Video
Below can be found a series of videos relating to John Hughes and Hughesovka, now Donetsk. Additional videos will be placed here as they become available, and can also be found on our social media channels here
Pre-revolutionary Russia in photographs - Factory of the Novorossiysk Society, Yuzovka (Donetsk)
Дореволюционная Россия в фотографиях Завод Новороссийского общества, Юзовка (Донецьк)
Music: Mazurka by A. Scriabin
The government of the Russian Empire entered into an agreement with Prince Sergey Kochubey. According to the agreement, the Prince undertook to build, in southern Russia a metallurgical factory for the manufacture of rails for the railway industry. In 1869, the Prince sold the concession to John James Hughes for 24,000 pounds (Sterling).
Hughes was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, where his father was head engineer at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks. In these ironworks, the young Hughes started his career, under his father's supervision. He then moved to Ebbw Vale, before joining the Uskside Foundry in Newport, Monmouthshire, in the 1840s. It was here than Hughes made his reputation and fortune, patenting a number of inventions in armaments and armour plating. The resultant revenues allowed him to acquire a shipyard aged 28, and by the age of 36 he owned a foundry in Newport. Also during this time that he married Elizabeth Lewis, and together had eight children: six boys and two girls, all born in Newport.
In the mid-1850s, Hughes moved to London to become manager of C.J.Mare's forges and rolling mills, which was then taken over by the Millwall Iron Works & Shipbuilding Company, part of the Millwall Iron Works, Shipbuilding and Graving Docks Company. In 1868, the Millwall Iron Works Company received an order from the Imperial Russian Government for the construction of a naval fortress being built at Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea. Hughes accepted a concession from the Imperial Russian Government to develop a metal works in Russia and in 1869 acquired a piece of land to the north of the Azov Sea from Russian statesman Prince Sergei Kochubey (son of Viktor Kochubey). Hughes formed the 'New Russia Company Ltd.' to raise capital, and in the summer of 1870, at the age of 55, he moved to the Russian Empire. He sailed with eight ships, with not only all the equipment necessary to establish a metal works, but also much of the skilled labour; a group of about a hundred ironworkers and miners mostly from South Wales.
He immediately started to build metal works close to the river Kalmius, at a site near the village of Alexandrovka. The state-of-the-art works had eight blast furnaces and was capable of a full production cycle, with the first pig iron cast in 1872. During the 1870s, collieries and iron ore mines were sunk, and brickworks and other facilities were established to make the isolated works a self-sufficient industrial complex. He further built a railway-line-producing factory. All of Hughes' facilities were held under the 'Novorussian society for coal, iron and rails production.'
The Hughes factory gave its name to the settlement which grew in its shadow, and the town of Hughesovka (Yuzovka) grew rapidly. Hughes personally provided a hospital, schools, bath houses, tea rooms, a fire brigade and an Anglican church dedicated to the patron saints St George and St. David. The land around the metal works quickly grew to become an industrial and cultural centre in the region. Over the next twenty years, the works prospered and expanded, first under John Hughes and then, after his death in 1889, under the management of four of his sons. Amazingly, John Hughes was only semi-literate - he was unable to write and could only read capital letters. Hughes died on 17 June during a business trip to St Petersburg at the Angleterre Hotel. His body was immediately repatriated to the Britain for burial. By the end of the 19th century, the works were the largest in the Russian Empire, producing 74% of all Russian iron by 1913.
Дореволюционная Россия в фотографиях Завод Новороссийского общества, Юзовка (Донецьк)
Music: Mazurka by A. Scriabin
The government of the Russian Empire entered into an agreement with Prince Sergey Kochubey. According to the agreement, the Prince undertook to build, in southern Russia a metallurgical factory for the manufacture of rails for the railway industry. In 1869, the Prince sold the concession to John James Hughes for 24,000 pounds (Sterling).
Hughes was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, where his father was head engineer at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks. In these ironworks, the young Hughes started his career, under his father's supervision. He then moved to Ebbw Vale, before joining the Uskside Foundry in Newport, Monmouthshire, in the 1840s. It was here than Hughes made his reputation and fortune, patenting a number of inventions in armaments and armour plating. The resultant revenues allowed him to acquire a shipyard aged 28, and by the age of 36 he owned a foundry in Newport. Also during this time that he married Elizabeth Lewis, and together had eight children: six boys and two girls, all born in Newport.
In the mid-1850s, Hughes moved to London to become manager of C.J.Mare's forges and rolling mills, which was then taken over by the Millwall Iron Works & Shipbuilding Company, part of the Millwall Iron Works, Shipbuilding and Graving Docks Company. In 1868, the Millwall Iron Works Company received an order from the Imperial Russian Government for the construction of a naval fortress being built at Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea. Hughes accepted a concession from the Imperial Russian Government to develop a metal works in Russia and in 1869 acquired a piece of land to the north of the Azov Sea from Russian statesman Prince Sergei Kochubey (son of Viktor Kochubey). Hughes formed the 'New Russia Company Ltd.' to raise capital, and in the summer of 1870, at the age of 55, he moved to the Russian Empire. He sailed with eight ships, with not only all the equipment necessary to establish a metal works, but also much of the skilled labour; a group of about a hundred ironworkers and miners mostly from South Wales.
