Kobza is mine, faithful squad,
My little banduro!
With these words, the mortally wounded hero of the thought "On the death of a Cossack bandura player" addresses his dearest life partner. But what did the Cossack play on - the kobza or the bandura?
Some researchers claim that the first glory went to the kobza. The bandura picked up this fame, and, as a more advanced instrument, replaced the kobza.
There is another opinion - that they say kobza and bandura almost simultaneously complemented each other for centuries and became an instrument to which both names apply.
We will try to figure it out with the help of articles on the Internet.
Kobza - Ukrainian lute-like string plucked musical instrument with a body similar to the body of a lute, and with a small, slightly bent back fingerboard. It was played with a plectrum. The instrument was especially common in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The predecessor of the kobza is a small lute-shaped instrument, probably of Turkic or Bulgar origin.
Kobzari Kravchenko and Dremchenko from Kharkov province
The name "kobza", "koboz", "kobuz", etc. can be traced back to 1250, both in Slavic and non-Slavic written sources. Therefore, the appearance of the tool can be attributed to more ancient times. Semantic studies prove the existence of similar instruments in other countries: "kopuz" - Turkey, "kopus" - Croatia, "koboz" - Hungary, "cobza" - Romania, etc. Thus, the location of the homeland of kobza is exclusively in the ancient territories of Ukraine would be unjustified, but, undoubtedly, in these lands the instrument acquired its final form.
Ibn Dasta in the 10th century, speaking of Rus', notes the following: “They have various musical instruments, such as lutes-kobza, gusli, pipes, as well as pipes almost two cubits long, while the kobza has eight strings ...”
Zaporozhye Cossacks (old engraving)
Kobza eventually becomes a favorite instrument of the Ukrainian Cossacks and is widely distributed among the rural population of the lands of the Polish kings and Russian tsars, where he played the role of a lute Western Europe. Ukrainian kobza is an integral attribute of the Cossack Mamai, a character puppet theater Nativity scene.
K. Hildebrandt, a member of the Swedish delegation to Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky, visiting Ukraine in 1656-1657, describes in detail his stay and the reception given by the hetman. In an informal setting, the hetman played the lute.
Alexey Ivanovich Petrenko Song 1985
Oleg Omelchenko Old kobzar 2006
Lyudmila Hilobok Illustration for the work "Natalka Poltavka" 2000
Vladislav Yerko Kobzar (playing card)
The Dane Adam Olearius also mentions a certain type of "lute" common among Ukrainians in the 17th century.
“An instrument similar to a lute, but smaller in size and with a smaller number of strings”, “only the neck is somewhat shorter”, “tonality is absolutely similar to a lute” - all this was said in the 18th century about the “Cossack lute” - kobza.
Around 1700, some Ukrainian kobza lutes acquire additional strings. Such tools are preserved only in the drawings. It is not known whether the improvement was a local invention or whether it came from Europe, but it is certain that these tools were the direct ancestor of the torban.
In the XVIII century, the kobza gave way to a similar, but more complex and perfect instrument - the bandura, which has not one, but two sets of strings. Kobza finally fell into disuse after 1850.
Bandura - a musical instrument common in Little Russia; described in detail by the famous Little Russian composer and collector folk songs N. V. Lisenko in his abstract: "Characteristic musical features Little Russian Dumas and Songs Performed by the Kobzar Veresai" included in the brochure: "Kobzar Ostap Veresai, His Music, and Folk Songs Performed by Him".
Bandura is somewhat reminiscent of a Spanish guitar and has a resemblance to the pandora, on which the Greek rhapsodes sang the exploits of their heroes, as well as to the bzura, folk instrument Crimean Tatars.
Components of the bandura:
A short and wide neck, called a handle;
The bent part of the neck is called the head, in which the tuning pegs (kilochki) sit for pulling up and lowering the strings;
The body of the bandura has the appearance of a convex oval, resembling a hollowed-out pumpkin; he is called a spinner;
The soundboard covering the speedboard is called the top, or dike;
In the lowest part of the soundboard, against the neck, there is a strip of wood, grasped tightly by 2 - 3 screws - a stringer to which the strings are attached;
A round hole is cut in the middle of the soundboard - a voice box for sound propagation.
