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143-452: A bandura ( Ukrainian : бандура ) is a Ukrainian plucked-string folk-instrument . It combines elements of the zither and lute and, up until the 1940s, was also often called a kobza . Early instruments ( c.  1700 ) had 5 to 12 strings and resembled lutes. In the 20th century, the number of strings increased initially to 31 strings (1926), then to 56 strings – 68 strings on modern "concert" instruments (1954). Musicians who play

286-437: A diatonic scale across the soundboard . The bandura existed in this form relatively unchanged until the early 20th century. Up until the 20th century, the bandura repertoire was an oral tradition based primarily on vocal works sung to the accompaniment of the bandura. These included folk songs, chants, psalms, and epics known as dumy . Some folk dance tunes were also part of the repertoire. The instrument became popular in

429-467: A kobzar or lirnyk , the minstrel was blind. Kobzari and lirnyki were considered the same category of minstrel, belonging to the same guilds and sharing songs. The institution of the kobzardom essentially ended in the Ukrainian SSR in the mid 1930s during Stalin's radical transformation of rural society which included the liquidation of the kobzars of Ukraine. In the 1930s during the period of

572-610: A body of national literature, institute a Ukrainian-language educational system, and form an independent state (the Ukrainian People's Republic , shortly joined by the West Ukrainian People's Republic ). During this brief independent statehood the stature and use of Ukrainian greatly improved. In the Russian Empire Census of 1897 the following picture emerged, with Ukrainian being the second most spoken language of

715-453: A certain set of songs, did not inhibit the profession. Rather, they contributed to its artistic power and especially to its spiritual effectiveness." In rural life, everyone was expected to contribute to survival, with farm labor being the most important. The blind, unable to help with these tasks aside from rope work, developed an alternate source of income as performers. To learn the necessary skills, blind children could be apprenticed to

858-586: A closer lexical distance to West Slavic Polish and South Slavic Bulgarian . Ukrainian is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language spoken in the medieval state of Kievan Rus' . In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , the language developed into Ruthenian , where it became an official language, before a process of Polonization began in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . By the 18th century, Ruthenian diverged into regional variants, and

1001-648: A cultural or religious reference to cloth ( rushnyky ). Psalmy were religious songs, not necessarily psalms, on the subject of the Bible or religion. Like zhebranka, psalmy also often repeated the theme of the brevity of life, in addition to the afterlife, and hope and help in the form of the women (Mary and Mary Magdalene) and Saint Nicholas ( Mykolai ). Sometimes these para-liturgical songs are called "kanty." Istorychni pisni and dumy are historical songs of form similar to psalmy, and related historical events and epic stories of Cossack heroes which were important on

1144-460: A film called The Guide ( Povodyr ) about the guide of a kobzar during the 1930s period of Stalin's holodomor in Soviet Ukraine. This film was nominated for a best foreign-language Oscar . The plot features a boy whose father is executed by Stalin's secret police and who is subsequently saved by a blind Ukrainian folk minstrel, a kobzar . Many kobzari were married, and a kobzar with

1287-805: A gradual change of the Old East Slavic vowel system into the system found in modern Ukrainian began approximately in the 12th/13th century (that is, still at the time of the Kievan Rus') with a lengthening and raising of the Old East Slavic mid vowels e and o when followed by a consonant and a weak yer vowel that would eventually disappear completely, for example Old East Slavic котъ /kɔtə/ > Ukrainian кіт /kit/ 'cat' (via transitional stages such as /koˑtə̆/, /kuˑt(ə̆)/, /kyˑt/ or similar) or Old East Slavic печь /pʲɛtʃʲə/ > Ukrainian піч /pitʃ/ 'oven' (via transitional stages such as /pʲeˑtʃʲə̆/, /pʲiˑtʃʲ/ or similar). This raising and other phonological developments of

1430-665: A gully outside of the city limits. The location of this atrocity has recently been discovered on the territory of recreation building owned by the KGB (or the NKVD ) in the area of Piatykhatky, Kharkiv Oblast . A monument has also been erected in the centre of Kharkiv to mark this tragic event. After World War II, and particularly after the death of Joseph Stalin , these restrictions were somewhat relaxed and bandura courses were again re-established in music schools and conservatories in Ukraine, initially at

1573-472: A license. Restrictions were also placed on accommodations that were not registered and also on the manufacturing or making of banduras without a license. In July, 1929, many Ukrainian intellectuals were arrested for being supposed members of the (very likely fictional) Union for the Liberation of Ukraine . A number of prominent bandurists disappeared at about this time. Most of these bandurists had taken part in

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1716-450: A man sitting cross-legged and playing a kobza . The hairstyle is often a chupryna of Kozak style. Various items often surround Kozak Mamai including a horse, a tree, a rifle, a sword, and a gunpowder horn, and sometimes a bottle and cup. Sometimes other individuals such as a woman or other kozaks surround Kozak Mamai, who is deep in thought and reflection. While the historical certainty of this image cannot be established, it represents

1859-412: A personal or national level. The satirical songs were not performed by all minstrels, and always outside serious performance. Kobzari were generally itinerant, tending to have a "circuit" of villages that would be visited regularly, going house to house until finding company that had something to share and welcomed the visit. They would not beg in their own village, and when traveling, would stay in

2002-637: A policy of defending Ukraine's interests within the Soviet Union. He proudly promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and developed plans to expand the role of Ukrainian in higher education. He was removed, however, after only a brief tenure, for being too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism. The new party boss from 1972 to 1989, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky , purged the local party, was fierce in suppressing dissent, and insisted Russian be spoken at all official functions, even at local levels. His policy of Russification

2145-636: A popular instrument of the Ukrainian Cossacks in the Hetmanate . After the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich , the instrument continued to be played by wandering, blind musicians known as kobzari in Right-bank Ukraine . With the growing appreciation of bandurist capellas as an art form came the accelerated development of technology related to the performance on the bandura. At the beginning of

