Klym Feoktistovych Shmat (Shmatov; 1891 / 1900, Myshkivka village, Starodubsk district, Bryansk region, Chernihiv region - d. ?, (after 1970) - Ukrainian lyre player known as "the last lyre player of Starodubsk region", "aposhni lirnyk Branshchyny" (Belarusian), "the last lyre player of Sivershchyna".
There is very little information about the life of Klym Shmat. Klyment Shmat is one of the last documented lyre players on the territory of the so-called Russian Federation. Until the 1950s and 1960s, he was often seen playing the wheeled lyre in local squares and bazaars or near churches (in various villages: Mishkivka, Bryankustichi, Pyatovsk, Unecha, Starodub, and the surrounding area).
During her expedition to the Starodub region, namely the Starodub and Pogar districts of the Bryansk region, in 1953, folklorist Klavdia Svitova recorded Kliment Shmatov, and she also recorded the texts of his dumas and psalms.
Klavdiya Svitova recorded Klyment Shmatov as a resident of the village of Myshkivka, Starodubsk district, where he settled, because his wife, who was also blind but could see a little and was a guide, came from this village.
In 1924, 35-year-old Klyment F. Shmatov (lyre player Klym Shmat) was listed in the village of Bryankustichi, Unecha district, Starodubsk region.
Klym Shmat's lyre has seven keys and a tensioner for four strings: two bourdon strings and two resonating strings in the middle, although there are no bourdon strings on the instrument itself. Klym Shmat used one string each as a bourdon and melodic string. The range is from E-flat of the first octave to E-flat of the second octave.
Klyment Shmat's wheeled lyre was bought during the expedition by Klavdiya Svitova and is now proudly kept by Russians in the folk music room of the Moscow Conservatory, because with him the lyre tradition in Starodubshchyna ceased (1953), and "at the moment it is being revived" (2023, - in fact, not)
Witnesses say that Klym Shmat's repertoire included spiritual poems (psalm, "spiritual verse"), dumas, urban romances, comic or dance songs, etc. However, in 1953, Svitova made a phonogram of four psalms with their texts in the house of culture in Starodub, where there was at least some equipment, which was published in Moscow no later than 1965-1966 as a result of an expedition to the Starodubshchyna.
