Zinaida Yakovlevna Mozheiko (Belarusian: link=|Зінаіда Якаўлеўна Мажэйка; 6 December 1933 – 8 March 2014) was a Belarusian ethnomusicologist and cinematographer. Considered the founder of Belarusian ethnomusicology, she mainly focused her research on the folklore of Belarusian songs.
Mozheiko was born on 6 December 1933 in Orsha, Belarus. She attended Belarusian State University, and graduated from their Department of Journalism—part of their Philological Faculty—in 1952. She began working at a music school in Minsk in 1954, which she continued until 1958. She graduated from the Minsk Music College in 1956, and later worked there as a teacher between 1958 and 1962.
In 1961, she graduated from the Belarusian Academy of Music in Minsk, where she studied as a part of their department of history and theory.
Beginning in 1962, Mozheiko worked as a researcher for 50 years at the Institute of Art History, Ethnography and Folklore at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. She first worked there until 1963, then attended the institute for her post-graduate studies until 1966. From 1966 to 2011, she continued to work at the institute, becoming a senior researcher for the academy in 1971.
She recorded folksongs, and released two collections of folk music in 1986 and 1990. She used field recordings to create multiple documentaries about folk music, and released her work under the film studio "Belarusfilm" .[1]
Mozheiko died in Minsk on 8 March 2014, at the age of 81.[2]