[2] The Ukrainian kobza was a traditionally gut-strung, lute-like stringed musical instrument with a body hewn from a single block of wood.

It was usually played by a bard or minstrel known as a kobzar (occasionally in earlier times a kobeznik), who accompanies his recitation of epic poetry called duma in Ukrainian.

The term bandura has a Latin pedigree and reflects the growing contacts the Ukrainian people had with Western Europe, particularly in the courts of the Polish gentry.

Currently there is a revival of authentic folk kobza playing in Ukraine, due to the efforts of the "Kobzar Guild" in Kyiv[6] and Kharkiv.

In popular parlance the term Kobza was applied to any regional lute-like instrument used by court musicians in Central-Eastern Europe.

The internationally known kobzar Ostap Veresay (1803–1890), is today considered the foremost kobza player of the 19th century despite the fact that he referred to his instrument as a bandura.

After O. Veresay's death in 1890 the instrument fell into disuse until its revival in the 1980s by Mykola Budnyk and exemplified by such players as Volodymyr Kushpet, Taras Kompanichenko, Eduard Drach, and Jurij Fedynskyj.

Konoplenko first picked up the fretted kobza before the Revolution in 1917 in Kyiv from Vasyl' Potapenko and played on this instrument after emigrating to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Although Prokopenko's suggestion was not supported in 1976, it is currently being resurrected by musicians in Ukraine in the Academic folk instrument movement, particularly at the Kyiv Conservatory.