In 1908, he was the head of the Ukrainian Club, an association of Ukrainian national public figures in Kiev. For his opera libretti Lysenko insisted on using only the Ukrainian language. Tchaikovsky was impressed by Lysenko's Taras Bulba and wanted to stage the work in Moscow, but Lysenko's insistence on it being performed in the Ukrainian language, not Russian, prevented the performance from taking place in Moscow. In his later years, Lysenko raised funds to open a Ukrainian School of Music.
Taras Bulba
Lysenko