the song "Neither Glory nor Will of Ukraine has died yet.” So, having been forced to divorce her husband so as not to endanger him, Kateryna Pavlivna leaves for Tashkent with 4-year-old Volodya. Then - an ascetic childhood in an environment without Ukraine, the difficult years of the war. 1944 - moving to Kryvyi Rih, where the mother teaches at the Pedagogical Institute, the son finishes school. Extremely purposeful, active, also works in a carpentry workshop, on the restoration of destroyed buildings of the city. Sings in the choir of the Pedagogical Institute, mastered the guitar. And invisibly next to him there is a never-before-heard seditious song…
And Kyiv. Workdays of intense learning, knowledge of such a different - bright and cruel world, the awakening of creativity. Here are the lines from Chubinskiy's "Autobiography":
"Song and music brought light to my destiny. In the first year I became a member of the choir and remained devoted to it for life. How many unique minutes I had, I am grateful for the joy of creativity that it gave me - albeit primitive, but poems and songs… “
In a noisy multi-voiced team, which had enough of its authority, former veterans, Volodymyr is gradually becoming a leader, the initiator of interesting cases. His songs are already known and sung. And the most popular was the "March of KPI" written by a 23-year-old student, which still serves as a business card of the university.