Execution of Ukrainian martyr-singers
In early December 1930 in Kharkiv Opera Theater, took place a congress of folk bards of the Soviet Ukraine, where from different regions were brought 337 delegates. The main objective of the Congress was the issue of involvement of folk singers into the development of socialism, deviation from the performance traditions and
finding of new ideological priorities.
As the appropriate resolutions were adopted, blind singer on the occasion of traveling to the Congress of folk singers of the USSR, which was held in Moscow, were entrained and brought to the outskirts of Cossack Lopan station. Late in the evening kobzars and lyrists were taken out of the cars to the forest belt, where trenches had been previously dug. Having ranked blind kobzars and their young leaders, special detachment of the NKVD USSR started shooting... When everything was finished, the bodies of the shot were covered with lime and ground. Musical Instruments were burned nearby...
Basing on the testimony of local residents, the search group of the Ukrainian Youth Association set approximate place of the execution of bards. After the legal registration of the relevant documents, the Association intends to initiate the exhumation and identification of bodies of murdered kobzars.
Search for at least a slight mention of the shooting of kobzars in the Soviet press - a useless thing. Even in the archives of the former NKVD-KGB researchers of the kobzar activity could not find documentary evidence of this terrible tragedy. What-what, but traces of their crimes NKVD-KGB men were able to cover: even in 1960 the then head of the KGB secret directive Shelepin ordered his agencies "from Moscow to the most to the outskirts" to burn all that could compromise in the future "valiant" bodies. Yet the truth about the shot kobzars and lyrists stubbornly arises from the ashes of oblivion.
We know that Stalin and his henchmen had just zoological hatred of everything that distinquished Ukrainians as a separate ethnic group from other oppressed peoples of the empire. And if the Ukrainian language and the Ukrainian song at the beginning of its rule the commune has somehow endured, the bearers of Ukrainian heroic epic – minstrels were like the bone in the throat. From the first days of consolidation of power of "workers and peasants" in Ukraine Bolsheviks organize real hunt for the blind and 
disabled folk singers and shot them on the spot, without trial and the court. 1918 was murdered lyrist Ivan Lytvynenko. 1919 in Katerynodar die at the hands of the Bolsheviks minstrel Ivan Lytvynenko, Andrii Slidyuk, Fedir Dibrova. 1920 – Anton Mytyai, Svyryd Sotnichenko, Peter Skydan...
Shevchenko "Blind" ("Slave")
Yet the Bolsheviks could not solve the kobzar problem in this way - there were too much kobzars in Ukraine, people loved and respected them. And the General Committee of CPSU (B) decides to change tactics and adopts resolutions: "On prohibition of begging", “On the compulsory registration of musical instruments in police stations and the NKVD", "Ratification of the repertoire in the institutions of the People's Commissariat of Education", “Regulations on individual and collective music-performing activities”. Now kobzars were not shot on the spot as before, they were shut in prison, left without food, drink, and their instruments were destroyed.
But it helped a little. After that kobzars as "incorrigible nationalist element”, were mercilessly blamed in the press. Contemporary newspaper lighted with headlines: "Against Kobza - Dniprel'stan radio!", "Be cautious with kobzars!", "Kobza - music wooden plough!", "Sorcerer-accordion has to some extent become a real mean of education the masses!" On the people who loved Kobzar art from the ancient times, was forcibly imposed not only "Sorcerer-accordion", but "Sorcerer-bayan" and "sorcerer-balalaika", musical factories Ukraine were obligatory to produce them tens of thousands.
Into the persecution of kobzars were also involved Ukrainian writers. Yes, Yurii Smolych wrote: "Kobza hide a danger, because it is too tightly bound up with nationalist elements of Ukrainian culture, with the romantics of the Cossacks and Cossack Sich. This past the minstrels certainly tried to resurrect. On kobza presses medieval junk of zhupan and shalwar kameez”. Mykola Khvylovyi called to put an end to "zakobzarennya (expansion of kobzar art) in Ukraine", "exterminate zakobzarena (soaked with kobzar songs) psyche of the people". But Mykola Bazhan surpassed everybody in his poem "Blind", in which calls kobzars "moaners", "stinking bastards" and the basis of their repertoire - our thousand-year heroic epic - "damned songs":
Die like a dog
as outcast newcomer.
Finish playing, mad,
awry game!
I believe - no Kobza,
I believe - no lyre,
I believe the flame
Of heart and anger...
However, not all figures of Ukrainian culture went on a leash of NKVD. Pavlo Tychyna was not ashamed to pose in front of the camera lens with "patriarchal-nationalist" Kobza, and Maksym Rylsky in those years stood up for Ukrainian kobzar art. Tychyna’s admiration for "old-time" kobza-bandura the bodies somehow
forgave, but Maksym Tadeyovych – did not, they hatched plans not only of spiritual but also physical destruction during next decades. And not only of Maksym Rylsky. Bodies made life unbearable for artists and folklorists, researchers of Kobza art such as Mykola Domontovych, Martynovych Porphyry, Clement Kvitka, Athanasius Slastion, writer and kobzar Gnat Khotkevych was dismissed from the position of Director of Dnipropetrovsk Historical Museum, "kobzar father” Dmytro Yavornytsky...