2288-527: A professional beggar, either a kobzar or lirnyk . The first stage of training consisted of how to physically live and survive in the world being blind. Next, the apprentice would learn songs to be performed, and the etiquette of begging. The normal time for an apprenticeship was three years. Training for girls ended with singing; only males were allowed to learn to play instruments and learn to sing epic songs. Because apprentices could not see, they had to be taught to play instruments by touch. Learning

2431-555: A result of close Slavic contacts with the remnants of the Scythian and Sarmatian population north of the Black Sea , lasting into the early Middle Ages , the appearance of the voiced fricative γ/г (romanized "h"), in modern Ukrainian and some southern Russian dialects is explained by the assumption that it initially emerged in Scythian and related eastern Iranian dialects, from earlier common Proto-Indo-European *g and *gʰ . During

2574-403: 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

2717-624: A self-aware Ukrainian nation would threaten the unity of the empire. In 1804 Ukrainian as a subject and language of instruction was banned from schools. In 1811, by order of the Russian government, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was closed. In 1847 the Brotherhood of St Cyril and Methodius was terminated. The same year Taras Shevchenko was arrested, exiled for ten years, and banned for political reasons from writing and painting. In 1862 Pavlo Chubynsky

2860-597: A special delegation was sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs from the Imperial Archaeological Society. Sanctions introduced by the Russian government in 1876 ( Ems ukaz ) that severely restricted the use of Ukrainian language and in point 4, also restricted the use of the bandura on the concert stage since all of the repertoire was sung in Ukrainian. Many bandurists and kobzars were systematically persecuted by

3003-460: A system of rigorous apprenticeships (usually three years in length) before undergoing the first set of open examinations in order to become a kobzar . Among the marks of professional competence necessary to gain entry to a guild was mastery of a secret guild language known as the lebiiska mova . These guilds were thought to have been modelled on the Orthodox Church brotherhoods as each guild

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3146-883: A variant name of the Little Russian language . In a private letter from 1854, Taras Shevchenko lauds "our splendid Ukrainian language". Valuyev's decree from 1863 derides the "Little Russian" language throughout, but also mentions "the so-called Ukrainian language" once. In Galicia, the earliest applications of the term Ukrainian to the language were in the hyphenated names Ukrainian-Ruthenian (1866, by Paulin Święcicki ) or Ruthenian-Ukrainian (1871, by Panteleimon Kulish and Ivan Puluj ), with non-hyphenated Ukrainian language appearing shortly thereafter (in 1878, by Mykhailo Drahomanov ). A following ban on Ukrainian books led to Alexander II 's secret Ems Ukaz , which prohibited publication and importation of most Ukrainian-language books, public performances and lectures, and even banned

3289-413: A wife and children was considered normal. 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

3432-481: Is Shpyliasti Kobzari . Most of compositions of Tin Sontsia contains bandura sound. That instrument sounds in some of HASPYD tracks. The back of a traditional bandura is usually carved from a solid piece of wood (either willow , poplar , cherry or maple ). Since the 1960s, glued-back instruments have also become common; even more recently, banduras have begun to be constructed with fiberglass backs. The soundboard

3575-637: Is also offered in all music colleges and most music schools, and it is now possible to get advanced degrees specialising in bandura performance and pedagogy . The most renowned of these establishments are the Kyiv and Lviv conservatories and the Kyiv University of Culture , primarily because of their well-established staff. Other centers of rising prominence are the Odessa Conservatory and Kharkiv University of Culture . The main modern band that plays bandura

3718-625: Is based on the character of contemporary written sources, ultimately reflecting socio-historical developments, and he further subdivides the Middle period into three phases: Ukraine annually marks the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language on 9 November, the Eastern Orthodox feast day of Nestor the Chronicler . The era of Kievan Rus' ( c. 880–1240) is the subject of some linguistic controversy, as

3861-524: Is marked by re-establishing the Kobzar Guild as a centre for the dissemination of historical authentic performance practice. 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. The idea of the preservation of kobzar music by means of sound recording originated in 1901–02. The 12th Archeological Congress

4004-609: Is referred to as "Old Ukrainian", but elsewhere, and in contemporary sources, is known as the Ruthenian language, and from the end of the 18th century to the present what in Ukraine is known as "Modern Ukrainian", but elsewhere is known as just Ukrainian. Kobzar The professional kobzar tradition was established during the Hetmanate Era around the sixteenth century in Ukraine . Kobzari were often blind and became predominantly so by

4147-597: Is the first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians . Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet , a variant of the Cyrillic script . The standard language is studied by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and Potebnia Institute of Linguistics . Comparisons are often made between Ukrainian and Russian , another East Slavic language, yet there is more mutual intelligibility with Belarusian , and

4290-480: Is traditionally made from a type of spruce . The wrest planks and bridge are made from hard woods such as birch . The instrument was originally a diatonic instrument and, despite the addition of chromatic strings in the 1920s, it has continued to be played as a diatonic instrument. Most contemporary concert instruments have a mechanism that allows for rapid re-tuning of the instrument into different keys. These mechanisms were first included in concert instruments in

4433-535: The Communist Party of Soviet Union (bolsheviks) began to fight against presumed nationalist tendencies within the local Communist parties. In 1927, the Central Committee decreed that Russian was a special language within the Soviet Union. By 1928, restrictions came into force that directly affected the lifestyle of the traditional kobzars, and stopped them from traveling without a passport and performing without

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4576-493: The Greek pandora or pandura ; some scholars believe the term was introduced directly from Greek. The use of the term bandore (or bandora ) stems from a now discredited assumption, initially made by Russian musicologist A. Famintsyn, that the word was borrowed directly from England. The word appeared in early 20th century Soviet Ukrainian-English and Russian-English dictionaries . Eastern European string instruments such as

4719-825: The Holodomor , on the order of Stalin, the Soviet authorities called on all Ukrainian Kobzars to attend a congress in Kharkiv . Those that arrived were taken outside the city and were all put to death. This event was not covered in the Soviet press which complicates precise documentary evidence. 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. Kobzar performance

