Vasyl' Potapenko (1886–1934) born in Berezna, Mensk region, Chernihiv province was the guide-boy for the blind kobzar

Tereshko Parkhomenko Terentiy (Tereshko) Makarovych Parkhomenko (1872–1910) was one of the most respected kobzars of the late 19th and early 20th century. Biography He was born 10 September 1872 in the village of Voloskivtsi, Sosnytsia county, in the Chernigov Go ...

. As a guide-boy he was a participant of the ХІІth Archeological congress held in Kharkiv in 1902. He travelled to

Halychyna Galicia ()"Galicia"
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Hnat Khotkevych had invited kobzars to perform there in 1909. When he discovered that the audiences in Halychyna had expected blind bandurists, he tried to blind himself by spraying caustic soda in his eyes. He returned to central Ukraine settling in

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

where he made a living teaching bandura and re-selling banduras. Many of his students joined the Kiev Bandurist Capella in its second incarnation from 1924. He was a participant at the Xth historic-ethnographic concert held in Kiev in 1928. On October 15, 1930 Potapenko was arrested for being a member of "counter-revolutionary" (anti-Soviet) organizations. There were further arrests ending in his unexplained disappearance. Potapenko made a significant contribution to the art of playing bandura. He was one of the bandurists who cemented the use of the Chernihiv style of bandura playing in Kiev, and in particular the drag technique exploited by Parkhomenko. After his arrest, he was treated typically as a "non-person" and written out of the history books.

Sources

*Kudrytsky, A. V. - Mystetsvo Ukrainy - Biohrafichnyj dovidnyk - Kiev 1997 *Ukrainians in North America, USA *Литвин, М. – Струни золотії – “Веселка”, К.:1994 (117с.) *Мішалов, В. і М. Українські кобзарі-бандуристи – Сідней, Австралія, 1986 - 106с. *Самчук, У. - Живі струни - Детройт, США, 1976 (468с.) Kobzarstvo Bandurists 1886 births 1934 deaths {{Ukraine-bio-stub