Hnat Khotkevych
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Hnat Martynovych Khotkevych (born December 31, 1877) is an Ukrainian bandura musician and instructor, born in the village of Derkachi, Ukraine. His mother was a domestic worker. Little is known about his father. As a youth he learned to play the piano and violin and later the bandura. He completed his studies graduating as an engineer.
[edit] Young Adult Life
Khotkevych was a renaissance man and was multi-talented. Although he was a professionl engineer, he is known more as a prolific Ukrainian literary figure, and also as a dramatist, composer and ethnographer. Khotkevych at one time made a living from performing as a singer, violinist and bandurist.
In 1902, he organized the first collective performance of kobzars who performed at the XIIth Archeological Conference held in Kharkiv.
In 1903 he organized a Ukrainian workers theatre in Kharkiv. Because of the many social issues addressed in the performances he was forced to emigrate in 1905 to Halychyna which at that time, was under Austro-Hungarian rule.
He traversed Halychyna with concerts of bandura music. In 1907, he wrote the first bandura handbook which was published in 1909 in Lviv.
In 1910, he had one of his bandura compositions - Odarochka - published in Kyiv. He returned to Central Ukraine in 1912 and was soon arrested, jailed and later exiled to Russia. He returned to Kharkiv only in 1917 where he taught Ukrainian Literature and Language at the Kharkiv Zoological college.
[edit] Life as an Instructor
From 1926 on, he taught bandura at the first conservatory level courses at the Kharkiv Muz Dram Institute.
In 1928, he became the director of the Bandura Studio, organized to retrain and convert the Poltava Bandurist Capella to play in the Kharkiv style. He composed and arranged numerous works for this ensemble. In 1929, his second section bandura handbook was partially published.
From 1931, he underwent numerous personal attacks in the Soviet press, which ultimately resulted in all his music and writing being banned in 1934. In 1938 during the Stalinist purges, he was arrested and secretly sentenced execution in 1938.
He died on October 10, 1938.
