priest. Russian Empire The composer's life was constantly affected by political events. Stetsenko was complicit in the publication of his own choral arrangement of the Ukrainian national anthem without Russian censor approval in 1911. The printer (A. Chokolov) took the blame fully on himself refusing to implicate Stetsenko, and as a result was sentenced to death. The Russian authorities could not prove Stetsenko's complicity, and he was exiled from Kyiv. He managed to return to the city only to leave one year later due to political and economic pressures. In 1911, urged by his uncle, Stetsenko became an Orthodox priest. Financial security, however, came at a price. The composer was required to serve in an obscure village in south-western Ukraine, far from the cultural life of Kyiv. There, in his self-imposed exile, Stetsenko weathered the political storm of World War I. After 1917 Revolution Kyrylo Stetsenko returned to Kyiv with the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917. When the Ukrainian People's Republic was declared, Stetsenko was made head of the Music Section in the Ministry of Education. He created two national choirs. One choir was led by composer Oleksandr Koshyts toured Europe and North America to promote Ukraine as an independent nation. Stetsenko led the other choir, touring Ukraine to promote national unity. When the Bolsheviks took over Ukraine in 1920, the Koshyts choir was stranded abroad while Stetsenko's choir was disbanded by the new Communist government. Stetsenko left Kyiv to work in a parish in the village of Vepryk, south of the city. The language of this parish was solely Ukrainian and in 1921, he became one of the founders of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In Vepryk he founded a choir and theatre where he was performed on stage. The villagers referred to Stetsenko as the "bright Father". As political repressions were renewed against Ukrainians famine and disease began to spread later affecting Kyrylo Stetsenko in the spring of 1922 who died of typhus while tending to the sick during an outbreak of the disease. Family His grandson, Kyrylo Stetsenko, is a violinist and composer in Ukraine. He provides information about his grandfather. His daughter, Dora Kuzmenko, escaped capture by the Soviets during WWII. She lived in a Displaced Persons camp in Austria for a number of years, from where she immigrated to United States. She died in Syracuse NY in the 1960s. Dora had been an