Shchedryk is a pre-Christian Ukrainian folk chant associated with the New Year's season, its melody later borrowed — without attribution or compensation — by Mykola Leontovych's arrangement and then again by Peter Wilhousky, who added English lyrics and published it in 1936 as "Carol of the Bells." Leontovych himself was assassinated in 1921 by a Soviet secret police agent posing as a houseguest. The original chant long predates Christianity, rooted in Slavic winter solstice ritual.
This 2023 issue was struck while Ukraine was under active Russian bombardment, the NBU continuing its commemorative program through the war as a deliberate act of cultural continuity. Partial gilding applied locally at the Kyiv mint.
Shchedryk is a pre-Christian Ukrainian folk chant associated with the New Year's season, its melody later borrowed — without attribution or compensation — by Mykola Leontovych's arrangement and then again by Peter Wilhousky, who added English lyrics and published it in 1936 as "Carol of the Bells." Leontovych himself was assassinated in 1921 by a Soviet secret police agent posing as a houseguest. The original chant long predates Christianity, rooted in Slavic winter solstice ritual.
This 2023 issue was struck while Ukraine was under active Russian bombardment, the NBU continuing its commemorative program through the war as a deliberate act of cultural continuity. Partial gilding applied locally at the Kyiv mint.