Zeno Oleksiyovych Dashak (* 17 July 1928, Stryi, Lviv region - † 26 June 1993, Lviv) was a Ukrainian musician, composer, rector of the Lviv State Lysenko Conservatory (1965-1992), Honoured Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1970), professor (1971), teacher, musician and public figure, founder of the Ukrainian viola school.
Biography
Kyiv.
Zenon Dashak was born on 17 July 1928 in Stryi, Lviv region, in the family of a railway worker. From 1946 to 1951, he studied at the Mykola Lysenko Lviv State Conservatory in the class of Professor Pavlo Makarenko; then he studied at the postgraduate course of the Tchaikovsky Kyiv State Conservatory (1951-1954), where he defended his dissertation "Chamber Instrumental Works and Performing Activities of Mykola Lysenko". There he rose from a senior lecturer, associate professor to the head of the Department of Stringed Instruments (from 1961) and vice-rector for educational and scientific work (1963-1965). At that time, prominent cultural figures worked at the Kyiv Conservatory: B. Liatoshynskyi, L. Revutskyi, I. Patorzhynskyi, N. Rakhlin, V. Stetsenko, M. Donets, Z. Haidai, O. Parkhomenko, O. Horokhov, V. Chervov, O. Manilov, R. Lysenko, and others. The rector of the Conservatory was a famous composer, People's Artist of Ukraine, winner of state awards, Professor Andriy Shtoharenko, who knew Zenon Dashak's musical and organisational skills well and highly valued his deputy as an intelligent, strong-willed and sociable person.
In Kyiv, Zenon Dashak performed as part of a string quartet with first-class musicians: O. Horokhov, S. Kravtsov and V. Chervov. Here he became a leading violist teacher, an experienced administrator, and a public conductor.
Lviv
In 1965, Zenon Dashak's life began an extremely intense and fruitful period of activity. He was appointed rector of the Mykola Lysenko Lviv State Conservatory. The youngest rector in the Soviet Union at the time, he plunged into his work with inexhaustible energy and efficiency, having already gained vast experience at the Kyiv Conservatory. He immediately created a string quartet, whose members included Oleksandra Derkach, Bohdan Kaskiv, and Kharytyna Kolessa. They performed with this group for many years in various cities of the USSR and abroad. Later, People's Artist of Ukraine, Professor Lidia Shutko and leading musicians Tetiana Shupiana, Tetiana Syrotyuk, and Taras Shevchenko National Prize winner Yurii Laniuk played in this ensemble. The ensemble was noted for its high skill, and was constantly invited to tour. Pianist, People's Artist of Ukraine, Professor Oleh Kryshtalskyi was often a partner in the quintet.
Thanks to the large-scale activities of the Honoured Artist of Ukraine Zenon Dashak, the Lviv Conservatory became one of the leading universities, with a high reputation in the Union and abroad. His personal creative and business contacts with outstanding contemporary musicians contributed to this and added to its prestige. During his tenure as rector, numerous, extremely important events were held here: performing competitions (All-Union competitions in violin, viola, double bass, harp; All-Ukrainian competitions of pianists named after M. Lysenko and conductors), scientific conferences, meetings, seminars, creative reports in cities of Ukraine and the Union, etc.
He was also a member of the jury of all-Ukrainian and all-Union competitions, numerous international competitions: in France, Germany, Georgia, Romania, Lithuania, where he collaborated with such prominent artists of the twentieth century as L. Kogan, A. Khachaturian, V. Borysovsky, S. Zenaker, O. Tattakishvili, I. Bezrodnyi, M. Rostropovich, S. Tsintsadze, O. Sveshnikov, F. Druzhynin, V. Dulova, V. Klimov, O. Iokheles, B. Kotorovych, P. Bondarenko, O. Aleksandrov, S. Sondetskis, E. Paulauskas, J. Flejinskas, E. Sinitsyna, B. Chiaureli, B. Cheishvili, R. Seyid-zadeh, O. Krysa, Y. Bashmet, and others. All of them highly valued Zenon Dashak and were his sincere friends.
