KOBZIARZE-BANDURZYŚCI W KULTURZE I HISTORII NARODU UKRAIŃSKIEGO

The article presents the importance of vagrant singers (bandurists) who are using bagpipes or bandura string instrument in history and culture of the Ukrainian people. I have been focusing not only on the development of the instruments used by singers itself, but also on the oral tradition that is carried out in their performances. Emphasis has been placed on showing their art during the Cossacks historical era as beyond doubt in this period it developed in Ukraine the most. This was primarily caused by the emerge of the guilds gathering singers. The special attention was given also to the Romantic period in which pipe playing has been vastly landmark in works of the most important Ukrainian writers and painters. I discussed also a period of persecution and manslaughter over this particular group of artists during the Soviet times, which greatly hampered the further development and heritage of pipe playing. Hopefully it gets slowly reborn in the independent Ukraine.