Heorhii Kyrylovych Tkachenko

Heorhii Kyrylovych Tkachenko was born in Kursk oblast in 1898 and died in Kyiv in 1993. He attended the Kursk Real College and, later, the Kharkiv Art College. In 1916–1917, he fell in love with playing the bandura when he heard Petro Drevchenko play in Kharkiv. He became his student even though the young, sighted boy was not initially taken seriously. His circle of bandurist friends in Kharkiv at the time included Kuchuhura-Kucherenko, Hnat Honcharenko, Hnat Khotkevych, and Yehor Movchan. Thanks to them, Tkachenko was able to master the old-world diatonic bandura.

In the late 1920s, he went to Moscow, where he studied art and architecture under Aleksei Shchusev at VKhUTEMAS. He later taught at the Moscow Architecture Institute. He returned to Ukraine after 1945 and became a member of the Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. He traveled widely and did sketches. He had many solo exhibitions as a well-known watercolorist. In the 1970s, with the renewal of interest in the kobzar, he began performing in concerts. The last remaining traditional kobzar, he popularized the old-world kobzar style. In particular, he wrote a textbook and made drawings of banduras that were used to produce the instrument. Among his students were Mykola Budnyk, Mykhailo Khai, Mykola Tovkailo, Taras Kompanichenko, Volodymyr Priadka, and others.

He founded the Kyiv Kobzar Workshop and help establish a kobzar museum. William Noll recorded Heorhii Tkachenko in 1992.