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UKRAINIAN MUSIC

The Kobzar and the Bandura
To read more about the history of kobzar, bandura and kobzars, bandurists....

BANDURA. Because its development closely reflects the history of the Ukrainian nation, the bandura is more than a national musical instrument: It is the voice of Ukraine. 

From a musical perspective, the bandura unifies acoustic principles of both the lute and the harp. This produces a sound that is emphatic and gentle, resembling that of a harpsichord, but with a wider range of dynamics and tonal control. 

The instrument was first noted in a 6th century Greek chronicle in a reference to warriors from Ukrainian territories who played lute-like instruments. This lute-like instrument, called a kobza, was much smaller, more circular, and had fewer strings than the modern bandura. In time, more strings were added, some of which were strung along the side of the instrument. This made frets along its neck obsolete.
Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus on the web extensiv information about the bandura and it's history

The bandura is a traditional plucked-string musical instrument from Ukraine. Its timbre resembles a harpsichord's. Although similar-sounding names appear in numerous European and Asian languages (Examples: Spanish bandurria, pandura of Savetian and central Asian societies, Indic tambura, and English bandore), the Ukrainian bandura evolved from a line of lute-like instruments in Ukraine. An 11-th century fresco in Kiev city's Saint Sofia Cathedral shows a possible anscestor. The main distingushing characteristics are 1) the absence of frets, which means that each string can sound only one note, as in a harp, and 2) the presence of treble strings stretched over the soundboard, off center from the bass strings which run along the neck. The result is an asymmetric body. As a homemade folk instrument, there are variations in the pattern.

From 15th to 18th centuries, bandura was played by kobzars (wandering minstrels, usually blind and sometimes led by a child), and kozaks (cossacks, or free warriors). In the villages and towns, kobzars sang epic songs (dumy) about the people's exploits and relations with Turks and Tatars, and later of their troubles with the Polish regime. Because the kobzars were a nationalistic force, the Soviet Union government liquidated them in the 1930s.
BANDURA, A UKRAINIAN INSTRUMENT, by Stephen Schoenfeldt

The bandura is a traditional Ukrainian instrument, and it is very closely and deeply tied to its culture and history. It developed in the 17th century (or so) as an instrument played by the kobzari (bards) to accompany their performance of dumy (epic songs), historical songs, and other repertoire.

In the early years of the twentieth century, musicians such as Hnat Khotkevych changed both the physical design of the instrument (e.g. making the neck placement asymmetric, replacing the wooden tuning pegs with metal ones, adding more strings) and its repertoire (by organizing the first bandura ensembles and composing new music for the instrument).
Michael Andrec, bandurist and composer

Music samples are found on the Ukrainian online music shop Umka. They offer the best service, reasonable prices and worldwide shipping.

Serhiy Zakharec'. Kobzars'kyj monoloh. Today he is called one of the best bandura players in the world.
Oj ty, ptàshko
Oj nà hori, nà mohyli
Vesnjankà
Jihàv kozàk nà vijnon'ku

Taras Kompanichenko. Kobza- and Lyre-Playing Tradition. "As of today Taras Kompanichenko is the only folk bandura-player in Ukraine (and maybe in the world as well), who is a proficient performer of traditional kobza repertoire in its entirety 9 dumas, a considerable quantity of canticles, psalms, historical ballads and calendar songs.
A Dance (with a didivska tune)
About Bondarivna (A ballad)
The Captive Girl (A ballad)
Oleksiy - a man of God (To Aleksiy) (A canticle)

That who mighty relies upon God... I know nothing about other cities, but nowadays, as hundred years ago, in the streets of Kyiv, just in the open air, one may hear again how kobza-player or bandura-player plays and sings to the God and to people. Of course, not necessarily blind, but the colouring is no less rich. You would not probably hear them in any other country, except Ukraine. But still it is worth while it because kobza-players, bandura-players and lyre-players themselves were unsurpassed bearers of sadness and wisdom of Ukrainian ways, both earthly and heavenly.
Hrystu nà kresti (kobzà) (Volodymyr Kushpet)
Oj, hore, hore ... (kobzà) (À. Bilous)
Oj. po-pid mostom, mostom... (lirà) (V. Shevchuk) 
Pro stràshnyj sud (bàndurà) (Mykola Budnyk.)