During his twenty-seven years as rector, Zenon Dashak, proud of the university he headed, did a lot for Ukrainian culture, for the conservatory, for people who received honorary titles and academic degrees. He was a maximalist, emotional, impulsive, and often lost his temper, but justice, human decency, and goodwill always prevailed. However, at the initial stage of the revival of independent Ukraine, a handful of noisy "patriots" who, thanks to him, had taken up leadership positions, although at that time they did not have sufficient grounds for this, accused the rector of all sins. Having tasted the bitter cup of betrayal, deceit, meanness, intrigue, I could not accept it, I did not justify myself, I did not prove anything. Out of a sense of dignity and fulfilled duty, he wrote a letter of resignation of his own free will. He never went to his office, where he spent his best years of achievement, rise, and... incredible suffering due to anonymous denunciations and complaints, for the rest of his life.
That's who he was - a strong-willed, brave, sincere giant. His frank look is captured in a bas-relief by E. Mysko at the Stryi Cemetery.
Public activity
Zenon Dashak's public activities are also multifaceted. He was the head of the Lviv branch of the Ukraine Society, a member of the presidium of the Lviv Cultural Foundation, the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society, and others. Here he was always a like-minded person with E. Mysko, M. Kolessa, B. Voznytskyi, R. Fedoriv, I. Kudyn, R. Bratun, and R. Ivanychuk.
Pedagogical activity
In Lviv, Zenon Dashak's pedagogical activity was also fruitful, where from 1981 to 1993 he headed the Department of Stringed Instruments (viola, cello, double bass, harp). He trained more than thirty violists, including laureates of the Freudian Prize, Y. Ferzer, Y. Zhenchur, S. Kalynovskyi, D. Komonko, and others.
Pressure from the authorities
The period of Z. Dashak's rectorate coincided with the rigid ideologisation and struggle of the Communist Party and punitive authorities against the Ukrainian language, history, culture, and individual employees. But the Lviv Conservatory has always been Ukrainian. Few people knew what courage, diplomacy, and national consciousness it took to resist this arbitrariness. It is now known for certain that "guardian angels" from certain institutions came with lists of "politically unreliable" people who had to be dismissed from their jobs. These were V. Flys, Zh. Maksymovych, M. Antkiv, D. Sterniuk, M. Bilynska, H. Kazakov, R. Zorivchak, A. Kos-Anatolsky, and M. Krushelnytska. But the rector stuck to his argument that they were indispensable for the conservatory as specialists. The same applied to the entrance exams, when the ruling bosses dictated who should be admitted to the university. The rector took the written papers to the appropriate authorities and proved, to the best of his ability and beliefs, who could study at the university. For the same purpose, in the late 1980s, open, public examinations in the speciality for applicants in the form of concerts were introduced.
Creative achievements
Zenon Dashak is deservedly considered the founder of the Ukrainian viola school, and his graduates successfully work in music schools and concert and theatre institutions in Ukraine and abroad. His class has produced excellent orchestral and ensemble players, and his graduate A. Venzhega was a winner of performance competitions. The teacher is the author of more than 40 works on the problems of musical performance, about 15 collections of pedagogical repertoire for violin and viola, collections of exercises and etudes, a number of arrangements and translations for viola; he wrote the Ukrainian Suite and Variations for violin (viola) and piano. As an editor and compiler, he also worked with V. Kyreiko, O. Manilov, and V. Stetsenko.
Family.
His musical genes were passed on to his descendants: his nephew Ivan (John) Dashak is a leading tenor on the European stage, his son Bohdan is a well-known opera and symphony conductor, works at the Lviv National Music Academy named after M. Lysenko, his daughter Iryna is a pianist, works at the National Music Academy of Ukraine named after P. Tchaikovsky in Kyiv. His grandson Yevhen is a pianist and clarinetist, works there, and his grandson Zenon Dashak, a laureate of international competitions, inherited the talent of a violist from his famous grandfather, successfully graduated from the Lviv Secondary Specialised Music Boarding School named after S. Krushelnytska and became a violist. He became a student at the Mykola Lysenko Lviv National Music Academy and the Berlin University of the Arts, and his young granddaughter, a winner of international competitions, Sofia, shows great promise as a pianist. His wife Hanna Dashak is an Honoured Artist of Ukraine, writer, singer, professor at the Lysenko National Music Academy, and his daughter-in-law Olena Dashak is a pianist.