4862-545: The Kyiv conservatory under the direction of Khotkevych's student Volodymyr Kabachok , who had returned to Kyiv after being released from a gulag labour camp in Kolyma . After the death of Stalin, the draconian policies of the Soviet administration were halted. Many bandurists who, during that period, had been persecuted were " rehabilitated ". Some of those exiled returned to Ukraine. Conservatory courses were re-established and, in time,

5005-719: The Latin language. Much of the influence of Poland on the development of the Ukrainian language has been attributed to this period and is reflected in multiple words and constructions used in everyday Ukrainian speech that were taken from Polish or Latin. Examples of Polish words adopted from this period include zavzhdy (always; taken from old Polish word zawżdy ) and obitsiaty (to promise; taken from Polish obiecać ) and from Latin (via Polish) raptom (suddenly) and meta (aim or goal). Significant contact with Tatars and Turks resulted in many Turkic words, particularly those involving military matters and steppe industry, being adopted into

5148-547: The Lviv factory . In the mid-1970s artificial fingernails were also developed which allowed the bandurist to perform more professionally. In the 1960s the foundation of the modern professional bandura technique and repertoire were laid by Bashtan based on work he had done with students from the Kyiv Conservatory . Professional Ukrainian composers only started composing seriously for the instrument after World War II and specifically in

5291-561: The Muz-Dram Institute in 1926 and in Kyiv in 1938. Vasyl Yemetz established in 1923, a bandura school in Prague, with over 60 students. By 1932–33, however, the Soviets tried to control the rise of Ukrainian self-awareness with severe restrictions on Ukrainian urban folk culture. Bandura classes in Ukraine were disbanded, and many bandurists were repressed by the Soviet government. In 1926,

5434-557: The Novgorod Republic did not call themselves Rus ' until the 14th century; earlier Novgorodians reserved the term Rus ' for the Kiev , Pereyaslavl and Chernigov principalities. At the same time as evidenced by contemporary chronicles, the ruling princes and kings of Galicia–Volhynia and Kiev called themselves "people of Rus ' " (in foreign sources called " Ruthenians "), and Galicia–Volhynia has alternately been called

5577-573: The XIIth Archeological Conference held in Kharkiv in 1902. It was believed that the last blind kobzar, ( Ostap Veresai ) had died in 1890; however, upon investigation, six blind traditional kobzars were found to be alive and performed on stage at the conference. Thereafter, the rise in Ukrainian self-awareness popularized the bandura, particularly among young students and intellectuals. Gut strings were replaced by metal strings, which became

5720-437: The hurdy-gurdy are occasionally referred to as banduras, and the five-string guitar as a bandurka . The use of lute-like stringed instruments by Ukrainians dates back to 591. In that year, Byzantine Greek chronicles mention Bulgar warriors who travelled with lute-like instruments they called kitharas . There are iconographic depictions of lute-like instruments in the 11th-century frescoes of Saint Sophia's Cathedral ,

5863-502: The kobzar until old enough to learn a skill or trade, which was often making musical instruments due to their experience from kobzari . A kobza r' s own children might serve as guide while still too young to provide farm labor, though would not usually follow their father into the minstrelry. The children of a kobzar would often try to convince their father to stay home as soon as they were able themselves to earn enough money for them to do so. In 2014, director Oles Sanin released

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6006-399: The law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" was approved by the parliament, formalizing rules governing the usage of the language and introducing penalties for violations. The literary Ukrainian language, which was preceded by Old East Slavic literature, may be subdivided into two stages: during the 12th to 18th centuries what in Ukraine

6149-471: The trecento . Filippo Villani writes in his Liber de civitatis Florentiae , "...[Landini] invented a new sort of instrument, a cross between lute and psaltery, which he called the serena serenarum , an instrument that produces an exquisite sound when its strings are struck." Rare iconographic evidence (by artists such as Alessandro Magnasco ) reveals that such instruments were still in use in Italy ca. 1700. In

6292-425: The 11th–12th century, but started becoming more similar to them around the 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorod dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kievan Rus', whereas the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way. Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky denies

6435-451: The 13th century, eastern parts of Rus (including Moscow) came under Tatar rule until their unification under the Tsardom of Muscovy , whereas the south-western areas (including Kyiv ) were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . For the following four centuries, the languages of the two regions evolved in relative isolation from each other. Direct written evidence of the existence of

6578-666: The 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of the Kingdom of Ruthenia, German words began to appear in the language spoken in Ukraine. Their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts. Examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh ("roof"), rura ("pipe"), rynok ("market"), kushnir ("furrier"), and majster ("master" or "craftsman"). In

6721-492: 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, blindness 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

6864-416: The 1800s. Kobzar literally means ' kobza player', a Ukrainian stringed instrument of the lute family, and more broadly — a performer of the musical material associated with the kobzar tradition. Kobzari also played the bandura , an instrument which was likely developed from the kobza . Kozak Mamai ( Ukrainian : Козак Мамай) is a popular and iconic image that has many variants, but usually features

7007-420: The 1930s, bandurists were constantly being arrested and taken off for questioning which may have lasted some months. Many were constantly harassed by the authorities. While until around 1934 those incriminated received relatively light sentences of 2–5 years, after 1936, the sentences were often fatal and immediate – death by shooting. In 1937–38, large numbers of bandurists were executed. Documents have survived of

7150-629: The 1930s, there was also a wave of arrests of bandurists in the Kuban. Many of these arrested bandurists received relatively "light" sentences of 5–10 years camp detentions or exile, usually in Siberia. In the 1930s, the authentic kobzar tradition of wandering musicians in Ukraine came to an end. In this period, documents attest to the fact that a large number of non-blind bandurists were also arrested at this time, however they received relatively light sentences of 2–5 years in penal colonies or exile. In January 1934,