However, the Bolsheviks did not succeed in "knocking out the Kobza art" from the psyche of Ukrainian people. Then they resorted to a purely Jesuit methods of curbing free-thinking Ukrainian Kobzar art. Part of the kobzars who has not "stained" the peasant-proletarian biography as the participant of the national liberation struggle, was knocked into "farms" - the chapels, ensembles, quartets, trios, where, as says the priest and minstrel from the U.S. Serhii Kindzeryavyy-Pastuhiv, "Folk singer turned into a political sycophant of Communist Party, and the chapels, whereto were forcibly driven singers, have become the basis of their re-education". Commissariat of Education and the NKVD forced other kobzars to create "songs" and "ballads", which would magnify Soviet reality...
But most kobzars prefer not to take in the repertoire artificial "ballads", and it (ballad), like thousands of years ago, traveled from village to village, from city to city, singing ancient "slave cries”, stubbornly healed the people's historical memory.
Then someone from Stalin's entourage came to the idea: to collect kobzars and lyrists as if the convention and to shoot everybody and destroy Kobza and Lyre. Congress was planned to be held in 1925, then was transferred on December 1, 1927. But even then it was canceled. Apparently, not all kobzars were registered by the so-called ethnographic committee established by Academy of Sciences of the USSR therefor. 1939 in London was published a book of memories of Russian white émigré Shostakovych."In the mid 1930's, - he writes, - First Nationwide Congress of lyrist and bandura players has been declared, and all 
the folk singers had to gather together and discuss their future". “Life has become better, it became more fun" - said Stalin. These blind men believed him. They came to the congress from all over Ukraine, from the small forgotten villages. There have been few hundreds of those present at the congress. It was a living museum, living history of Ukraine, all of her songs, her music, her poetry. So almost all of them were shot, almost all of these mourning singers have been killed”.
There in the book of the American scientist Robert Conquest “Harvest of Sorrow" is also said about the destroyed Ukrainian "Homers": “The popular among the people national culture was maintained through the ages in the Ukrainian village by bards, glorified by Shevchenko kobzars, who traveled from village to village, earning a living performing ancient folk songs and telling folk ballads. They were constantly reminding the peasants of their free and heroic past. This "adverse events" were now suppressed. Bards called on Congress and gathered there were arrested all together. According to available information, many of them were shot - there was the logic for they were of little use in forced labor camps”.
Bogdan Zheplynsky well-known researcher of kobza art made a register of musicians, destroyed by the Bolsheviks in the 30's. In this list of folk singers murdered by Soviet authority there are nearly two dozen of kobzars from Poltava:
Bernatskiy I.K. Born in Zinkov, Poltava land (1901 BC.). From him M. Hayday wrote a ballad “About Konovchenko" (1926).
Borets Ivan Oleksiyovych. Born in Boryspil, Kyiv region in 1890. Member of People First kobzars chapel. He played in 1925-1926 in Kharkiv Chapel, and then moved to Poltava.
Hubenko Mykhailo. Born in Myrhorod in 1891. Performed as kobzar from 1927, played in kobzar ensembles.
Hura (Hurin) Petro Ivanovych. Born in the village of Krasna Luka, Hadyach Raion. In 1930 he lived in Yuzivka (now Donetsk).
Drevchenko (Drevkin, Dryhavka) Petro Semenovych. Born in 1871 in the village of Semenivka in Poltava region.
Zaets Mykola Martynovych (1902). Church chorister in Lubny. Traveled with the Choir of Kharkiv kobzars, some time was its artistic director. He was arrested in 1937. Missing.
Kovalvah Prokop Petrovych. From somewhere near Poltava.
Kononenko Pylyp Petrovych. From Velyka Pysarivka in Poltava land (1904). Founder of the Poltava Chapel. Played in Kharkiv (1925-1928) and in Konotop orchestras. Was producing Banduras.
Lavrysh (Lavryk) Petro. Born in the village of Khomutets Myrhorod Raion in 1873.
Matvyi (about 1865 of birth). Came from the village of Cherevky Myrhorod Raion.
Mynzarenko Demian. Came from Poltava (1889). In 1920 toured with the choir. Repressed 1936.
Parasochka (Petrivsky) Vasily. Born in Petrivka Konstyantynohrad province Poltava county.
Pasichnychenko. Minstrel from Myrhorod.
Polunets Hryhory. Came from the settlement of Zinkivschyna Poltava region. In 1902, P. Martynovych wrote from him psalms.
Siroshtan Ivan. From the village of Khomutets Myrhorod Raion (1863).
Skoba Anton Yakovych. Came from Velyka Bahachka, Poltava land (about 1865 of birth).
Fedorenko Vasyl Petrovych. Born somewhere near Kharkiv. In 1920-s played at fairs of Poltava land.
