Product Code Database
A kobzar ( ; ) was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment. The professional kobzar tradition was established in Ukraine during the Cossack Era around the 16th century. Kobzari were often blind and became predominantly so by the 1800s. The word kobzar literally means 'player of kobza', a Ukrainian stringed instrument of the lute family. More broadly, the term is given for a performer of the musical material associated with the kobzar tradition.
In the 1800s, infant mortality was around 30%, with 40% of children dying before age two. Of those that survived, an unusually high number were blind due to the effects of poor health and disease. As Natalie Kononenko writes, being a Blind musicians was both a qualification for traditional kobzari, and also part of their effectiveness:
"The restrictions placed on traditional minstrelsy, the restrictions that permitted only blind people to become minstrels and kept ordinary folk from performing a certain set of songs, did not inhibit the profession. Rather, they contributed to its artistic power and especially to its spiritual effectiveness."
Learning the skills to be a kobzar took time and effort, and apprentice needs varied. Apprentices' intelligence and aptitude would affect the length of the apprenticeship. Older students might have a shorter apprenticeship because they'd already learned needed skills for survival while blind. Some apprentices with less aptitude might set out on their own without learning difficult songs including dumy. Others might seek an additional apprenticeship for additional skills. Upon completing an apprenticeship, apprentices were given the status of minstrel during a secret and closed initiation rite called a vyzvilka, following which they were allowed to perform as kobzar or lirnyk.
While boys, girls, men, and women could all be blind, only boys and men were allowed to learn and play instruments, and to sing epic poetry or other historical songs with relatively higher professional status. Though girls and women could be taught and allowed to sing, guilds believed men were more in need of money than women in order to support dependents, and as a result prohibited girls and women from performances with instruments or of epic poetry or historic songs (which earned performers more money). Women were considered to have better voices, which compensated for being restricted in what they were allowed to learn and perform.
Though poorly documented, there is evidence that women also learned epic poetry, historical song, and also learned to play the instruments, though they had to do so outside of guilds, and could only perform in the privacy of their homes. This privately held knowledge by women contributed to documentation and preservation of the tradition.
These guilds were thought to have been modelled on the Orthodox Church brotherhoods as each guild was associated with a specific church. These guilds then would take care of one church icon or purchase new religious ornaments for their affiliated church (Kononenko, p. 568–9).
Despite this effort and other efforts to eliminate kobzari through execution, kobzari were found difficult to eliminate. Other tactics used to end kobzardom included required registration of musical instruments, prohibition of begging, restrictions on musical performance, destruction of instruments, and imprisonment without food or water.
Soviet kobzars were stylised performers on the bandura created to replace the traditional authentic kobzari who had been wiped out in the 1930s. Early Soviet minstrels included Ehor Movchan, Fedir Kushneryk, Evhan Adamtsevych, and Avram Hrebin. These performers were often blind and although some actually had contact with the authentic kobzari of the previous generation, they were mostly self-taught, without apprenticeships, and worked from officially approved written texts. Their successors were likely not aware that oral transmission was possible.
Some received formal training in conservatories. Bandura performers during this era often performed in ensembles, different from the kobzari solo tradition. Their repertoire was primarily made up of censored versions of traditional kobzar repertoire and focused on stylized works that praised the Soviet Union system and Soviet heroes, including pressure to compose new dumy about Lenin and Stalin.
While traditional kobzari were blind, those reviving the tradition tend to be young, able to see, and with a focus on Ukrainian independence, seeking to celebrate Ukraine's history and nationhood.
In 2024, the Safeguarding programme of kobza and wheel lyre tradition was inscribed on the UNESCO Register of Good Safeguarding Practices.
The 12th Archeological Congress was held in Kharkiv, now in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. It was dedicated to Ukrainian folk music. During its preparation, the committee discussed a letter from Russian ethnographer Vsevolod Miller with the suggestion to using recently invented graphophone (Alexander Bell's version of phonograph, which used wax-coated cylinders). However, the suggestion was not accepted due to lack of money. Other people came with the same suggestion, both during the preparation and the sessions of the congress.
A team of Hnat Khotkevych (musicologist, bandurist, engineer, and ethnographer), Oleksandr Borodai (engineer and bandurist), and Opanas Slastion (artist and ethnographer), have eventually taken the job. Borodai bought several phonographs in America for his own money. The first records were taken for of the noted kobzar Mykhailo Kravchenko. However due to the conflict between Borodai and Khotkevych their work stopped in 1904.Довгалюк Ірина. Причинки до історії проекту фонографування дум // Етномузика: збірка статей та матеріалів / упорядники Ірина Довгалюк, Юрій Рибак. – Львів, 2008. – Ч.5. – С.9-26. – (Наукові збірки Львівської національної музичної академії ім.М.Лисенка. – Вип.22) "Ученые оцифровали кобзарские песни, записанные 100 лет назад" ("Scientist Digitized Kobzar Songs Recorder 100 Years Ago"), Корреспондент ( Correspondent magazine), no. 34, August 29, 2014 The work was restarted by the initiative Kvitka family, Kliment Kvitka and poet Lesya Ukrayinka, who put their money into the project. In 1908 they invited Ukrainian ethnographer Filaret Kolessa to do the job. "Леся Українка оплатила записи дум від кобзарів", gazeta.ua, 14 липня 2011
In later times there were attempts to recast the phonograph records by tape recording the phonograph playback. With the breakthroughs in non-destructive reading of wax cylinders, there were renewed attempts. In 2013, a member of the Wikimedia Ukraine team Yuri Bulka and folklorist Irina Dovgalyuk (who did research on Kolessa's collectionДовгалюк Ірина. "Фонографічні валики в архіві Філарета Колесси" // Етномузика: збірка статей та матеріалів / упорядник Богдан Луканюк. – Львів, 2011. – Ч.7. – С. 101-115. – (Наукові збірки Львівської національної академії ім.М.Лисенка. – Вип. 26) used a Wikimedia grant to digitize 56 cylinders and make the records available under the Creative Commons license.
In 1910 and 1913 Kolessa published two books of music deciphered from the collected phonograms. They were re-issued in 1969 as a book Мелодії українських народних дум ( Tunes of the Ukrainian Folk Dumas), now available in "crowd-digitized" form.
Notable kobzars
Notable kobzars prior to the end of the institution in the mid 1930s include Ostap Veresai, Petro Drevchenko, Hnat Honcharenko, Mykhailo Kravchenko, Petro Tkachenko, Stepan Pasiuha, and Ivan Kuchuhura-Kucherenko. Notable modern-era musicians include Yuriy Fedynsky, Taras Kompanichenko, and Eduard Drach.
Other uses of the term
The term kobzar has on occasion been used for hurdy-gurdy players in Belarus (where the hurdy-gurdy is often referred to as a 'kobza'. In Poland, the bagpipe is referred to as a 'kobza' or 'koza'.
In media
In 2014, director Oles Sanin released The Guide ( Povodyr) about the guide of a kobzar during the 1930s period of Stalin's holodomor in Soviet Ukraine. The film was nominated for a best foreign-language Academy Awards. It features a boy whose father is executed by Stalin's secret police and who is then saved by a blind kobzar.
See also
Sources
(1998). 9780765601445, M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 9780765601445
Further reading
External links
|
|