Between the stringer and the vocalist, closer to the first, there is a wooden stand - a filly, on which all 12 strings lie.
The bandura is usually made from solid linden wood, has 12 strings: 6 thick and long and 6 thinner and shorter. The number of strings is sometimes more than 12, sometimes it reaches 25-30.
Longer, bass ones are located directly on the body and neck. The short ones, called stringers, are fan-shaped on the body and are tuned in steps of the scale, and nowadays often in semitones.
D. Bezperchiy Bandurist, late 19th century
Elena Ivanova Summer chord
There are several theories of the origin of the word "bandura", based, for the most part, also on semantic research: "pandura" - Assyria, "bandora" - England, "bandurria" - Spain, "panduri" - Georgia, "pandzura" - Bulgaria, " pandura/tambura" - Serbia. It should be noted that the original name has little to do with a particular instrument. So English bandora and Ukrainian bandura, except for their names, have nothing in common. However, the namesake from England has common features with Ukrainian bandura. The Poles learned the name of the instrument from numerous Italian musicians at the beginning of the 16th century. These Italians (mostly Jewish musicians) were the distributors of the term to England and to the east, to Poland during the Renaissance.
“In Polish dictionaries, the bandura instrument is described in the same way as the Cossack lute.” (O. Famitsyn).
M. Deryazhny Bandura player 1957
To this day, bandura is a favorite Ukrainian instrument. In Ukraine, the State Bandura Chapel was organized. There are also amateur bandura ensembles.
But the ancient kobza and bandura should not be confused with the modern bandura, which belongs rather to the family of harps, zithers, gusel, and appeared in early nineteenth century. Although, due to the confusion of the nomenclature, the name "bandura" was used to describe the kobza until 1800.
Everyone knows the name of the classic Ukrainian literature, a remarkable poet Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko. He immortalized in his work the image of a kobzar - a folk storyteller who accompanied his songs-thoughts by playing the kobza. He also called the collection of his poems "Kobzar". Many centuries ago, kobzars appeared in Ukraine. They were itinerant singers, often blind. But blindness did not prevent them from seeing the evil that was going on around, the troubles that befell ordinary people. Kobzars sang about all this, about the fate of the people, about the struggle of Ukrainians against the oppressors, accompanying themselves on the kobza, the instrument from which their nickname came. That is why Taras Shevchenko called himself a kobzar: after all, he also sang of ordinary people, called to fight against oppression and arbitrariness.
In one of the articles I read information that the last kobzars were destroyed by the Soviets in the 30s of the twentieth century, the musicians were gathered for a competition, and after that they were taken out of the city and shot. But I did not find documentary evidence of this fact.
Therefore, I think, we can conclude that at the beginning of this material, it was not without reason that the Cossack turned to his instrument with the words both kobza and bandura. Because, as it turned out, these are two names of the same instrument, which has gone through serious constructive changes over the centuries and is the pride of Ukrainian musical culture.
Materials taken from WIKIPEDIA, encyclopedias and dictionaries, as well as
Bandura is a Ukrainian folk stringed plucked musical instrument. It has an oval body and a short neck. The strings (on old instruments - 12-25, on modern ones - 53-64) are partly stretched over the neck (the so-called riots, longer, low-sounding), and partly attached to the deck (the so-called stringers, shorter, sounding high). The bandura is distinguished by its fullness of sound and a bright characteristic timbre. Bandura system is mixed, in the lower register it is quarto-second, in the modern instruments- chromatic. They play the bandura by plucking the strings with their fingers with or without special thimbles.
There are several theories regarding the origin of the Ukrainian bandura. Probably its origin is connected with the kobza, and not with the gusli. Old Russian gusli had no a large number of strings (4-5), which were played by "rattling". This way of playing is inherent in the balalaika and has not been recorded in Ukraine. By the way, how the sample of the Old Russian harp itself was not found. After unification with the Principality of Lithuania (1321), the orientation of the Ruthenian lands was directed towards Western culture. Imperial cultural assimilation began with late XVII I century, when the multi-stringed Ukrainian musical instrument "bandura" was already formed and existed (1740).