He immediately started to build metal works close to the river Kalmius, at a site near the village of Alexandrovka. The state-of-the-art works had eight blast furnaces and was capable of a full production cycle, with the first pig iron cast in 1872. During the 1870s, collieries and iron ore mines were sunk, and brickworks and other facilities were established to make the isolated works a self-sufficient industrial complex. He further built a railway-line-producing factory. All of Hughes' facilities were held under the 'Novorussian society for coal, iron and rails production.'
The Hughes factory gave its name to the settlement which grew in its shadow, and the town of Hughesovka (Yuzovka) grew rapidly. Hughes personally provided a hospital, schools, bath houses, tea rooms, a fire brigade and an Anglican church dedicated to the patron saints St George and St. David. The land around the metal works quickly grew to become an industrial and cultural centre in the region. Over the next twenty years, the works prospered and expanded, first under John Hughes and then, after his death in 1889, under the management of four of his sons. Amazingly, John Hughes was only semi-literate - he was unable to write and could only read capital letters. Hughes died on 17 June during a business trip to St Petersburg at the Angleterre Hotel. His body was immediately repatriated to the Britain for burial. By the end of the 19th century, the works were the largest in the Russian Empire, producing 74% of all Russian iron by 1913.
Dziga Vertov: "Enthusiasm, The Symphony of Donbass"
Enthusiasm: The Symphony of Donbass [Russian: Энтузиазм: Симфония Донбасса or Entuziazm: Simfoniya Donbassa] is a 1930 Soviet sound film, directed by the renowned Dziga Vertov. The film was the director's first sound film and is also notable for the fact that it is a documentary filmed on location.
The film's score is considered experimental and avant-garde because of its incorporation of factory, industrial, and other machine sounds. Human speech plays only a small role in the film's sounds. Vertov himself described Enthusiasm as "the lead icebreaker in the column of sound newsreels" and considered the film's "complex interaction of sound with image" to be the work's most significant achievement. The director viewed the film as an extended experiment in which the juxtaposition and misalignment of sound were completely intentional.
A new score for the film has been written by leading contemporary Russian composer Artem Ananiev. As part of the Hughes 2019 project, it is aspired that Ananiev's new score for strings and piano will be transcribed for brass and performed, together with a reduced version of Enthusiasm during 2019. Further information on this project will be made available here soon.
The full version of "Enthusiasm", together with the original 1930s soundtrack, can be viewed below. Further information on the film and its background is available here
Enthusiasm: The Symphony of Donbass [Russian: Энтузиазм: Симфония Донбасса or Entuziazm: Simfoniya Donbassa] is a 1930 Soviet sound film, directed by the renowned Dziga Vertov. The film was the director's first sound film and is also notable for the fact that it is a documentary filmed on location.
The film's score is considered experimental and avant-garde because of its incorporation of factory, industrial, and other machine sounds. Human speech plays only a small role in the film's sounds. Vertov himself described Enthusiasm as "the lead icebreaker in the column of sound newsreels" and considered the film's "complex interaction of sound with image" to be the work's most significant achievement. The director viewed the film as an extended experiment in which the juxtaposition and misalignment of sound were completely intentional.
A new score for the film has been written by leading contemporary Russian composer Artem Ananiev. As part of the Hughes 2019 project, it is aspired that Ananiev's new score for strings and piano will be transcribed for brass and performed, together with a reduced version of Enthusiasm during 2019. Further information on this project will be made available here soon.
The full version of "Enthusiasm", together with the original 1930s soundtrack, can be viewed below. Further information on the film and its background is available here
Hughesovka and the New Russia
Excerpt from the Bafta Cymru Best Documentary Winner of 1991
BBC 2 and S4C
Excerpt from the Bafta Cymru Best Documentary Winner of 1991
BBC 2 and S4C
Dreaming A City (Hughesovka)
Dreaming A City (Hughesovka) is an instrumental track from the Futurology album of leading Welsh pop group, The Manic Street Preachers. The work is described as an "instrumental evocation of the story of John Hughes, and the founding of the industrial city of Hughesovka, now Donetsk, by Hughes in 1869.
Dreaming A City (Hughesovka) is an instrumental track from the Futurology album of leading Welsh pop group, The Manic Street Preachers. The work is described as an "instrumental evocation of the story of John Hughes, and the founding of the industrial city of Hughesovka, now Donetsk, by Hughes in 1869.
