Kucherenko-Kuchuhura, Ivan

Kucherenko-Kuchuhura, Ivan [Kučerenko-Kučuhura], b 7 July 1878 in Murafa, Bohodukhiv county, Kharkiv gubernia, d 1943 in a prison camp. (Photo: Ivan Kucherenko-Kuchuhura.) Kobzar. Blinded in childhood, he learned to sing and play the bandura from the kobzar P. Hashchenko. With a repertoire of over 500 folk songs and dumas, he was invited by Hnat Khotkevych to teach bandura at the Lysenko Music and Drama School in Kyiv (1908–10). As his reputation grew, he staged concerts in Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odesa, Katerynoslav, Poltava, Rostov-na-Donu, Minsk, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw. Many songs in his repertoire were of his own composition. Some of the dumas he sang were written down by Filaret Kolessa. In 1939 Kucherenko-Kuchuhura was arrested and sent to a labor camp in Siberia.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989).]