7293-414: The 1950-70's, including such composers as Mykola Dremliuha , Anatoly Kolomiyetz , Yuriy Oliynyk and Kost Miaskov , who have created complex works such as sonatas , suites , and concerti for the instrument. In recent times, more Ukrainian composers have started to incorporate the bandura in their orchestral works, with traditional Ukrainian folk operas such as Natalka Poltavka being re-scored for

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7436-432: The 1960s, total Communist Party control of the bandura art was achieved. A period of feminisation of the bandura took place where males were not accepted into conservatory courses to study the bandura. The repertoire of those that played the bandura underwent a major change from history songs and epics to romantic love and lyric works and transcriptions of classical piano works. After World War II , two factories dominated

7579-527: The 20th century the instrument was thought to have gone into total disuse. At that time it had some 20 strings with wooden pegs (4 basses and 16 prystrunky). The volume obtained from the instrument was not loud enough for the concert stage. In 1918–20 a number of bandurists were shot by Bolsheviks after the October Revolution , during the Russian Civil War . Most of these bandurists were members of

7722-589: The Cossack motherland, Ukrajina , as a self-appellation for the nation of Ukrainians, and Ukrajins'ka mova for the language. Many writers published works in the Romantic tradition of Europe demonstrating that Ukrainian was not merely a language of the village but suitable for literary pursuits. However, in the Russian Empire expressions of Ukrainian culture and especially language were repeatedly persecuted for fear that

7865-617: The Hetman state in left-bank Ukraine, the bandura underwent significant transformations with the development of a professional class of itinerant blind musicians called kobzars . The first mentions of an institution for the study of bandura playing date back to 1738, to a music academy in Hlukhiv where the bandura and violin were taught to be played from sheet music. This was the first music school in Eastern Europe and prepared musicians and singers for

8008-544: The Orthodox church spoke Ruthenian. The 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement between Cossack Hetmanate and Alexis of Russia divided Ukraine between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia. During the following century, both monarchies became increasingly intolerant of Ukrainian own cultural and political aspirations. Ukrainians found themselves in a colonial situation. The Russian centre adopted

8151-559: The Polish nobility. Many Ukrainian nobles learned the Polish language and converted to Catholicism during that period in order to maintain their lofty aristocratic position. Lower classes were less affected because literacy was common only in the upper class and clergy. The latter were also under significant Polish pressure after the Union with the Catholic Church . Most of the educational system

8294-530: The Principality or Kingdom of Ruthenia. Also according to Andrey Zaliznyak, the Novgorodian dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kievan Rus during the 11th–12th century, but started becoming more similar to them around 13th–15th centuries. The modern Russian language hence developed from the fusion of this Novgorodian dialect and the common dialect spoken by the other Kievan Rus, whereas

8437-585: The Revolution of 1918 on the side of the Ukrainian National Republic. With the prosecution of the members of the organization for the Liberation of Ukraine, a number of bandurists and also people who had helped organize bandura ensembles were included. Some were arrested and sent to camps in Siberia. Others were sent to dig the White Sea Canal. Some bandurists were able to escape from these camps. In

8580-608: The Russian Empire. According to the Imperial census's terminology, the Russian language ( Русскій ) was subdivided into Ukrainian (Малорусскій, ' Little Russian '), what is known as Russian today (Великорусскій, ' Great Russian '), and Belarusian (Бѣлорусскій, 'White Russian'). The following table shows the distribution of settlement by native language ( "по родному языку" ) in 1897 in Russian Empire governorates ( guberniyas ) that had more than 100,000 Ukrainian speakers. Although in

8723-460: The Soviet Union and a special term, "a language of inter-ethnic communication", was coined to denote its status. After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the past was implemented (1958 to 1963). The Khrushchev era which followed saw a policy of relatively lenient concessions to development of the languages at the local and republic level, though its results in Ukraine did not go nearly as far as those of

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8866-460: The Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s. Journals and encyclopedic publications advanced in the Ukrainian language during the Khrushchev era, as well as transfer of Crimea under Ukrainian SSR jurisdiction. Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction for their children, unpopular among the circles of the national intelligentsia in parts of

9009-523: The Tsarist Court in St Petersburg. The construction and playing technique were adapted to accommodate its primary role as accompaniment to the solo singing voice. By the mid 18th century, the instrument had developed into a form with approximately four to six stoppable strings strung along the neck (with or without frets ) (tuned in 4ths) and up to sixteen treble strings, known as prystrunky , strung in

9152-543: The USSR, meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way to Russian in light of the pressures of survival and advancement. The gains of the past, already largely reversed by the Stalin era, were offset by the liberal attitude towards the requirement to study the local languages (the requirement to study Russian remained). Parents were usually free to choose the language of study of their children (except in few areas where attending

9295-430: The Ukrainian government decreed that the capital of the republic would move to Kyiv. As all government departments were moved, many government organizations did not work correctly or efficiently for significant periods of time. In the move, many important documents were lost and misplaced. From January, the artists of the state funded Bandurist Capellas stopped being paid for their work. By October, without receiving any pay,

9438-564: The Ukrainian language dates to the late 16th century. By the 16th century, a peculiar official language formed: a mixture of the liturgical standardised language of Old Church Slavonic , Ruthenian and Polish . The influence of the latter gradually increased relative to the former two, as the nobility and rural large-landowning class, known as the szlachta , was largely Polish-speaking. Documents soon took on many Polish characteristics superimposed on Ruthenian phonetics. Polish–Lithuanian rule and education also involved significant exposure to

9581-415: The Ukrainian language held the formal position of the principal local language in the Ukrainian SSR . However, practice was often a different story: Ukrainian always had to compete with Russian, and the attitudes of the Soviet leadership towards Ukrainian varied from encouragement and tolerance to de facto banishment. Officially, there was no state language in the Soviet Union until the very end when it

9724-465: The Ukrainian language. Examples include torba (bag) and tyutyun (tobacco). Because of the substantial number of loanwords from Polish, German, Czech and Latin, early modern vernacular Ukrainian ( prosta mova , " simple speech ") had more lexical similarity with West Slavic languages than with Russian or Church Slavonic. By the mid-17th century, the linguistic divergence between the Ukrainian and Russian languages had become so significant that there

