Genres & Forms
Kobzar
The kobzar was a Ukrainian folk singer-musician who performed dumas, historical songs, psalms, and satirical songs to the accompaniment of the kobza or bandura. Kobzars, often blind, united in guild-brotherhoods with their own statute, a secret 'lebiy language,' and an initiation rite for apprentices; they were the bearers and guardians of folk historical memory. The most famous kobzars were Ostap Veresai, whom Mykola Lysenko heard and transcribed, Ivan Kriukovsky, Hnat Honcharenko, and Mykhailo Kravchenko. In the 1930s the Soviet authorities destroyed the tradition, repressing the kobzars. The word 'Kobzar' became the title of Taras Shevchenko's programmatic collection (1840), a symbol of all Ukrainian poetry. The art of modern kobzarstvo is being revived in bandurist ensembles and is part of the UNESCO heritage.
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Meaning, origins and distinction — side by side.
Distinction
Two types of Ukrainian folk singers differing in instrument and repertoire. The kobzar performs dumas, historical and Cossack songs to the KOBZA or BANDURA; his repertoire has a pronounced heroic, epic component. The lirnyk sings to the LIRA (hurdy-gurdy) mostly RELIGIOUS psalms, kanty and moral-didactic songs. Both were often blind and gathered in guilds with a secret argot. The kobzar is closer to the Cossack epos; the lirnyk, to the spiritual-mendicant tradition.
