#kobzar art

[kobzars]

Color linocut, 1966, Kyiv, In the Nadneprovsky park, artist Galina Garkavenko. Painting with pure, transparent and light colors. Winter park landscape with a view of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

Back cover of a 1922 edition of the Kobzar, an 1840 book of Ukrainian poetry by Taras Shevchenko. X

[theophan-o]

Old Ukrainian bandura from the 1st half of the 19th century, which belonged to the real kobzar, Yevhen O. Adamtsevych (Євген О. Адамцевич, 1903/1904-1972)

Currently stored in the collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum (Харківський історичний музей), ДР-68

There is a Cossack on horseback depicted on this beautiful musical instrument:

[temnashafa]

ТАРАС ШЕВЧЕНКО

Якщо грати на кобзі то тільки так

TARAS SHEVCHENKO

If you play on the kobza,

that's the only way

[kobzars]

This lithograph by People's Artist of Ukraine Zenoviy Ketsalo, measuring 43 x 56 cm (16.9 x 22 inches), depicts an American tractor working the fields of Ukraine and the USSR. The artwork reflects the mechanization of agriculture during the early Soviet era, symbolizing the transition from traditional farming methods to industrialized collectivization. The composition contrasts old and new ways of working the land, with a horse-drawn plow in the background and a powerful tractor in the foreground. The Ukrainian inscription "ПЕРЕОРЕМО МЕЖІ" ("We will plow the borders") suggests the ideological drive to reshape the agricultural landscape. The style of the lithograph, characterized by bold lines and striking contrasts, captures the dynamic energy of this historical transformation.

Zenoviy Ketsalo (1919-2010) was a People's Artist of Ukraine, an outstanding painter and graphic artist who became famous for his talent and contribution to the world of Ukrainian art. He was the author of famous works that became the property of the Lviv School of Graphic Arts.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet Union imported tractors and technology from the United States as part of its rapid industrialization and collectivization efforts under Joseph Stalin. The USSR sought to modernize agriculture and industry, and American technology—especially from companies like Ford and Caterpillar—was seen as highly advanced. The Soviets purchased tractors, machinery, and even entire factory designs to boost agricultural productivity and mechanize farming. American engineers and specialists also helped set up production facilities, such as the Kharkiv, Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk tractor plants, which later produced Soviet-made machinery.

[theophan-o]

Beautifully drawn, Bohun-style Cossack from the illustrated edition of Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar for children:

Тарас Шевченко, Дитячий Кобзар, Львiв: Видавництво Старого Лева 2022, с. 40-41.

A Masterpiece of Maryna Mykhailoshyna (Марина Михайлошина), contemporary Ukrainian artist.

It is a fan&didactic account, existing only for the Cossack Heroes glory and promoting Ukrainian heritage worldwide. Copyright belongs to the Artist/Museum.

[vintage-ukraine]

The cover of The Songs of the Great Kobzar by Oleksandr Komyakhov, 1964

[stephjacq]

2023.10.13

Skellie Kobzar

I’ve missed a few days and veered from the prompts but whatever ✨happy Friday 13th 🖤

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Casa de Letras

* * * *

“What can art accomplish? The purpose of art is to accumulate the human within the human being. But when I was in Afghanistan during the Soviet War, and recently, speaking to Donbass refugees in Ukraine, I heard how quickly man gets rid of culture and a monster emerges. The beast is revealed. I do write though.... keep on writing... I write as my teachers taught me, the Belarusian writers Ales Adamovich and Vasil Bykov, whom I remember today with gratitude... I write as my Ukrainian grandmother taught me in childhood when she recited poems from the book Kobzar (The Bard) by Taras Shevchenko. Why do I write ? I've been called a catastrophe writer, but that's not true. Always looking for words of love. Hate will not save us. One and only love And I have hope... ". Svetlana Alexievich on House of Letters blog. 

Casa de Letras

[bitmet]

Tokenization of real assets

The tokenization of real assets is a promising direction for the Kobzar Cultural Space, as this technology can open up new opportunities for development and financing. One of the main advantages of tokenization of works of art and cultural heritage is to increase the investment accessibility of cultural treasure for a wide audience.