9867-409: The Ukrainian school might have required a long daily commute) and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting Russification. In this sense, some analysts argue that it was not the "oppression" or "persecution", but rather the lack of protection against the expansion of Russian language that contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in the 1970s and 1980s. According to this view, it

10010-464: The assumption that the original composers and singers of dumy were military musicians associated with the Kozaks . While prior to the 1800s, there is evidence of performers able to see, blindness was a requirement to become a kobzar in the 1800s, as the social role of kobzar was both profession and social welfare for those who were unable to contribute to farm work. Only men could become kobzari. In

10153-459: The authorities controlling Ukraine at various times. This was because of the association of the bandura with specific aspects of Ukrainian history , and also the prevalence of religious elements in the kobzar repertoire that eventually was adopted by the latter-day bandurists. Much of the unique repertoire of the kobzars idealized the legacy of the Ukrainian Cossacks . A significant section of

10296-503: The bandura also severely restricted the number of male bandurists able to study the bandura at a professional level (kobzarstvo had originally been an exclusively male domain). This was perplexing as there was only one professional ensemble and it was made up exclusively of male players. The feminization of the instrument influenced a significant change in the repertoire of the bandurist from a heroic epic tradition to one singing romances. Restrictions existed in obtaining instruments and control

10439-462: The bandura are referred to as bandurists . In the 19th and early 20th centuries traditional bandura players, often blind, were called kobzars . It is suggested that the instrument developed as a hybrid of gusli (Eastern-European psaltery ) and kobza (Eastern-European lute). Some also consider the kobza as a type or an instrument resembling the bandura . The term bandura occurs in Polish chronicles from 1441. The hybridization, however, occurred in

10582-504: 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

10725-420: The bandura. Contemporary works such as Kupalo by Y. Stankovych and The Sacred Dnipro by Valery Kikta also incorporated the bandura as part of the orchestra. Western composers of Ukrainian background, such as Oliynyk and Peter Senchuk , have also composed serious works for the bandura. Today, all the conservatories of music in Ukraine offer courses majoring in bandura performance. Bandura instruction

10868-414: The bandurist to retune his instrument quickly in a variety of more distinct keys. In 1926, a collection of bandura compositions compiled by Mykhailo Teliha was published in Prague. Hnat Khotkevych also prepared a number of collections of pieces for the bandura in 1928; however, because of dramatic political changes within the Soviet Union, none of these collections was published. Although workshops for

11011-479: The capital of the Kievan Rus' . It is not known by what specific term these instruments were referred to in those early times, although it has been surmised that the lute-like instrument was referred to by the generic medieval Slavic term for a string instrument—" husli ". Up until the mid 18th century, the instrument known as the bandura had frets and was played in a manner similar to the lute or guitar. The instrument

11154-407: The chancellery and gradually evolved into the Ruthenian language. Polish rule, which came later, was accompanied by a more assimilationist policy. By the 1569 Union of Lublin that formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to Polish administration, resulting in cultural Polonization and visible attempts to colonize Ukraine by

11297-437: The classes in 1912 with Hnat Khotkevych ; however, the death of Mykola Lysenko and Khotkevych's subsequent exile in 1912 prevented this from happening. Khotkevych published the first primer for the bandura in Lviv in 1909. It was followed by a number of other primers specifically written for the instrument, most notably those by Mykhailo Domontovych , Vasyl Shevchenko and Vasyl Ovchynnikov , published in 1913–14. In 1910,

11440-526: 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. Kobzar is a seminal book of poetry by Taras Shevchenko , the great national poet of Ukraine . The term "kobzar" has on occasion been used for hurdy-gurdy players in Belarus (where the hurdy-gurdy is often referred to as

11583-550: The cossack past, and songs with any hint of a nationalistic sub-text. Some bandurists rose in the ranks of the Communist Party to become high-level administrators. (e.g. Serhiy Bashtan was the first secretary of the Communist Party at the Kyiv conservatory for over 30 years and, in that position, restricted the development of many aspects of Ukrainian culture in the premier music establishment in Ukraine). A policy of feminization of

11726-689: The courts of the nobility in Eastern Europe. There are numerous citations mentioning the existence of Ukrainian bandurists in both Russia and Poland. Empress Elisabeth of Russia (the daughter of Peter the Great ) had a long-standing relationship and maybe a morganatic marriage with her Ukrainian court bandurist, Olexii Rozumovsky . In 1908, the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama in Kyiv began offering classes in bandura playing, instructed by kobzar Ivan Kuchuhura Kucherenko . Kucherenko taught briefly until 1911, and attempts were made to reopen

11869-485: The deaths of numerous kobzars such as I. Kucherenko to the German-Nazi occupation. Recent documents have disproved most of these versions of their deaths. In the 1950s, a number of bandurists also either died or disappeared under strange and unexplained circumstances. Some had accidents (Singalevych, Kukhta, Konyk). A significant number, approximately 30–50 bandurists, were also deported to Siberia from Western Ukraine. By

12012-461: The decree was specifically aimed at preventing all music, including ethnographic performances in Ukrainian. As a result, blind professional musicians such as the kobzars turned to the street for their sustenance. In the major Russian speaking cities, they were often treated like common street beggars by the non-Ukrainian population, being arrested and having their instruments destroyed. The restrictions and brutal persecution were only halted in 1902 after

12155-407: The existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past. Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko , Vsevolod Hantsov , Olena Kurylo , Ivan Ohienko and others. According to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language

12298-445: The first composition for the bandura was published in Kyiv by Khotkevych. It was a dance piece entitled "Odarochka" for the folk bandura played in the Kharkiv style. Khotkevych prepared a book of pieces in 1912 but, because of the arrest of the publisher, it was never printed. Despite numerous compositions being written for the instrument in the late 1920s and early 30s, and the preparation of these works for publication, little music for

