bandura

plural banduras · alternative bandora · alternative bandoura

1. A Ukrainian plucked stringed instrument with a tear-shaped body, like an asymmetrical lute or a vertical zither, which is played with both hands while held upright on the lap.

   'Thank you, master, for your lesson. I will sing you a song if you will listen;' and he touched a string of the bandura.

   1913, Bernard Pares, Maurice Baring, Samuel N[orthrup] Harper, editors, The Russian Review: A Quarterly Review of Russian History, Politics, Economics and Literature, volume 2, Paris; New York, N.Y.: Thomas Nelson and Sons, →OCLC, page 177

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   He touches the strings and pours forth a song descriptive of his live, his wanderings, his anguish, and is discovered by the magic tones of the bandura, his adventures, above all, by his voice and passionate fire.

   1871, [Nikolai Nikolaevich] Muraviev, “Return”, in Philipp Strahl, W[illiam] S[tephen] A[lexander] Lockhart, transl., Muraviev’s Journey to Khiva through the Turcoman Country, 1819–20. Translated from the Russian […]; and from the German […], Calcutta: Printed at the Foreign Department Press, […], →OCLC, page 81

   The whole night passed amid shouts, songs, and rejoicings; and the rising moon gazed long at troops of musicians traversing the streets with bandouras, flutes, round balalaikas, and the church choir, who were kept in the Setch to sing in church and glorify the deeds of the Zaporozhtzi.

   1886, Nikolaï Vasilievitch Gogol, chapter III, in Isabel F[lorence] Hapgood, transl., Taras Bulba [...] Translated from the Russian, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Co. […], →OCLC, page 75

   I have an old bandura hanging up on the wall in the hut. Opanás taught me to play on it, but there is no one to play it after me; and when I die, and that may be soon, perhaps nowhere in the wide world will one be found to play the bandura.

   1887, Vladímir Korolénko, “The Forest Soughs. A Forest Legend.”, in Aline Delano, transl., The Vagrant and Other Tales, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Co. […], →OCLC, page 50

   It was only at this time that bandura players emerged from underground. They had been banned from playing under the Tsar, and then they emerged and began to remind everyone openly about their Cossack past and to awaken feelings of nationalism in young children.

   1988, Commission on the Ukraine Famine, quoting Oleksander Honcharenko (interviewee), “Appendix I: Translations of Selected Oral Histories [Case History LH38: Translated from Ukrainian by Darian Diachok]”, in Investigation of the Ukrainian Famine 1932–1933: Report to Congress […], Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 337

   In the Ukraine of Russia the large bandoura with its almost circular face and as many as thirty strings (combining a zither function with fingered lute technique) is a popular short-necked lute, [...]

   1997, David [Benedict] Reck, Music of the Whole Earth, New York, N.Y.: Da Capo Press, →ISBN, page 133

   Synonyms: bandore, kobza, pandore