Voice of Kobzar Recreated for Ukraine's 30th Independence Anniversary: How It Was Achieved and Who Took Part in the Project

According to the authors, Shevchenko's anthropometric data was used, along with archival data and the memories of his contemporaries.

For Ukraine's 30th Independence anniversary, a team from the creative agency TABASCO recreated the voice of the famous Ukrainian writer and artist Taras Shevchenko. The agency announced this on Facebook.

We explain how the voice of the famous Kobzar was reconstructed, who helped with the project, and how long the entire work took.

What work was done before the project was launched

The authors of the project explain that the first phonograph for recording and playing back sound was invented in 1877, 16 years after Taras Shevchenko's death. That is why no recordings of the Kobzar's voice exist. 

The authors noted that over the agency's entire history, this project turned out to be one of the most complex, as it «combines Ukraine's cultural core with modern technology».

«The result is the voice of a nation brought back to life, and a demonstration of what creativity and the power of an idea can achieve!» the authors concluded.

Experts studied Shevchenko's physiological features using a surviving death mask.

A group of cultural scholars who study Shevchenko then spent a month collecting archival information about the poet's way of life, habits, manner of behavior and illnesses he had suffered, which could have affected his voice. The authors also received significant help from the memories of Shevchenko's contemporaries who knew him personally.

The project developers also created a three-dimensional model of Shevchenko's head, using it to select 108 living people similar to him, whom they sorted by appearance, height, posture, region and state of health.

A neural network created specifically for the project analyzed the parameters of the selected people and picked the three who were most similar to Shevchenko's data.

The final reproduction of the Kobzar's voice was fully synthesized by the neural network.

Who took part and how long the entire work took

As the project authors reported, the entire work took almost a year, and the number of people who took part exceeded 150. The researchers dedicated their work to Ukrainians in honor of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's Independence.

In addition to the agency, cultural scholars from the Taras Shevchenko National Museum and the company Wantent took part. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine also supported the project.

«The Kobzar's voice has come to life! Now everyone can hear how the great Taras Shevchenko might have sounded. Could there be a more symbolic gift for Ukraine's birthday?» the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote on its Facebook page.

At the end of the video, you can also hear how the lines of the poem «Caucasus» would sound in the voice of its author:

— Struggle and you shall overcome!

— God help you!

— Truth is on your side, glory is on your side

— And holy freedom!