The following facts speak in favor of the thesis about the origin of the bandura from the kobza:
In the 19th century banduras were symmetrical, which is inherent in lute-like instruments;
The main strings located on the body of the bandura are called "strings", that is, as part of the strings PRI of the main strings on the fingerboard;
The functional names of the strings on the neck of the kobza have been preserved in some places on the banduras;
The commonality of the traditional repertoire and forms of activity of kobza and bandura players;
Structural inconveniences for playing the bandura of the “doom order” on the strings in comparison with the absolute convenience of playing it on the kobza neck. The appearance of the bandura as an instrument of a homophonic-harmonic musical formation could not have happened before the appearance and formation of the system itself in European music.
[edit] Usage
Kobza-Bandura is related to Pandura or Mandora. All these instruments, through the medieval lute, originate from the Turkic instrument kopuz and the Middle Eastern oud. The image of the kobza bandura has been known since the 12th century.
Back in the 15th century. Ukrainian kobza players were invited to the royal court of Poland, and in the 18-19 centuries. - in Russian imperial court. The largest ancient kobza players are T. Bilogradsky (famous lute player, 18th century), A. Shut (19th century), O. Veresai (19th century) and others.
At the beginning of the 19th century * old-world * bandura supplanted the kobza. AT different time the bandura had 7-9 to 20-30, or even more strings made of veins, later they were wrapped around with copper wire. The bandura was widely spread among the Ukrainian Cossacks. Banduras were played by wandering blind bandura players who performed songs of specific genres - historical, thoughts, psalms, cants, etc.
A diatonic multi-stringed bandura is a musical instrument with a harp-like way of playing (without pinching the strings on the fretboard). An example of 1840 (erroneously dated 1740) is in the St. Petersburg Conservatory under the name "Nedbailo bandura".
The name of the bandura comes from the Latin (pandura) through the Old Polish (Barduny, ie Lute).
In the 17th century, the kobza was popular in Ukraine, and from early XVIII century, the fashion for it also came to the aristocratic circles of Russia. It was with the aim of dissociating itself from the “servile” name “kobza” in the lordly environment that they began to call it the noble and fashionable Western name “bandora” in the *Latin manner*. This name is recorded in many Polish sources of the 17th century, and in the royal order of 1738 on the creation of a musical educational institution in Glukhov. “In Polish dictionaries and descriptions of instruments, bandura is interpreted as a Cossack lute” (A. Famintsyn). The fact that in the cities they play the bandura, "and the peasants ... on the harp", explaining in brackets that this is the "kind of the bandura" was reported in 1788 by A. I. Rigelman. Most of the witnesses (Bergholz, Shtelin, Bellerman, etc.). The bandura of the 18th century was reported as “an instrument similar to a lute, but smaller in size and number of strings”, “only the handle is somewhat shorter”, “the tone is absolutely similar to the tone of a lute”. So, it was about the "Cossack lute" - kobza. But nearby there were real banduras with “20 or more strings ... on the last (multi-stringed banduras), not all strings are stretched along the fingerboard, half are on the body itself” (A. Famintsyn).
Yes, in early XIX century, there were also lute-like multi-stringed musical instruments that were "Ukrainized", began to be called banduras, and performers on them - bandurists.
Comparing the banduras with the Veresaeva bandura, we can conclude that the main strings on the banduras for playing were short strings located to the right of the fretboard above the soundboard of the instrument, and the basses on the fretboard were carried minor role. On the bandura by O. Veresai, the main functions in the performance of melody and bass are laid down in the way of playing the fretboard (like on a guitar), and six strings performed additional function- increased range when playing in one position ( folk way game in which the hand does not move up the neck, but is in one place).
Any open string (especially vein) sounds better pressed without calculations to the fretboard. It is much easier to master playing an instrument with a stable pitch. Therefore, the first chores prompted the musicians to create a new multi-stringed musical instrument, which in the 19th century. displaced the lute-like kobza, adopting certain performing traditions from it, and in some rural areas and the name of the instrument itself.
- (Polish bandura; original source: Greek pandura - three-stringed zither) Ukrainian multi-stringed plucked instrument. Known from... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Name:
Group: plucked strings
Homeland: Ukraine
Origin: The oldest image of the bandura, which has come down to us, refers to XII century. There are several versions about the origin of the bandura. The first version is the origin of the bandura from the Russian instrument - the gusli, the second, second version is the origin of the bandura from the kobza. It is the second version that seems more likely to historians, since the bandura and kobza have a number of similarities.
