By Yana Rudenko
The Ukrainian bandura is a lute-like instrument with up to 65 strings, including up to eight melody strings and many accompanying strings. It resembles both a lute and a zither and is therefore also called the ‘Ukrainian lute zither’. The bandura is played with both hands and combines the playing styles of both plucked instruments.
The historical development of the bandura also reflects the history of the Ukrainian nation, which goes back many centuries. Originally, the bandura was played by blind minstrels who travelled from village to village singing epic ballads and historical songs. The instrument was first mentioned in a Greek chronicle of the 6th century, which describes how warriors in the Ukrainian territories played a lute-like instrument. This lute-like instrument was called the kobza and was much smaller, rounder and had fewer strings than the modern bandura. Over time, the number of strings increased, and some of them were strung on the side of the instrument.
Kobzars and dumas
In the Middle Ages, the bandura, like the lute in Western Europe, became popular at the courts of Eastern Europe. It was used mainly to accompany dances and songs. It was also popular with the Ukrainian Cossacks, who developed their own repertoire for the instrument. A new school of Ukrainian professional musicians emerged from their ranks, similar to the troubadours in France. These musicians were called kobzars.
The kobzars created a unique epic song form, duma, which has been compared to the epics of Homer. Literally, it means ‘a thought or a consideration’. These dumas, sung to the accompaniment of the bandura, told of the heroism of the Ukrainian Cossacks and their desire for peace and freedom. In 1873, at the Third Archaeological Congress in Kiev, Western scholars and composers heard the duma for the first time, performed by a blind kobzar named Ostap Veresai. His impressive performance inspired a series of articles and books on the subject.
The emergence of the modern bandura
By the early twentieth century, the bandura had become popular among the urban population of Ukraine. With the formation of bandura ensembles and the growing popularity of the bandura, the demand for new instruments also grew. During this period, there were important innovations and experiments in technique and design. New banduras were mass-produced, with a large number of strings, chromatically tuned instead of diatonically (in semitones like a piano instead of a guitar), and levers were added for quick transposition (e.g. for playing in different keys). Courses were organised at conservatories, and professional composers were commissioned to write new compositions specifically for this instrument.
Hnat Khotkevych is considered the father of the modern bandura. A trained pianist and violinist, he learned the instrument by observing old kobzars. While preserving the traditions and playing techniques of the kobza, Hnat was instrumental in transforming the traditional kobza bandura into the modern Kharkiv bandura of today. He contributed to the expansion of vocal music and repertoire, including performances in an ensemble.
Soviet repression
This period in the history of bandura players coincided with the rise of patriotism in Ukraine and the subsequent flourishing of the various arts. But this did not last long. Political repression of the Soviet era began immediately after the Bolsheviks arrived in Ukraine. The Soviet government decided to wipe out all traces of Ukrainian patriotism by destroying Ukrainian culture. Under the pretext of an ethnographic conference, blind kobzars were gathered from all over Ukraine to Kharkiv in 1935, where they were supposed to collect and record their songs and stories. There they were all executed.
Persecution, arrest, execution and exile have been the fate of numerous Ukrainian artists, bandura players, painters, poets and other creative workers. They sought refuge and safety mainly in countries such as the United States and Canada, where they were able to continue their activities unimpeded.
In the period that followed and throughout the Cold War, the Soviet government was determined to destroy Ukrainian culture. However, the Soviets soon realised that it was impossible to completely eradicate the bandura, which had proved to be a strong symbol of Ukrainian identity. Instead, they tried to separate the bandura from its past and traditions by creating the modern Kyiv bandura. The learning of bandura playing became more academic. The traditional repertoire was abandoned in favour of foreign works by Bach, Beethoven and other classical composers.
Although the bandura can also be used to perform complex pieces such as sonatas and orchestral concertos, it is closely associated with vocal music because it was originally intended as an instrument for accompanying singing.
Examples of bandura music in videos:
Performances by the Mayborody National Honoured Bandura Choir of Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@Mayborody/videos
A solo piece for bandura:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DjWwPNdDbo
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Bandura. Foto: WikimediaCommons / Julianhayda.
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