Mykola Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky

Who was Mykola Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky?

Mykola Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky was the purported author of a famous musical hoax Symphony No. 21, perpetrated by composer and violinist Mikhail Goldstein.

In 1948, Goldstein announced that he had discovered the manuscript of a symphony by Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky in the archives of the theater in Odessa. The G minor work, numbered 21, was said to have been written in 1809; it bore the inscription "for the dedication of the Odessa Theater". The discovery caused a great deal of excitement in Soviet musical circles, for it was seen as proof that Russia had been able to produce a symphonist of comparable stature to Joseph Haydn. Furthermore, the symphony contained Ukrainian folk songs and ended with a Cossack dance, showing that the composer had a nationalist awareness. This piece was subsequently proven to be a fake.