The team of the CF "MHP - to the Community" presented a bandura to the Kharkiv kobza workshop

In early December, the Kharkiv Kobzar Workshop received a new bandura from the MHP for the Community Charitable Foundation. It is planned to teach the instrument to all interested children, who will be able to discover and continue to rethink the Ukrainian kobzar and lyrical tradition, UNN reports . 

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The presentation took place during a charity kobza concert in honor of the 220th anniversary of the birth of Ostap Veresai, a prominent Ukrainian kobzar. Kharkiv became the third city after Kyiv and Lviv where the Foundation supported kobza workshops by donating musical instruments. The bandura was handed over to the Kharkiv workshop by Pavlo Moroz, Director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Department at MHP, a strategic partner of the MHP for Ukraine in implementing important cultural projects.

"We came to Kharkiv to show our respect to those people who continue and carry Ukrainian traditions, values and the unbreakable will of the Ukrainian people through the ages, especially in the current difficult conditions. It is important for us to support the cultural identity in each of us. Kobzarism plays a special role in preserving Ukrainian meanings. After all, despite the physical destruction of kobzars, reprisals and bans on their music, the kobzar word has remained and, moreover, has gained new relevance today," said Pavlo Moroz, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at MHP.

The tradition of kobzarism in Ukraine dates back more than 300 years. Its peculiarity is in the oral transmission of information, in handmade musical instruments, in the history and meanings carried by lyre players, bandura players, and kobzars themselves. Today, kobzarism is about preserving statehood, among other things.

"First and foremost, Kobzarism should fulfill the function it has always performed. It should show a signpost to certain traditions, to things that preserve our nation, our culture, our self-identity. This is extremely important at a time when they want to erase our culture,"added Kost Cheremsky, a foreman at the Kharkiv Kobza workshop.

For the MHP for Community Charitable Foundation, for which cultural identity is one of its fundamental missions, it is extremely honorable to support the preservation of this tradition. That is why the team supported, in addition to handing over musical instruments to kobza workshops, the idea of Oles Sanin, a filmmaker, lyre player and vice president of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, to include "the practice of protecting the kobza and lirnytsia tradition" in the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, within the framework of which a documentary about the kobza and lirnytsia tradition was created and a corresponding application was submitted by Ukraine. While the application is pending consideration by the UNESCO jury, kobza workshops in Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv, with the support of the MHP for Community Foundation, continue to hold concerts and educational events in Europe and Ukraine to promote the cultural heritage of Kobzars.

"Now Kharkiv is really a fortress, no mass events or concerts are held in the city. Theaters and even universities are closed. According to various sources, more than half of the city has left. But for us, this is a story of resistance. Even the very history of kobzars, bratskis, and the kobzar workshop has always been that you can destroy people, a fortress, and a state, but you cannot kill culture, you cannot kill a song,"said director Oles Sanin.Bandura and kobza are musical instruments that are associated with Ukraine, with its life, history, art and creativity.

Kobzars and lyre players are an integral part of Ukraine's history. Kobzar songs inspire and comfort, recreate history and give hope."We are trying to continue these things so that it does not just become a museum or a theater. We want to be bandura players and continue to preserve our tradition", summarized Mykola Tovkailo, a foreman at the Kyiv Kobzar workshop.