Timbre: differs in fullness of sounding and a bright characteristic timbre.
Sound extraction method: They play the bandura by plucking the strings with their fingers with or without special thimbles.
Device: It has an oval body and a short neck. The strings (on old instruments - 12-25, on modern ones - 53-64) are partly stretched over the neck (the so-called riots, longer, low-sounding), and partly attached to the deck (the so-called stringers, shorter, sounding high).
Virtuoso performers: bandura player Georgy Matveev - soloist of the Odessa Philharmonic, Stepan Matsura, Roman Grinkov, Georgy Matveev, Viktor Mishalov
Many have not even heard of such a beloved Ukrainian musical instrument as the bandura. In ancient times, the bandura was mainly the instrument of the blind elders-kobzars, whom the guide boys led from village to village, where they played their instrument for the people, earning their livelihood. locals As soon as they heard about the appearance of a kobzar in the village, they immediately ran to listen to his game and singing. The songs of the bandura players, as a rule, were about the life of the people, about its heroes, about the events that took place on native land. From sad. The lyrical songs of the kobzar-bandurist were weeping. And when the master sang a cheerful song, the legs themselves were torn into a fast dance.
Bandura is a stringed plucked musical instrument, which was once very popular among the Ukrainian people. It has an oval body and a short neck. The strings are partly stretched over the neck (these strings are called riots), and partly attached to the deck (these strings are called strings). The main strings for playing the bandura are short strings located to the right of the fretboard above the soundboard of the instrument, and the basses on the fretboard played a secondary role. The kobzars play the bandura while sitting, holding it at an angle, so that the strings are on the right and the basses are on the left. Fingering the strings right hand, the melody is played, and on the riots, the left hand is accompanied by it.
The oldest image of a bandura that has come down to us dates back to the 12th century.
By the 15th century, the bandura had become so famous that Ukrainian kobza-bandura players were invited to play at the Royal Court of Poland, and later, in the 18th century, XIX centuries with their game they entertained the Russian imperial court.
The modern academic bandura is an instrument that has passed long history development and improvement. From the very beginning of its existence, the bandura had only 7-9 strings. Banduras of a later time already had 20-30 strings, and today's academic bandura is already a 60-string instrument.
There are several versions about the origin of the bandura. The first version is the origin of the bandura from the Russian instrument - the gusli, the second, second version is the origin of the bandura from the kobza. It is the second version that seems more likely to historians, since the bandura and kobza have a number of similar features, and the harp was practically not used on the territory of Ukraine. Over time, the bandura completely replaced the kobza.
During Soviet times, the bandura was transformed into a heavy multi-stringed instrument. After the collapse Soviet Union young kobza-bandura players appeared in Ukraine, who revive the ancient national instrument. Today, banduras are made on music factories in Lviv and Chernihiv, and some talented kobza-makers make banduras on their own. Some seek to recreate an ancient musical instrument of a certain type, others, on the contrary, seek to modify this musical instrument.
bandura player
Once lived in Ukraine,
Cheerful in body and pure in heart,
There lived an old man, a venerable blind man,
Gray-haired bandura player.
In a black cap, in a gray coat
And with a bandura on the belt,
For many years he walked among people
On the native side.
Pearl-word, wonder-song
Poured prophetic from the tongue.
Ached the strings on the bandura
under the hand of an old man.
He has a lot of clear smiles,
He knew how to cause many tears,
And that the bird of God, songs,
Where he sat down, he sang there.
He gave his soul for the song
Song fed the body;
He was born nameless
Reposed nameless...
Dead Cossack! But the songs are alive;
Everyone knows them, everyone sings!
Their familiar consonances
Themselves so cling to the heart!
To the dark night, falling asleep,
Children, future people,
Hear him from afar
In the song of the mother sings ...
Konstantin Sluchevsky
bandura on paintings:
Vasily Gaichuk (b. 1955) - Vareniki with cherries 
Andrey Lipatov - Ukrainian borscht 
Arkady Rusin. Still life with bandura. 1969 
Dmitry Bezperchiy. Bandurists 1860 Cossack Mamai is one of the most popular images of a Cossack knight in Ukraine, who is called the cosmogonic personification of the Ukrainian people as a whole.