Enthusiasm (2018)
Stafhan Caddick & Simon Gore
Stafhan Caddick & Simon Gore
A 2017 / 18 project by Victoria Donovan and Stefhan Caddick, Enthusiasm is a migration story spanning Merthyr Tydfil and Ukraine; the 1860s to the present day. This innovative, interdisciplinary one-day arts event brings together musicians, members of the community, archivists and historians to take a radical look at a little-known historical episode that links Merthyr and the South Wales Valleys to the Donbas in Ukraine and asks how the legacy of this past continues to resonate in our social, cultural and political landscape today.
Enthusiasm took place on Saturday 1st July 2017, with the exhibition continuing until Thurs 3rd August
Redhouse, Merthyr Tydfil.
In 1869, Welsh industrialist John Hughes founded the mining town of Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine, initiating a wave of migration from South Wales to Eastern Europe. 1917 and the approaching Russian Revolution saw the hasty exit of the industrialists who had followed Hughes, fearful of the revolutionary ferment. 100 years later, in the present day, Ukraine and the Donbas are once again at the centre of a violent conflict that has led to the internal displacement of over a million people.
Enthusiasm brought to life some of the elements of this fascinating and timely story, via film, music, image, food and discussion.
Enthusiasm included:
View a pdf of the full programme for the day at ENTHUSIASM Programme
Sound, film and image credits:
Enthusiasm Trailer features a short excerpt from a new, live soundtrack by composer Simon Gore and clips from Dziga Vertov’s 1931 film ‘Enthusiasm: The Donbass Symphony’ (courtesy Austrian Film Museum). The full, hour long performance was premiered at Enthusiasm in Merthyr Tydfil on 1st July 2017.
Additional Enthusiasm Events also took place in Scotland in 2018 at:
Byre World, St Andrews University, 2 May, 7pm
https://byretheatre.com/events/byre-world-the-enthusiasm-project/
Princess Dashkova Centre, Edinburgh University, 4th May 5pm:
“Enthusiasm”: Exploring memory and migration in Hughesovka-Stalino-Donetsk through word, image and music
https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/dashkova/news-events/events/enthusiasm-film-live-music-hughesovka
Edinburgh Ukrainian Club, 4th May, 7.30pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/199082970899435/
Project Partners:
University of St Andrews, Glamorgan Archives, Russia 17, PEAK: Contemporary Art in the Black Mountains, Redhouse
Further information on this project can be found at www.stefhancaddick.co.uk/new/enthusiasm/
Enthusiasm took place on Saturday 1st July 2017, with the exhibition continuing until Thurs 3rd August
Redhouse, Merthyr Tydfil.
In 1869, Welsh industrialist John Hughes founded the mining town of Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine, initiating a wave of migration from South Wales to Eastern Europe. 1917 and the approaching Russian Revolution saw the hasty exit of the industrialists who had followed Hughes, fearful of the revolutionary ferment. 100 years later, in the present day, Ukraine and the Donbas are once again at the centre of a violent conflict that has led to the internal displacement of over a million people.
Enthusiasm brought to life some of the elements of this fascinating and timely story, via film, music, image, food and discussion.
Enthusiasm included:
- Talk and reading by Dr Victoria Donovan (Lecturer in Russian, University of St Andrews)
- Performance of a selection of migrant letters by local and diasporan voices.
- Exhibition of historic photographs of Donetsk from the Glamorgan Archives and contemporary images by Ukrainian photographer Alexander Chekmenev
- A programme of workshops and activities
- Screening: Enthusiasm: The Donbass Symphony (1931) by Ukrainian revolutionary film maker Dziga Vertov with a new original score performed live by composer Simon Gore.
View a pdf of the full programme for the day at ENTHUSIASM Programme
Sound, film and image credits:
Enthusiasm Trailer features a short excerpt from a new, live soundtrack by composer Simon Gore and clips from Dziga Vertov’s 1931 film ‘Enthusiasm: The Donbass Symphony’ (courtesy Austrian Film Museum). The full, hour long performance was premiered at Enthusiasm in Merthyr Tydfil on 1st July 2017.
Additional Enthusiasm Events also took place in Scotland in 2018 at:
Byre World, St Andrews University, 2 May, 7pm
https://byretheatre.com/events/byre-world-the-enthusiasm-project/
Princess Dashkova Centre, Edinburgh University, 4th May 5pm:
“Enthusiasm”: Exploring memory and migration in Hughesovka-Stalino-Donetsk through word, image and music
https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/dashkova/news-events/events/enthusiasm-film-live-music-hughesovka
Edinburgh Ukrainian Club, 4th May, 7.30pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/199082970899435/
Project Partners:
University of St Andrews, Glamorgan Archives, Russia 17, PEAK: Contemporary Art in the Black Mountains, Redhouse
Further information on this project can be found at www.stefhancaddick.co.uk/new/enthusiasm/
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