[gangstalkerbarbie]

In a number of societies in the past, there were jobs reserved for people with isolating conditions or people with disabilities — in some Arctic cultures shamans are born, not made, because shamanhood is one such job for people we would call schizophrenic, for example.

In pre-revolution Ukraine, blind men who needed to support families had a protected social role as a type of lorekeeper and bard, with claim to a circuit of villages to ply their trade in. They often took in orphans to lead them around, but only taught their art to the ones that could do that work according to the rules governing it and keeping it the welfare system that it was.

There's something kind of similar with witches across religions as a job, in the same cultural sphere, because witches and folk healers (there is overlap) were touched by the other side themselves (typically you would become something like a znakharka because you were let's say an orphan with severe trauma, or so obviously what we would call borderline that someone had to teach you to control it, and if you already know what those plants do why not learn more), and therefore qualified to help other people going through it.

People didn't always like or trust them, but they fed them and made sure they were safe anyways, because there was a niche reserved for people like that even though there was very little anyone knew how to do for them.

Entire social safety nets used to exist in a wide variety of diverse places that not only provided care for people who couldn't care for themselves in some ways, but set up systems that preserved their agency. I like that people are concerned on here for the mere level of caring about people currently ostracised and people whose disabilities make them hard to be around and people who cannot do most conventional work, but when thinking about people's welfare I think it's important to also think about ways they can be integrated in your society, in your life, next to you as other human beings, right now.

Because after they leave crisis mode, once their basic needs are met, all people want to give back. I think a lot of people get stuck on taking care of the psychologically ill and variously disabled, but there are going to be times when they don't need as much help as they do now, and what are they going to feel whole and competent doing then? What has been done to create an environment where they can gainfully be employed at skills they are good at, without being forced out of those professions because other people with less to worry about can meet demand faster?

In this essay I will prove that the modern equivalent of the kobzar is the furry artist

If safety in your ideal society is entirely based on care by networks of affinity, and does not provide care for people who are not liked by anybody, then your society is actually even worse than the situation we are in now.

Pissing off people close to you or over-exhausting your social network or isolating yourself is often an inherent part of many mental health problems, addictions, etc. By the time people need care the most, they have often lost all their networks of affinity, and with some bad luck, any of us could find ourselves in that situation.

There has to be unconditional care available for the more unlikable of us, or there isn't really a safety net for any of us.

[kobzars]

Today is the Day of the National Flag of Ukraine, tomorrow is the Independence Day of Ukraine! Peace and happiness to you and your families!

[historyofart-emus]

(Kozak) Bandurist (Бандурист), alternatively Blind Man (Сліпий) or Slave (Невольник) by Taras Shevchenko

Iskivtsi, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). 1843. Sepia ink.

Taras Shevchenko, also known as Kobzar (a word for a Ukrainian bard) is one of the most well known and important figures to Ukrainian cultural and linguistic history. Active in the mid 19th century, Shevchenko was a poet, writer, artist, and political figure and is credited with creating the foundation for Ukrainian literature and language in general.

These sepia ink drawings are two of many drawings Shevchenko did of a theme on a blind kobzar playing the Bandura (a Ukrainian folk instrument) in 1843, during his first trip across Ukraine. Three years later, he would write a poem on the topic, the title of which gave these pieces their alternative titles. Here's an excerpt from the poem connected to this scene:

«Отак на улиці під тином

Ще молодий кобзар стояв

І про невольника співав.

За тином слухала Ярина…»

"And so on the street by the fence

Still the young kobzar stood

And sang about a slave

Behind the fence stood Yarina..."

In this scene, Yarina recognized her husband Stepan in the blind musician, and her role is then attributed to the young woman shown in the background of these pictures. Several depictions of the scene, including the first one I show here, also places a young boy in the scene as a guide for the kobzar. His hairstyle is called an oseledets, traditional of a Kozak/Cossack depiction. The original of this first painting, one of the biggest sepia pieces done by Shevchenko, is unfortunately believed to be destroyed in a fire in 1919, but still exists in two photo copies. It was also used as art on the 2005 100 hryvnia bill.

[vintage-ukraine]

Kobzar by Nadia Klein and Stepan Kyrychenko, 1964

[mlishchinska]

Портрети українських кобзарів О. Сластіона / Portraits of Ukrainian kobzars, O. Slastion

1961