Klyment Kvitka

Klyment Vasilyovich Kvitka (; February 4 (O.S. January 23), 1880 – September 19, 1953) was a Ukrainian and Soviet musicologist, and ethnographer, best known as the husband of poet Lesya Ukrainka. Kvitka is renowned as one of the founders of Ukrainian musical ethnography.

Biography Klyment Kvitka was born in Khmeliv, Poltava Governorate (now Romny Raion, Sumy Oblast). Due to government repression, starting from 1931 Kvitka was forced to stop his studies in Ukrainian villages, and spent some time in Moscow and Karaganda. In July 1907, following the return from Crimea, where both had been undergoing treatment of tuberculosis, Kvitka married Lesya in Kyiv. One month after the marriage, the couple moved to Sevastopol, where Kvitka received a job at a local court. In late 1907 Kvitka received employment in Georgia, and Lesya followed him.

Following Lesya's death, Kvitka entered several other relationships. According to Izydora Kosach-Borysova, in 1918, while working in Makiivka, he met the wife of a local factory engineer, who later gave birth to a son. In 1924-1925 Kvitka had a relationship with philologist Olena Kurylo. In 1945, at the age of 65, he married for a second time, to 25-year old conservatory student Galina Koshcheeva, who soon had a child from him. Together with Lesya Ukrainka he helped organize the expedition of Filaret Kolessa, and co-authored the recording of duma performances by Hnat Honcharenko.

Legacy Kvitka's folkloric records were employed by composers Felix Blumenfeld, Pylyp Kozytskyi, Mykhailo Verykivskyi, Levko Revutskyi, Borys Liatoshynskyi, Yuliy Meitus and others.