12441-479: The growth in interest in such cultural artifacts, the carriers of these artefacts, such as bandurists, often came under harsh persecution from the Soviet authorities. Many were arrested and some executed or sent to labor camps . At the height of the Great Purge in the late 1930s, the official State Bandurist Capella in Kyiv was changing artistic directors every 2 weeks because of these political arrests. Throughout

12584-682: The hearing. The families of those who were executed were often told that the bandurist had been sent to a camp without the right to correspond. In recent years evidence of this has emerged, pointing to an event (often masked as an ethnographic conference) that was held in Kharkiv, the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, in December 1933 – January 1934. Many itinerant street musicians from all over the country, specifically blind kobzars and lirnyks , were invited to attend, amounting to an estimated 300 participants. All were subsequently executed as unwanted elements in

12727-532: The home of a fellow kobzar or lirnyk . They would sometimes perform at fairs, religious festivals, and weddings. K obzari traveled from town to town, sharing news from village to village, functioning as an early form of social media. Being blind, kobzari would often require assistance in their travel, and would often hire a boy or girl to serve as a guide ( povodyr ). These children were often orphans or disabled themselves so that they likewise could not contribute to farm labor. The guide would often assist

12870-440: The instigators and organisers of the conference. Although no documents directly attesting to the mass-execution of the kobzari has been found to date, we do have a significant list of kobzari and bandurists who died or disappeared at this time. By one of the versions, the conference was organized near Kharkiv in December 1933, where 300 (c.50) blind kobzars and (c.250) lirnyks were gathered near Kharkiv and left to die of exposure in

13013-475: The instrument was published in Ukraine. A number of bandura primers appeared in print in 1913–14, written by Domontovych, Shevchenko, and Ovchynnikov and containing arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs with bandura accompaniment. The persecution of Kobzars started in 1876 under Imperial Russia with the publication of the Ems Ukaz : stage performances by kobzars and bandurists were officially banned. Paragraph 4 of

13156-532: 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. At the turn of the nineteenth century there were three regional kobzar schools: Chernihiv , Poltava , and Slobozhan , which were differentiated by repertoire and playing style. In Ukraine, kobzars organized themselves into regional guilds or brotherhoods, known as tsekhs ( tsekhy ). They developed

13299-417: The language of much of the literature was purely or heavily Old Church Slavonic . Some theorists see an early Ukrainian stage in language development here, calling it Old Ruthenian; others term this era Old East Slavic . Russian theorists tend to amalgamate Rus' to the modern nation of Russia, and call this linguistic era Old Russian. However, according to Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak (2012), people from

13442-539: The late 1950s. Significant contributions to modern bandura construction were made by Khotkevych, Leonid Haydamaka , Peter Honcharenko , Skliar, Herasymenko and William Vetzal . Ukrainian language Ukrainian ( українська мова , ukrainska mova , IPA: [ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ˈmɔʋɐ] ) is one of the East Slavic languages in the Indo-European languages family, and it is spoken primarily in Ukraine . It

13585-519: The late-18th or early-19th centuries. Banduras are first recorded in a Polish chronicle of 1441, which mentioned that Sigismund III , king of Poland, employed the Ruthenian Taraszko at court to play the bandura and be his chess companion. Medieval Polish manuscripts recorded other court bandurists of Ukrainian descent. The term bandura is generally thought to have entered the Ukrainian language via Polish , either from Latin or from

13728-673: The manufacturing of banduras: the Chernihiv Musical Instrument Factory (which produced 120 instruments a month, over 30,000 instruments from 1954 to 1991) and the Trembita Musical Instrument Factory in Lviv (which has produced over 3,000 instruments since 1964). Other serially manufactured instruments were also made in workshops in Kyiv and Melnytso-Podilsk. In Germany in 1948, the Honcharenko brothers in

13871-402: The many individual executions of bandurists and kobzars of this period. So far, the documentation of 41 bandurists sentenced to be shot have been found with documents attesting to approximately 100 receiving sentences of between 10–17 years. Often, those who were arrested were tortured to obtain a confession. Sentences were pronounced by a Troika and were dealt out swiftly within hours or days of

14014-456: The modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages developed from the dialects which did not differ from each other in a significant way. After the fall of the Kingdom of Ruthenia, Ukrainians mainly fell under the rule of Lithuania and then Poland . Local autonomy of both rule and language was a marked feature of Lithuanian rule. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Old East Slavic became the language of

14157-542: The modern Ukrainian language developed in the territory of present-day Ukraine. Russification saw the Ukrainian language banned as a subject from schools and as a language of instruction in the Russian Empire , and continued in various ways in the Soviet Union . Even so, the language continued to see use throughout the country, and remained particularly strong in Western Ukraine . Specific developments that led to

14300-450: The musicians were gathered under the guise of an ethnographic conference and then mass-executed. Various versions give different times for the conference and location. The confusion is exacerbated by the fact that little differentiation is made between the kobzari, bandurists and lirnyky . Archival documents attesting to the organisation of such a conference have been found which were affirmed by bandurist Mykhailo Polotay who had been one of

14443-501: The name Little Russia for Ukraine and Little Russian for the language, an expression that originated in Byzantine Greek and may originally have meant "old, original, fundamental Russia", and had been in use since the 14th century. Ukrainian high culture went into a long period of steady decline. The Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was taken over by the Russian Empire. Most of the remaining Ukrainian schools also switched to Polish or Russian in

14586-412: The native language for the majority in the nation on the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were russified. In Donetsk there were no Ukrainian language schools and in Kyiv only a quarter of children went to Ukrainian language schools. The Russian language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This

14729-402: The new Soviet Society. In 1978, evidence came to light ( Solomon Volkov 's Testimony: The Memoirs of Shostakovych and Leonid Plyushch 's History's Carnival) (1978) about the mass murder of the Ukrainian blind musicians by the Soviet authorities. Previous mentions of such a tragedy date back to 1981 in the writings of dissident Ukrainian poet Mykola Horbach . According to a widespread version,

