Mykola Sadovsky

Mykola Tobilevych, who performed as Sadovsky, was born in 1856 in the Kherson region (sources differ on the exact date). Brother of the playwright Ivan Karpenko-Kary and the actor Panas Saksahansky, he and Marko Kropyvnytsky created the celebrated “Theatre of Coryphaei”.

In 1906 Sadovsky founded his own company in Poltava, and in spring 1907 he moved it to Kyiv, into the newly built Trinity People’s House on Velyka Vasylkivska Street. This became Kyiv’s first permanent Ukrainian theatre. It staged classics and new drama – Lesya Ukrainka, Vynnychenko, Oles – Starytsky’s historical plays and Mykola Lysenko’s operas; Mariya Zankovetska and Les Kurbas acted there, and Vasyl Krychevsky designed sets.

Sadovsky’s theatre worked in Kyiv until 1919. After years in emigration – in Galicia, Transcarpathia and Prague – he returned to Kyiv in 1926 and died there on 7 February 1933. He is buried in Baikove Cemetery; in 1944 a street and a lane in Kyiv were named after him.