Bandurysts

Bandurysts (бандуристи; bandurysty). Historically, musicians who performed their songs and recitatives to the accompaniment of a bandura; this term often encompasses kobzars, itinerant bards who sang a specific repertoire of epic-historical, religious, and folk songs while playing kobza or bandura. Contemporary virtuoso bandurists also perform works of instrumental music composed especially for a bandura. In Ukraine the first mention made of bandurists is in historical documents of the 15th century (1441). In the 15–16th centuries the courts of Polish kings and magnates occasionally employed court bandurists, such as Churylo and Tarashko. The majority of bandurysts at the time were wandering folk bards who originally composed and performed dumas, historical songs, and lyrical songs in the recitative style and later added songs of various other genres (religious and humorous songs, dance songs, chumak songs, etc.) to their repertoires, which were passed on orally. Bandurysts were held in high esteem by the Zaporozhian Cossacks, as well as by the general population. Hetmans and members of the upper nobility often kept bandurysts at their courts.

In the 19th century the best-known banduryst was the blind Ostap Veresai (it should be noted that bandurysts were very often blind men); others who gained prominence were Mykhailo Kravchenko, Terentii Parkhomenko, Hnat Honcharenko, F. Kholodny, Andrii Shut, I. Kravchenko-Kriukovsky, Tymofii Bilohradsky, and Ivan Kucherenko-Kuchuhura. During the 19th century Ukrainian bandurysts, as preservers of Ukrainian cultural and historical memory, were often persecuted by the Russian government, and the tradition of itinerant bandura playing began to wane.

In the early 20th century, following the kobzar performance at the 12th Russian Archeological Congress in Kharkiv in 1902, bandura playing revived and was actively pursued on both an amateur and a professional level. The first formal bandura course opened in the Lysenko Music and Drama School in Kyiv in 1909. Manuals for the instrument were prepared and published by Hnat Khotkevych (Lviv, 1909), M. Domontovych (Odesa, 1913, 1914), V. Ovchynnykov (Moscow, 1914), and V. Shevchenko (Moscow, 1914). The first professional bandura courses were established by Hnat Khotkevych at the Kharkiv Music and Drama Institute in 1926. Professional bandurysts, educated at music schools and conservatories, performed as concert soloists (Hnat Khotkevych, Vasyl Yemets, Hryhorii Kytasty, Volodymyr Kabachok).

By the mid-20th century the individual art of the wandering folk kobzars and bandurysts had disappeared completely, being replaced by organized banduryst ensembles and kapellen. The first professional Ukrainian banduryst ensemble was organized in Kyiv in 1918 under Vasyl Yemets. Bandurysts were considered representatives and bearers of the Ukrainian folk tradition, and as such, were often persecuted by the Soviet regime, as they had been in the tsarist period (they were prohibited from appearing in public places, etc). In the 1930s many renowned bandurysts were repressed and deported (Volodymyr Kabachok, Hnat Khotkevych, Dmytro Balatsky, and others); some were even executed. But by the 1950s bandura playing was again popular in Ukraine and many banduryst kapellen were formed both independently and by oblast philharmonic orchestras.

In past centuries the art of bandura playing was an exclusively male domain. In the 20th century women became involved as well; for example, women’s banduryst trios became popular; a women’s oblast banduryst kapelle was formed in Poltava. In Slovakia, there has been a group of female bandurysts within the Duklia Ukrainian Folk Ensemble in Prešov. The noteworthy contemporary banduryst ensembles include the State Banduryst Kapelle of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Banduryst Chorus of Detroit, USA. Contemporary composers such as Anatolii Kolomyiets, K. Miaskov, Vitalii Kyreiko, Mykola Dremliuha, Yurii Oliinyk, and Hryhorii Kytasty have provided new repertoire for the bandura, including sonatas and concerti.

Various banduryst ensembles exist outside of Ukraine in many countries in Europe, Australia, and North America. In New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Toronto, there are bandura schools. Since 1978 the Sydney School of Bandura in Australia published a magazine Banduryst and since 1982 the New York School of Bandura has published a magazine Bandura. Artistry has successfully been propagated among Ukrainians abroad through the efforts of such bandura players as Volodymyr Lutsiv (Great Britain), B. Sharko, S. Lastovych-Chulivsky (Germany), A. Khraniuk (Poland), Vasyl Yemets, Hryhorii Kytasty, Zinovii Shtokalko, Julian Kytasty, O. Herasymenko (USA), M. Diakowsky (Canada), H. Bazhul, P. Deriashnyj, Victor Mishalow, L. Burak (Australia), and O. Berehovy (Argentina).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Iemets', V. Kobza ta kobzari (Berlin 1922)
Diakowsky, M. J. ‘The Bandura,’ The Ukrainian Trend (1958)
———. ‘A Note on the History of the Bandura,’ Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States, no 3–4 (1958)
Slastion, O. Portrety ukraïns’kykh kobzariv (Kyiv 1961)
Kytasty, H. Some Aspects of Music under the Soviets (Research Program of the USSR Mimeographed Series, no 65, New York 1965)
Haydamaka, L. ‘The Kobza-bandura – National Instrument of Ukraine,’ Guitar Review, no 3 (New York 1970)
Samchuk, U. Zhyvi struny – bandura i bandurysty (Detroit 1976)
Mizynec, V. Folk Instruments of Ukraine (Melbourne 1984)
Kononenko, N. Ukrainian Minstrels ... and the blind shall sing (Armonk, NY 1998)
Mishalow, V. ‘A Short History of the Bandura,’ East European Meetings in Ethnousicology 6 (1999)
Kuromiya, H. The Voices of the Dead (New Haven–New York 2007)
Mishalow, V. Kharkivs'ka bandura (Kharkiv–Toronto 2012)

Victor Mishalow, Wasyl Wytwycky

[This article was updated in 2026.]