Назарій Яремчук

Nazariy Nazarovych Yaremchuk (Ukrainian: Назарій Назарович Яремчук; 30 November 1951 – 30 June 1995) was a Ukrainian singer, born in the village of Rivnya, Chernivtsi Oblast. He was posthumously named Hero of Ukraine in August 2021. Until his death in 1995, Yaremchuk was one of the most-loved singers of Ukraine. He held on to the title People's Artist of Ukraine and was a posthumously recipient of the Shevchenko National Prize. In Ukraine, he was commonly nicknamed "the favourite of the country" and the "nightingale from the Bukovyna". Yaremchuk was mostly known for his Ukrainian-language repertoire. Together with Vasyl Zinkevych and Volodymyr Ivasyuk, he was the first singer to sing in his native language at Pesnya goda. As part of VIA Smerichka, Yaremchuk first popularised songs such as "Chervona Ruta" and "Vodohray". Yaremchuk's children became known in music as well. His two eldest sons Dmytro Yaremchuk [uk] and Nazariy Yaremchuk were both assigned the title People's Artist of Ukraine. Daughter Mariya Yaremchuk became a well-known recording artist and represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. Nazariy Yaremchuk was born as the youngest and third child of Nazariy Tarasovych Yaremchuk and Mariya "Marichka" Dariyivna in the village of Rivnya (nowadays part of Vyzhnytsia) on the banks of the Cheremosh river. Due to the aftermath of World War II, the family was of a composed nature. His father was thirty-four years his mother's senior and was therefore already 64 when Nazariy was born. At that time, his father already had two adult children from an earlier marriage, Dmytro and Emilia. However, neither of them lived with them in the house. Young Nazariy grew up with his older brother Bohdan and older sister Kateryna "Katryusha", and their father's grandson, Stepan. In fact, Nazariy's half-brother Dmytro (born 1924) then resided in Winnipeg, Canada, after he had fled there at the end of World War II due to his activities the UPA. Nazariy Yaremchuk was said to have a happy childhood and enjoyed music from a young age. That changed when his father died in 1963, when Yaremchuk was only twelve. This led to the decision of his mother to send him to a boarding school in Vyzhnytsia. There, he started to interest himself for choral music and mandolin. He eventually transferred to a secondary school to finish his education. In 1969, Yaremchuk finished secondary school and tried to enroll himself at the Faculty of Geography of Chernivtsi State University, but his attempt was unsuccessful. Instead of studying, he started working as a seismographer and was employed in the Army. Through his Army service, he could enroll himself in a driver's course at the House of Culture in his local Vyzhnytsia. After a driver's course class, Yaremchuk stayed in the House of Culture and attended a rehearsal of the VIA Smerichka [uk] as a spectator. Drawn in by the music, Yaremchuk, who had enjoyed singing a lot in his childhood, asked to join the group. After Levko Dutkivskiy, the musical director of Smerichka, heard his voice, he was invited to become a singer alongside Vasyl Zinkevych. In September 1970, Yaremchuk successfully enrolled himself in the Faculty of Geography at the Chernivtsi State University after all and started studying. In the evening, he kept attending rehearsals of Smerichka in Vyzhnytsia while in the morning, he had to attend class in Chernivtsi. Because of the hassle, Yaremchuk sometimes stayed at Dutkivskiy's home. Around the same time, Yaremchuk befriended Boryspil-based journalist Viktor Spivak of the Silski Visti newspaper. Spivak had only come to Vyzhnytsia by mere chance as he wanted to do a report in the Carpathians. There, he attended the rehearsal of Smerichka by accident as he was left bored in the small town. Spivak later recalled Yaremchuk's extreme musicality and very good pitch when they were hiking in the mountains during their encounters. "Once, when I arrived in Vyzhnytsia, Nazariy found me and proposed me to take a walk in the mountains. It was a beautiful Carpathian Septembery Autumn. Nazariy took me on an unknown trail, I only saw unknown places around the mountains, and in the sky, God had spilt hundreds of stars. The stars were such large ones, there was such a serenity, it was such a warm evening that I just fell in love with the rich nature. At that time, Nazariy told of the mountains, of the local people. And then suddenly, Nazariy, stood still, and said silently: "Viktor, a wedding." "Where?" I asked. "Listen, music is playing." He whispered. "No," I said. "I don't hear it." He had an amazing hearing, so it was not surprising, that he could hear music from several miles." — Viktor Spivak, 2004 The popularity of Smerichka grew locally and in 1970, the produced their first mignon. The regional television station proposed to shoot a musical film with the group taking the main role. Plans however changed quickly and instead, several ensembles were incorporated in the film, including VIAs Karpaty, Evrika and young singer Sofia Rotaru, who had acclaimed regional fame at that point. The eventual musical film was named Chervona Ruta, after the popular song with the same name by Volodymyr Ivasyuk. However, during the recording in August 1971 in Yaremche, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, a personal tragedy hit Yaremchuk as his mother died, leaving Yaremchuk as an orphan at the age of 19. It was initially unclear whether Yaremchuk would complete filming because of Hutsul mourning customs. In the end, Yaremchuk stayed on. In this film, he eventually played a soloist of the ensemble that Ivasyuk leads and performed "Незрівнянний світ краси" (The uncomparable world of beauty). Next to that, Yaremchuk could be heard as a vocalist on the songs "Chervona ruta", "Mila moya" and "Vodohrai". The release of Chervona Rute threw Smerichka in country-wide fame. Quickly after that, "Chervona Ruta" composer Ivasyuk was invited to present the song at the first edition of Pesnya goda in Moscow. Ivasyuk found that Yaremchuk and Zinkevych had to come with him to the capital. Dressed in Hutsul-inspired attire, Yaremchuk performed the song together with Zinkevych and Ivasyuk. At the age of twenty, Yaremchuk was the youngest soloist of the night. The group was invited to participate in the Ukrainian version of television music contest Allo, my ishchem talanty! in spring 1972, one of the first Soviet talent shows, nowadays comparable to X-Factor or Star Factory. However, the group refused to sing in Russian as the organisers had wanted. Instead, Yaremchuk performed two songs in Ukrainian: "Vodohray" with Mariya Isak and "Horyanka" with Zinkevych. In the end, both Smerichka and Arinka, another group only performing in Ukrainian, were declared winners. In January 1973, Smerichka were once again invited to perform at Pesnya goda and then performed "Vodohrai" once again. After this, Smerichka became professional and were assigned to work with the Chernivtsi Philharmonic Hall. Smerichka started to tour extensively throughout the Soviet Union and even performed at the Mariinskyi Palace in Kyiv in front of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who was wrongly convinced that Yaremchuk wrote "Chervona ruta". However, Smerichka became "too popular" in Ukraine and the Soviet authorities renounced Smerichka at party meetings. The group started to receive threats and there were attempts to create a fight between Yaremchuk and Zinkevych. In 1975, after an Estonian television company shot a television film with Smerichka in Ivano-Frankivsk, the threats became the duet too much. The film, Vistupaye ansamble "SMERICHKA" Levka Dutkovkskoho, was banned until the end of the Soviet Union for being too nationalistic. Zinkevych left for Lutsk, while Yaremchuk was thrown out of his apartment in Chernivtsi. "We had to leave the Philharmonic and Smerichka. (...) But here in the regional committee of the party, they started to see that they had gone a little too far and wanted Nazariy to