Art: The Kobzar

The KobzarA stone statue of an odd little fellow playing a stringed instrument used to sit in a place of prominence in Klassen Court, the area between Marbeck Center and Founders Hall. J.P. Klassen, a Russian immigrant who taught art at Bluffton from 1924-59, created this sculpture known as "The Kobzar."

When the sculpture began to show wear from the weather, it was moved inside and placed in the Marbeck Center Gallery Lounge.

The Kobzar is based on a real person, a blind Ukrainian folk minstrel Klassen found performing in an opera house in St. Petersburg, and then paid to sit as a model. Klassen intended his original Kobzar sculpture to be a gift from the Mennonite to the Russian people in the early 1900s because "they were good to us." To his disappointment, the government did not accept this gift, as Soviet authorities were wary of rekindling Ukrainian nationalism.

Klassen later sculpted the small statue of the Kobzar from memory as a symbol bridging the gap between Mennonites and the non-Mennonite world around them. It is a symbol that has endured through the years, and is contemplated in the centennial history written by Dr. Perry Bush, "Dancing with the Kobzar: Bluffton College and Mennonite Higher Education, 1899-1999."

(text in part from "Dancing with the Kobzar," pg. 260)

More art on campus: The Centennial Sculpture Garden