For the first time, Mamai appears in the Ukrainian folk puppet theater, the so-called nativity scene. Samples of paintings by Cossack Mamai appear from mid-eighteenth century. The symbol became so popular and well-aimed in depth among the people that it even competed with icons.
Legends about the Cossack Mamai can be found among folk legends, translations, jokes. But his image is best reproduced in folk painting: in a velvet zhupan, morocco boots and blue trousers; a round shaved head with a “seedless man” twisted behind the ear, a long mustache, black eyebrows, brown eyes, a thin nose, ruddy cheeks - before you is a portrait of a handsome young man, which he has developed in the popular imagination.
Unknown artist. Cossack bandura player. Beginning of the nineteenth century. 
Cossack Mamai in such paintings was always painted with a kobza, which is a symbol of the singing soul of the people. The horse in the picture symbolized fidelity, the oak - fortitude. Often in the drawings we see the image of a spear with a flag, a Cossack damask and a glass. These were things associated with the death of a Cossack - a spear was placed at the burial site, a damask and a glass were placed in the grave - they reminded of the transience of life and the Cossack fate, in which the threat of death in battle was an everyday reality.
Unknown artist. Cossack Mamai. Such pictures were painted on the canvas, on the walls of buildings, windows, dishes, beehives, and even on doors with bright, rich colors, often with the inscription: “I am a Cossack Mamai, don’t bother me.” This testified to the kindness, independence and cheerful disposition of the owners. The mentioned drawings, which have come down to our time, not only successfully decorated the house, but also talked about the tastes and worldview of the owners.
Alexander Antonyuk. Kazak is a bandura player. There are several theories of the origin of the word "bandura", based, for the most part, also on semantic research: "pandura" - Assyria, "bandora" - England, "bandurria" - Spain, "panduri" - Georgia, "pandzura" - Bulgaria, " pandura/tambura" - Serbia. It should be noted that the original name has little to do with a particular instrument. So English bandora and Ukrainian bandura, except for their names, have nothing in common. However, the namesake from England has common features with the Ukrainian bandura. The Poles learned the name of the instrument from numerous Italian musicians at the beginning of the 16th century. These Italians (mostly Jewish musicians) were the distributors of the term to England and to the east, to Poland during the Renaissance.
“In Polish dictionaries, the bandura instrument is described in the same way as the Cossack lute.” (O. Famitsyn).
Elena Ivanova. Summer chord 
M. Deryazhny. Bandura player 1957 To this day, the bandura is a favorite Ukrainian instrument. In Ukraine, the State Bandura Chapel was organized. There are also amateur bandura ensembles.
But the ancient kobza and bandura should not be confused with the modern bandura, which belongs rather to the family of harps, zithers, gusel, and appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. Although, due to the confusion of the nomenclature, the name "bandura" was used to describe the kobza until 1800.
Kobza is mine, faithful squad,
My little banduro!
With these words, the mortally wounded hero of the thought “On the death of a Cossack bandura player” addresses his dearest life partner. But what did the Cossack play on - the kobza or the bandura?
Some researchers claim that the first glory went to the kobza. The bandura picked up this fame, and, as a more advanced instrument, replaced the kobza.
The name "kobza", "koboz", "kobuz", etc. can be traced back to 1250, both in Slavic and non-Slavic written sources. Therefore, the appearance of the tool can be attributed to more ancient times. Semantic studies prove the existence of similar instruments in other countries: "kopuz" - Turkey, "kopus" - Croatia, "koboz" - Hungary, "cobza" - Romania, etc. Thus, the location of the homeland of kobza is exclusively in the ancient territories of Ukraine would be unjustified, but, undoubtedly, in these lands the instrument acquired its final form.
Ibn Dasta in the 10th century, speaking of Rus', notes the following: “They have various musical instruments, such as lutes-kobza, gusli, pipes, as well as pipes almost two cubits long, while the kobza has eight strings ...”
Oleg Omelchenko. Old kobzar 2006 Kobza is an integral attribute of the Cossack Mamai, the character of the Vertep puppet theater.
K. Hildebrandt, a member of the Swedish delegation to Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky, visiting Ukraine in 1656-1657, describes in detail his stay and the reception given by the hetman. In an informal setting, the hetman played the lute.