14872-437: The noted kobzar Mykhailo Kravchenko . However due to the conflict between Borodai and Khotkevych their work stopped in 1904. 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. In later times there were attempts to recast the phonograph records by tape recording

15015-566: 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 collection ) 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

15158-408: The popularity of the bandura grew considerably. The bandura underwent significant changes in the 20th century, in construction, technique and repertoire. Initial developments were made in making the range of the instrument greater and improving the sonority of the instrument. By 1911 instruments with 32 diatonically tuned strings had become common, almost replacing the traditional instruments played by

15301-425: The population said Ukrainian was their native language. Until the 1920s the urban population in Ukraine grew faster than the number of Ukrainian speakers. This implies that there was a (relative) decline in the use of Ukrainian language. For example, in Kyiv, the number of people stating that Ukrainian was their native language declined from 30.3% in 1874 to 16.6% in 1917. During the seven-decade-long Soviet era ,

15444-510: The present-day reflex is /ɣ/. Ahatanhel Krymsky and Aleksey Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the common spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times. According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century. Russian linguist Andrey Zaliznyak stated that the Old Novgorod dialect differed significantly from that of other dialects of Kievan Rus' during

15587-573: The printing of Ukrainian texts accompanying musical scores. A period of leniency after 1905 was followed by another strict ban in 1914, which also affected Russian-occupied Galicia. For much of the 19th century the Austrian authorities demonstrated some preference for Polish culture, but the Ukrainians were relatively free to partake in their own cultural pursuits in Halychyna and Bukovina , where Ukrainian

15730-402: The repertoire consisted of para-liturgical chants (kanty) and psalms sung by the kobzari outside of churches as the latter were often suspicious of, and sometimes hostile to, the kobzars' moral authority . Because of these restrictions and the rapid disappearance of kobzars and bandurists, the topic of the minstrel art of the itinerant blind bandura players was again brought up for discussion at

15873-562: The rural regions of the Ukrainian provinces, 80% of the inhabitants said that Ukrainian was their native language in the Census of 1897 (for which the results are given above), in the urban regions only 32.5% of the population claimed Ukrainian as their native language. For example, in Odesa (then part of the Russian Empire), at the time the largest city in the territory of current Ukraine, only 5.6% of

16016-457: 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 dumas of

16159-459: The serial manufacture of banduras had been established earlier outside of Ukraine (in Moscow (1908), and Prague (1924)), continuous serial manufacture of banduras was only started in Ukraine, sometime in 1930. Formal conservatory courses in bandura playing were re-established only after the Soviet revolution, when Khotkevych returned to Kharkiv and was invited to teach a class of bandura playing at

16302-560: The serial manufacture of banduras was rekindled by musical instrument factories in Chernihiv and Lviv. Most accounts of Nazi persecution of kobzars and bandurists were Soviet fabrications, however a number of prominent bandurists did die at the hands of the Nazis. One notable bandurist was Teliha who was executed in the tragic Babi Yar massacre in Kyiv in February 1942. Soviet sources tried attribute

16445-661: The sixteenth and first half of the 17th century, when Ukraine was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, albeit in spite of being part of the PLC, not as a result. Among many schools established in that time, the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium (the predecessor of the modern Kyiv-Mohyla Academy ), founded by the Orthodox Metropolitan Peter Mogila , was the most important. At that time languages were associated more with religions: Catholics spoke Polish, and members of

16588-540: 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

16731-450: The standard after 1902. The number of strings and size of the instrument also began to grow, in order to accommodate both the sound production required for stage performances, and the performance of a new repertoire of urban, folkloric song which required more sophisticated accompaniment. Use of the instrument fell into decline amongst the nobility with the introduction of Western musical instruments and Western music fashions, but it remained

16874-529: The state funded Bandurist Capellas stopped functioning. In December, a wave of repressions against Ukrainian intellectuals also resulted in 65 Ukrainian writers being arrested. In the 1930s, Soviet authorities implemented measures to control and curtail aspects of Ukrainian culture (see Russification ) they deemed unsuitable. This also included any interest in the bandura. Various sanctions were introduced to control cultural activities that were deemed anti-Soviet. When these sanctions proved to have little effect on

17017-449: 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 . Songs sang by kobzari can be categorized as zhebranka , psalmy , istorychni pisni , dumy , and satirical songs. Zhebranka were begging songs often highlighting the fleeting nature of life, a description of life with the disability of blindness, an apology for seeking alms, and

17160-462: The term native language may not necessarily associate with the language they use more frequently. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian language native , including those who often speak Russian. According to the official 2001 census data, 92.3% of Kyiv region population responded "Ukrainian" to the native language ( ridna mova ) census question, compared with 88.4% in 1989, and 7.2% responded "Russian". In 2019,

17303-558: The territories controlled by these respective countries, which was followed by a new wave of Polonization and Russification of the native nobility. Gradually the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish, while the upper classes in the Russian part of Ukraine used Russian. During the 19th century, a revival of Ukrainian self-identification manifested in the literary classes of both Russian-Empire Dnieper Ukraine and Austrian Galicia . The Brotherhood of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Kyiv applied an old word for

17446-546: The time, such as the merger of the Old East Slavic vowel phonemes и /i/ and ы /ɨ/ into the specifically Ukrainian phoneme /ɪ ~ e/, spelled with и (in the 13th/14th centuries), and the fricativisation of the Old East Slavic consonant г /g/, probably first to /ɣ/ (in the 13th century), with /ɦ/ as a reflex in Modern Ukrainian, did not happen in Russian. Only the fricativisation of Old East Slavic г /g/ occurred in Belarusian, where

17589-413: The traditional kobzars . Metal tuning pegs made an appearance around 1914. This allowed the performer to tune his instrument accurately. This was crucial particularly when playing in an ensemble. By the mid-1920s, chromatic strings were also added to the instrument which allowed the performer to play accidentals and allowed the performer to modulate into close related keys. The construction of the instrument