The Last Kobzari. Take a step through the curtain of ages, and discover: how they thought, how they acted, and for what purpose they lay down their lives. They were called “God's sages”. Kobzari - wan­dering folk bards and court musicians. Churylo, the first kobzar whose name is docu­mented in the chronicles of 1498, was a court musician of the Polish King Sigmund the First. The duma (pronounced dooma) represents the highest form of musical recitative, an unique phenomenon of Slavic folklore. The kobzar art, whose roots date back thou­sands of years to the Kyivan Rus is perhaps the most colorful, emotional and intricate facet of Ukrainian traditional culture.
Through My Gates. Ukrainian folk song (Yevhen Adamtsevych)
There Is No Truth in the World. Old-world kobzar song (Heorhiy Tkachenko)

The lira is heared occassionally.

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UKRAINIAN LITTERATURE

The "KOBZAR", the title given to Taras Shevchenko's collected works, also refers to the wealth of traditional songs which the Ukrainian Bandura minstrels carried in their hearts as they travelled over Ukrainia, singing in the villages and fields. They were generally older men, often blind, who embodied the beautiful song-heritage of the Ukrainian people for whom the Bandura was the national instrument. 

It is worth noting that Stalin, always fond of treachary, devised a typically devilish scheme: he advertised an immense "festival" for this old minstrels, calling them from all corners of Ukrainia. When these blind men were finally gathered together for this historic "peoples" event, Stalin had the Russian machine-gunners murder every last one of them. And so ended a centuries-old tradition... as well as an irreplacable treasure of melodies and stories.

Taras Shevchenko: The Ukrainian Writer and national poet Taras Shevchenko was born on March 9, 1814 in the Ukrainian village of Moryntsi. His parents were serfs and lived in bitter poverty; both died before Taras was twelve years old. What saved the boy from being submerged in the sea of indigence were his native intelligence and artistic talent. The overseer of the estate selected him for duties in the manor house of the landowner, Engelhardt, to whose young son Shevchenko became a page-boy. The new duties provided Shevchenko with the opportunity of travelling in the retinue of his master and of copying pictures and works of art. When Engelhardt discovered his serf's unusual skill he promptly apprenticed him to various painters as he travelled to Vilno, Warsaw and St. Petersburg. It was in St. Petersburg that Shevchenko's talent was noticed by some of his compatriots who were eager to see him enrolled as a student at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. This was impossible as long as Shevchenko was a serf. On the initiative of some professors and friends the money necessary to purchase his freedom was raised and in 1838 Shevchenko was liberated from serfdom. 

The successes which Shevchenko attained as a student at the Academy did not satisfy him. Sometime in the late 1830's he started to write poetry, at first ballads and lyrics in the current vogue of Romanticism, and later historical poems depicting the past glories of the Cossack Ukraine. Soon he directed his pen against the social injustices of his own time and above all against the political and cultural oppression of the Ukraine by the Russians. In 1840 his first collection of poems, Kobzar, stirred a wide response among his countrymen. Gradually, Shevchenko became an uncompromising revolutionary, a member of the liberal Ukrainian society, the Brotherhood of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, and a rebel with a definite cause. His plea was not merely for the political independence of the Ukraine, but for a just new order among all Slavs.

Shevchenko was never narrowly nationalistic, for his hope lay in the regeneration of charity, tolerance and freedom among all men. In his satires he castigated with equal venom both the Russian rulers and bureaucrats and his opportunistic and philistine countrymen. His popularity in the Ukraine he owed also to his simple yet highly poetic language which laid the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature. 

In 1847 Shevchenko was arrested and charged with belonging to an illegal society and with writing insolent, revolutionary poetry. He was sentenced to serve as a private soldier in the Orenburg district. The tsar, in his own handwriting, demanded that the poet be placed "under the strictest supervision with a prohibition of writing and sketching." For the next ten years Shevchenko lived the life of an exile under the military discipline of the Empire he hated so much. However, he managed to write secretly and even to paint. The poems from that period show a more detached and philosophic attitude to life; his hostility to the regime was unchanged. After his release in 1857, Shevchenko was in poor health and he died, unmarried, in St. Petersburg on March 10, 1861. 

See also...
Taras Shevchenko Museum, Canada
Taras Shevchenko Image Gallery