Kobzars and bandurists were a unique class of musicians in Ukraine, who travelled between towns and sang dumas, a meditative poem-song. Kobzars were usually blind, and required the completion of a three-year apprenticeship in specialized Kobzar guilds, in order to be officially recognized as such. In 1932, 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.[1][2][3]

Persecution of bandurists and kobzari by the Soviet authorities can be divided up into various periods. These periods differed in the type and length of persecution and punishments were dealt out and also the reason for the punishment. Following is a list of persecuted Bandurists sourced from Music from the shadows Roman Malko[4] and The Voices of the Dead by Kuromiya Hiroaki.[5]

A

B

C

D

F

H

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

Y

Z

References

  1. ^ ‘Remember the peasantry’: A study of genocide, famine, and the Stalinist Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine, 1932-33, as it was remembered by post-war immigrants in Western Australia who experienced it Lesa Melnyczuk Morgan, 2010, University of Notre Dame Australia "During the mid 1930s, the [kobzars] were invited to the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Lirniki and Banduristy (folk singers, minstrels) where they were arrested and, in most cases shot". In the notes: "Although noted by a few different authors there is no mention of where this occurred." Accessed 8 February 2021
  2. ^ Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow. Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine., p.266. ISBN 0195051807
  3. ^ Volkov Solomon, ed. Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (New York: Faber & Faber,1979), pp.214-15. ISBN 978-0060144760
  4. ^ Roman Malko, "Music from the shadows", Zerkalo Nedeli, September 14–20, 2002. in Russian Archived 2005-05-02 at the Wayback Machine, in Ukrainian Archived 2004-10-25 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ^ Kuromiya Hiroaki, The Voices of the Dead - Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, ISBN 0300123892.
  6. ^ Khotkevych, Hnat, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
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