17732-516: The use of Ukrainian. The educational system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that is partly Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce. In the 2001 census , 67.5% of the country's population named Ukrainian as their native language (a 2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease). For many Ukrainians (of various ethnic origins),

17875-421: The various Ukrainian Armed forces or played for Ukrainian soldiers. Current accounts list some 20 known bandurists who perished in this time period. Few kobzari are included in this list. Few records accurately document the deaths of bandurists from this period. From 1923, there was a period of tolerance to Ukrainian language and culture existed whilst Soviet power was entrenched in the country. During this time

18018-489: The workshops of the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus continued to refine the mechanism to make it more reliable for the concert stage and also even out the tone of the instrument. Similar developments were also undertaken by Ivan Skliar in Ukraine who in 1956 developed the concert Kyiv bandura – an instrument which has become the workhorse of most professional bandurists in Ukraine. A slightly more refined instrument

18161-575: Was a need for translators during negotiations for the Treaty of Pereyaslav , between Bohdan Khmelnytsky , head of the Zaporozhian Host , and the Russian state. By the 18th century, Ruthenian had diverged into regional variants, developing into the modern Belarusian , Rusyn , and Ukrainian languages. The accepted chronology of Ukrainian divides the language into Old Ukrainian, Middle Ukrainian, and Modern Ukrainian. Shevelov explains that much of this

18304-485: Was also developed later by Vasyl Herasymenko in Lviv. Although direct and open confrontation ceased, the Communist party continued to control and manipulate the art of the bandurist through a variety of indirect means. Bandura players now had to censor their repertoire and stop any cultural aspects that were deemed to be anti-Soviet. This included songs with religious texts or melodies, Christmas carols, historic songs about

18447-449: 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). Traditional minstrels from this time period also included lirnyky or lirnyks , musicians who played the lira or hurdy-gurdy . While some sources suggest that kobzari were not always blind, lirnyky were likely disabled, and in general to be considered

18590-407: Was exercised in the publication of musical literature for the bandura. Only "trusted" performers were allowed to perform on stage with severely censored and restrictive repertoire. These restrictions continued to leave a significant impact on the contemporary development of the art form. In the late 1970s these concert instruments began to be manufactured serially by the Chernihiv factory , and later

18733-548: Was exiled for seven years to Arkhangelsk . The Ukrainian magazine Osnova was discontinued. In 1863, the tsarist interior minister Pyotr Valuyev proclaimed in his decree that "there never has been, is not, and never can be a separate Little Russian language". Although the name of Ukraine is known since 1187, it was not applied to the language until the mid-19th century. The linguonym Ukrainian language appears in Yakub Holovatsky 's book from 1849, listed there as

18876-448: Was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to an intensive migration of the population within the territory of today's Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was also supported by George Shevelov 's phonological studies, which argue that specific features were already recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic (seen as ancestors to Ukrainian) as far back as these varieties can be documented. As

19019-407: Was gradually Polonized. In Ruthenia, the language of administrative documents gradually shifted towards Polish. Polish has had heavy influences on Ukrainian (particularly in Western Ukraine ). The southwestern Ukrainian dialects are transitional to Polish. As the Ukrainian language developed further, some borrowings from Tatar and Turkish occurred. Ukrainian culture and language flourished in

19162-446: 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

19305-554: Was inevitable that successful careers required a good command of Russian, while knowledge of Ukrainian was not vital, so it was common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to Russian-language schools, even though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available. The number of students in Russian-language in Ukraine schools was constantly increasing, from 14 percent in 1939 to more than 30 percent in 1962. The Communist Party leader from 1963 to 1972, Petro Shelest , pursued

19448-482: Was lessened only slightly after 1985. The management of dissent by the local Ukrainian Communist Party was more fierce and thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the Mikhail Gorbachev reforms perebudova and hlasnist’ (Ukrainian for perestroika and glasnost ), Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself. Although Ukrainian still remained

19591-431: Was modified to allow for the additional tension of these strings. The number of strings rose to about 56. Subsequent developments included metal strings (introduced post-1891) and metal tuning pegs (introduced in 1912), additional chromatic strings (introduced from 1925) and a mechanical lever system for rapid re-tuning of the instrument (first introduced in 1931). In 1931 the first mechanisms were developed, which allowed

19734-560: 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 system and Soviet heroes, including pressure to compose new dumy about Lenin and Stalin. In recent times, there has been an interest in reviving of authentic kobzar traditions which

19877-481: Was proclaimed in 1990 that Russian language was the all-Union state language and that the constituent republics had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions. Still it was implicitly understood in the hopes of minority nations that Ukrainian would be used in the Ukrainian SSR, Uzbek would be used in the Uzbek SSR , and so on. However, Russian was used as the lingua franca in all parts of

20020-419: Was replaced with stylized performances of folk and classical music utilising the bandura conforming to Marxist-Leninist ideology. Rather than learning songs through oral tradition as had the kobzari, only officially approved written texts could be used to learn songs, which were carefully censored and modified to become approved content such as "Duma about Lenin." Soviet kobzars were stylised performers on

20163-492: Was similar to the German bandore with usually 5 single courses strung along the neck. In the mid 18th century additional strings known as "prystrunky" began to appear. Gradually the zither–like bandura replaced the lute–like bandura by the middle of the 19th century. The invention of an instrument combining organological elements of lute and psaltery is sometimes credited to Francesco Landini , an Italian lutenist-composer during

20306-400: Was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which escaped the artificial famine , Great Purge , and most of Stalinism . And this region became the center of a hearty, if only partial, renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence. Since 1991, Ukrainian has been the official state language in Ukraine, and the state administration implemented government policies to broaden

20449-532: Was widely used in education and official documents. The suppression by Russia hampered the literary development of the Ukrainian language in Dnipro Ukraine, but there was a constant exchange with Halychyna, and many works were published under Austria and smuggled to the east. By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of Austro-Hungary in 1918, Ukrainians were ready to openly develop

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