The Dane Adam Olearius also mentions a certain type of "lute" common among Ukrainians in the 17th century.
“An instrument similar to a lute, but smaller in size and with a smaller number of strings”, “only the neck is somewhat shorter”, “tonality is absolutely similar to a lute” - all this was said in the 18th century about the “Cossack lute” - kobza.
Around 1700, some Ukrainian kobza lutes acquire additional strings. Such tools are preserved only in the drawings. It is not known whether the improvement was a local invention or whether it came from Europe, but it is certain that these tools were the direct ancestor of the torban.
In the 18th century, the kobza gave way to a similar, but more complex and perfect instrument - the bandura, which has not one, but two sets of strings. Kobza finally fell into disuse after 1850.
Alexey Petrenko. Song 1985 Everyone is well aware of the name of the classic of Ukrainian literature, the remarkable poet Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko. He immortalized in his work the image of a kobzar - a folk storyteller who accompanied his songs-thoughts by playing the kobza. He also called the collection of his poems "Kobzar". Many centuries ago, kobzars appeared in Ukraine. They were itinerant singers, often blind. But blindness did not prevent them from seeing the evil that was happening around, the troubles that befell ordinary people. Kobzars sang about all this, about the fate of the people, about the struggle of Ukrainians against the oppressors, accompanying themselves on the kobza, the instrument from which their nickname came. That is why Taras Shevchenko called himself a kobzar: after all, he also sang of ordinary people, called to fight against oppression and arbitrariness.
Therefore, I think, we can conclude that at the beginning of this material, it was not without reason that the Cossack turned to his instrument with the words both kobza and bandura. Because, as it turned out, these are two names of the same instrument, which has gone through serious constructive changes over the centuries and is the pride of Ukrainian musical culture.
"Pandura Passport" printable file - download
Passports of other musical instruments -.
Bandura- Ukrainian folk stringed plucked musical instrument. It has an oval body and a short neck. The strings (on old instruments - 12-25, on modern ones - 53-64) are partly stretched over the fretboard (the so-called riots, longer, low-sounding), and partly attached to the deck (the so-called strings, shorter, sounding high). The bandura is distinguished by its fullness of sound and a bright characteristic timbre. The bandura's tuning is mixed, in the lower register it is a quarter-second, in the upper register it is predominantly diatonic, in modern instruments it is chromatic. They play the bandura by plucking the strings with their fingers with or without special thimbles. The word bandura is borrowed through Polish. bandura from ital. pandūra, which ascends through lat. pandūra to Greek πανδοῦρα "cithara".
Story
There are several theories regarding the origin of the Ukrainian bandura. Probably, its origin is connected with the kobza, and not with the gusli. The gusli had a small number of strings (4-5), which were played by "rattling". This way of playing is inherent in the balalaika and has not been recorded in Ukraine. Nevertheless, already, approximately, in the fifteenth century in Rus' there were helmet-shaped, they are also psalter-shaped harps, which had a large number of strings, from 14 to 20. The harps were borrowed from Western European peoples: this is indicated by the external similarity and the name of the harp-psalters with a musical instrument psaltery (Latin psalterium). Helmet-shaped harp appeared in Rus' in the XIV century. They could not become the foremother of the Rusyn bandura. By the way, a sample of the Old Russian harp itself has not been found. After unification with the Principality of Lithuania (1321), the orientation of the Ruthenian lands was directed towards Western culture. Cultural assimilation with Russia began at the end of the 17th century, when the multi-stringed Ukrainian musical instrument “bandura” was already formed and existed (1740).
The following facts speak in favor of the thesis about the origin of the bandura from the kobza:
In the 19th century banduras were symmetrical, which is inherent in lute-like instruments;
The main strings are located on the body of the bandura and are called "strings", that is, as part of the strings WITH the main strings on the neck;
The functional names of the strings on the neck of the kobza have been preserved in some places on the banduras;
The commonality of the traditional repertoire and forms of activity of kobza and bandura players;
Structural inconveniences for playing the bandura of the “doom order” on the strings in comparison with the absolute convenience of playing it on the kobza neck. The appearance of the bandura as an instrument of a homophonic-harmonic musical formation could not have happened before the appearance and formation of the system itself in European music.
