Hnat Tykhonovych Honcharenko (1835–c. 1917) was one of the most renowned Ukrainian

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 kobzar

Kobzar

A Kobzar was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment.-Tradition:Kobzars were often blind, and became predominantly so by the 1800s...

s (blind itinerant minstrels) of the Kharkiv oblast

Kharkiv Oblast

Kharkiv Oblast is an oblast in eastern Ukraine. The oblast borders Russia to the north, Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the south-east, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west, Poltava Oblast to the west and Sumy Oblast to the north-west...

 of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Biography

Honcharenko was born in the village of Ripky into a serf family. He became blind at the age of 3 or 4. He began to study the bandura at the age of 22 under the old kobzar Petro Kulibaba. He studied for a period of four months, and continued his studies under other kobzars he later met.

After he married, he settled not far from Kharkiv

Kharkiv

Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...

 on the Hubayenko homestead. When he was widowed, he resettled to Sevastopol

Sevastopol

Sevastopol is a city on rights of administrative division of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 . Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa....

 with his son, a railway engineer. Honcharenko would spend his winters there and return to Kharkiv for the summer months.

Honcharenko had in his repertoire four dumy

Duma (epic)

A Duma is a sung epic poem which originated in Ukraine during the Hetmanate Era in the sixteenth century...

, epic poems set to music:

1. Oleksiy Popovych
2. The Poor Widow and Her Three Sons
3. The Sister and Brother
4. About the Escape of the three brothers from Oziv

He also sang numerous satirical-humorous songs and played instrumental dance melodies.

On the pages of the press, Hnat Honcharenko was first mentioned by M. Sumtsov in 1885. In the January edition of "Kievan Antiquities" in the article "About a new variant of Olexiy Popovych" he wrote, that Honcharenko had visited Kharkiv numerous times and that he knew numerous sacred and humorous songs, as well as dumy "About the Escape of the three brothers from Oziv" and the "Poor widow".

The first recordings of dumy made from Honcharenko were made by Yu. Tykhovsky in 1899. These recordings were given to the organizers of the XIIth Archeaological conference, but unfortunately were not published. Tykhovsky noted that Honcharenko was quiet and unassuming, that he played very well and sang distinctly, and that "it would be very nice to record from him his melodies and the musical accompaniment of the dumy".

Hnat Khotkevych

Hnat Khotkevych

Hnat Martynovych Khotkevych December 31, 1877 in Kharkiv, Russian Empire – October 8, 1938 in Kharkiv, in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union) was a Ukrainian writer, ethnographer, playwright, composer, musicologist, and bandurist....

 regarded Honcharenko's performances very highly: "he is one of the most educated of all the kobzars. His appearance leaves an impression similar to a magical feeling. He, like his colleagues, wandered from village to village, singing at marketplaces and streets, but what is first observed is his cleanliness and outward appearance.... It could be assumed that he was like this at home, that he is always like this, and not just for the observer's eye.... As a virtuoso, with a limited repertoire. He did not have messy parts in his playing. Everything was performed clearly and artistically."

In 1908 Lesia Ukrainka, with her husband Klyment Kvitka, recorded on phonograph the singing of Hnat Honcharenko and these wax cylinders were sent to Filaret Kolessa

Filaret Kolessa

Filaret Mykhailovych Kolessa was a Ukrainian ethnographer, folklorist, composer, musicologist and literary critic. He was a member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1909, The Free Ukrainian Academy of Sciences from 1929, and the founder of Ukrainian ethnographic musicology.- Biography...

 in Lviv

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

 for transcription.

Filaret Kolessa stated:

Honcharenko died sometime around 1917. A more accurate date has not been ascertained.

Students

• Horobetz
• Petro Drevchenko
  Petro Drevchenko
  Petro Semenovych Drevchenko was also known by the surname of Drevkin and Drygavka.-Biography:Drevchenko was born in 1863 in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire to a family of servants. From the age of 12 he lived in Kharkiv, in the area of Zalutin. At the age of 13 he came down with...
  
  
• Erast Udiansky
• Hryhory Bajdykov
• Mykola Demchenko
• Pavlo Hashchenko
  Pavlo Hashchenko
  Pavlo Ivanovych Hashchenko was a Ukrainian kobzar and bandura player.Hashchenko was originally from Poltava province but lived most of his life in the village of Konstantynivka, Bohodukhiv county, Kharkiv province....
  
  
• Ivan Kuchuhura Kucherenko
  Ivan Kuchuhura Kucherenko
  Ivan Iovych Kuchuhura-Kucherenko Ivan Iovych Kuchuhura-Kucherenko Ivan Iovych Kuchuhura-Kucherenko (July 7, 1878—November 24, 1937 was a Ukrainian minstrel (kobzar) and one of the most influential kobzars of the early 20th century...
  
  

Sources

• Mishalow, V. and M. (1986). Ukrayins’ki kobzari-bandurysty (Ukrainian Kobzars-Bandurists). Sydney, Australia.
• Humeniuk, A. (1967) Ukrayins’ki narodni muzychni instrumenty (Ukrainian folk musical instruments), p 79. Kiev, Ukraine.