Kobzari

Kobzars (kobzari). Wandering folk bards who performed a large repertoire of epic-historical, religious, and folk songs while playing a kobza or bandura. Kobzars first emerged in Kyivan-Rus and were popular by the 15th century. Some (e.g., Churylo and Tarashko) performed at Polish royal courts. They lived at the Zaporozhian Sich and were esteemed by the kozaks, whom they frequently accompanied on various campaigns against the Turks, Tatars, and Poles. The epic songs they performed [duma] served to raise the moral of the Kozak army in times of war, and some (e.g., P. Skryaha, V. Varchenko, and Mykhajlo 'Sokovy's son-in-law') were even beheaded by the Poles for performing dumas that incited popular revolts.

As the Hetman state declined, so did the fortunes of the kobzars, and they gradually joined the ranks of mendicants, playing and begging for alms at rural marketplaces. In the late 18th century the occupation of kobzar became almost the exclusive of the blind and crippled, who organized kobzar brotherhoods to protect their corporate interests. A few performed at the Russian courts of Peter I, Elizabeth I, and Catherine II (e.g., H. Lyubystok and O. Rozumovsky). In the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly from the 1870's, the kobzars, including the virtuosos Ostap Veresai and Hnat Honcharenko, were persecuted by the tsarist regime as propagators of Ukrainophile sentiments and historical memory. (Kobzars are immortalized in the poetry and drawings of Taras Shevchenko and he titled his poetic works Kobzar.) The few hundred remaining kobzars in Poltava, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv gubernias and their artistry aroused the interest of various ethnographers, composers, and painters, including Mykola Lysenko, O. Rusov, O. Slastion, Lesia Ukrainka, K. Kvitka, M. Sumtsov, V. Horlenko, V. Borzhovsky, Ostap Borodaj, Filaret Kolessa, and D. Revutsky. At the 12th Russian Archeological Congress in Kharkiv in 1902, the kobzars Terentij Parkhomenko, Hnat Honcharenko, Mykhailo Kravchenko, Ivan Kucherenko-Kuchuhura. P. Hashchenko, P. Drevchenko, and I. Netesa, accompanied by Hnat Khotkevych, the 'first seeing kobzar' (he composed 69 works for the bandura) and the leading authority on kobzar artistry, performed to great acclaim, and the congress participants passed a resolution concerning the great value of the kobzar's art. Government attitudes toward the kobzars softened, and thereafter kobzar concerts became frequent events in many Ukrainian and Russian cities. Bandura schools were established, and in 1907 Khotkevych published the first history and manual of bandura playing; V. Shevchenko's and V. Ovchynnykov's manual followed in 1914.

After the Revolution on 1905 the kobzars again flourished. From 1908, bandura playing was taught at the Lysenko Music and Drama School in Kyiv. The kobzar artistry spread into the Kuban, where it had not existed before. The Kuban kobzars A. Chorny, V. Lyashenko, and D. Darnopykh became famous, and the bandura was introduced into the military orchestras of the Kuban kozaks. During the 1917 Revolution and subsequent Ukrainian-Russian War, kobzars composed and performed songs promoting the Ukrainian national cause and smuggled political literature; many paid for this with their lives. From July 1918 to 1919 the first Ukrainian bandurist ensemble existed briefly in Kyiv.

Under Soviet rule, the State Bandurist Kapelle of the Ukrainian SSR was established in Kyiv in 1927. The VUAN Ethnographic Commission and Cabinet of Musical Ethnography, particularly K. Kvitka, M. Hrinchenko, and K. Hrushevska, conducted important studies of the kobzars in the 1920's. In 1929 H. Epik published the novel Zustrich (The Rendezvous) depicting the persecution of the kobzars. In the 1930's, with forced collectivization, the man-made famine of 1932-3, and the Stalinist suppression of Ukrainian culture, the kobzars were again repressed. Party directives to create a new socialist folklore and 'Soviet' kobzars resulted in the Institute of Folklore-Sponsored First Republican Conference of Kobzars and Lirnyks in April 1939. Thirty-seven kobzars, including Pavlo Huz, F. Kusheryk, Yehor Movchan, Pavlo Nosach, Oleksander Markevych, Ye. Adamtsevych, S. Avramenko, and V. Perepliuk, were brought together to discuss 'the first examples of Soviet dumas and heroic songs and the task of creating a Soviet epos.' A number of such examples (e.g., 'Duma about the Communist Party,' 'Duma about Lenin') were composed with the institute's workers and members of Ukraine's writers' and composers' unions and performed at the conference's closing concert. The 'creators' were immediately inducted into the writers' union, and a Section of Folk Art was formed in the union to 'organize systematic creative and methodological assistance of kobzars and lirnyks.' Yet, as composer Dmitri Shostakovich testifies in his memoirs (Testimony, 1979), several hundred kobzars and lirnyks were brought to the congress from all parts of Ukraine and after the congress ended almost all of the were shot.

To hide this tragedy, the Institute of Folklore and the Kyiv Philharmonic jointly set up a State Ethnographic Kobzar Ensemble in early 1941, consisting of Ye. Movchan, P. Nosach, P. Huz, O. Markevych, V. Perepliuk, and I. Ivanchenko; M. Hrinchenko was appointed artistic director. During its brief existence, the ensemble performed throughout Ukraine and in Moscow until the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

During the Second World War, kobzars fought in the Red Army and various partisan units (e.g., O. Chupryna, S. Vlasko, D. Vovk, A. Bilotsky) and composed military-patriot songs. Since the war, many professional bandurists (e.g., F. Zharka, V. Perepliuk, and A. Hryshyn) have supplemented the folk kobzars. Bandura playing has been widely taught, and many amateur and professional ensembles have been created. In 1969 a large kobzar concert took place in Kyiv and the Alliance of Folk Bards-Kobzars was formed under the auspices of the Music Society of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1974 the alliance was transformed into a Section of Kobzars and Bandurists, with professional and amateur members. In 1975 and artistic council of bandurists was formed from among its members.

Kobzar artistry has been cultivated among Ukrainians in the West, thanks to the efforts of Vasyl Yemetz and Hryhory Kytasty, Petro Honcharenko, V. Kachurak, Zinovij Shtokalko, V. Levytsky, V. Lutsiv, Victor Mishalow, and other masters. Various bandurist ensembles exists in many countries in Europe and North America. In New York, Cleveland, Detroit, Edmonton, Chicago, and Toronto, there are bandura schools. Since 1982 the school in New York has published the journal Bandura. In Poland, kobzar artistry has successfully been propagated among Ukrainians through the efforts of A. Khraniuk. In Slovakia, there has been a group of female bandurists within the Duklia Ukrainian Folk Ensemble in Presov.