Lirnyk
The lirnyks (Ukrainian: лірник; plural: лірники – lirnyky) were itinerant Ukrainian musicians who performed religious, historical and epic songs to the accompaniment of a lira, the Ukrainian version of the hurdy-gurdy.
Lirnyks were similar to and belonged to the same guilds (tsekhs) as the better known bandura and kobza players known as kobzars. However, the lirnyk played the lira, a kind of crank-driven hurdy-gurdy, while the kobzars played the lute-like banduras or kobzas. Lirnyks were usually blind or had some major disability.
They were active in all areas of Ukraine from (at least) the 17th century on. Though the tradition was violently ended in Eastern/Central Ukraine in the mid-1930s[1], some lirnyks were seen in the regions of Western Ukraine until the 1970s and even the 1980s.
Today, the repertoire of the instrument is mostly performed by educated, sighted performers. Notable performers of the lira include Mykhailo Khai, Vadym "Yarema" Shevchuk, Volodymyr Kushpet and Andrii Liashuk.
See also[edit]
- Kobzar
- Persecuted kobzars and bandurists
- Dziady (wandering beggars)
- Kobzarstvo
- Bandurist
- Blind musicians
References[edit]
- ^ ‘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
Sources[edit]
- Humeniuk, A. - Ukrainski narodni muzychni instrumenty - Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1967
- Mizynec, V. - Ukrainian Folk Instruments - Melbourne: Bayda books, 1984
