Nazariy Nazarovych Yaremchuk (30 November 1951, Rivne (now Vyzhnytsia) - 30 June 1995, Chernivtsi) was a Ukrainian pop singer (tenor). People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1987). Hero of Ukraine (2021).
Father of the singer and composer, Honoured Artist of Ukraine Nazariy Yaremchuk Jr. and singer, Honoured Artist of Ukraine Dmytro Yaremchuk, as well as singer Maria Yaremchuk.
He is known primarily for performing Ukrainian songs: "The Incomparable World of Beauty", "Hear Mum", "If Love Passes", "Father and Mother", "Zacharuy", "A Matiola Flower", "Chervona Ruta", "Vodograi", "Smerekova Hata", "Stozhary", "Hai, zelenyi hai", "Rodyna", "I'll go to the distant mountains", "Song will be among us", "Pysanka", "Hey you, Cossacks", "I haven't told you everything yet" and others. In addition, Nazariy starred in the musical films Chervona Ruta, Smerichka Ensemble under the direction of Levko Dutkovsky, The Song Starts, You and I Are Spring, and Chervona Ruta. 10 years later". During his life, Nazariy Yaremchuk recorded more than 150 songs.
Biography.
Nazariy Yaremchuk was born into a peasant family of Nazariy Tanasiyovych (1887-1963) and Mariia Dariivna (1920-1971) Yaremchuk. He had brothers Dmytro (1914-2010) (from his father's first marriage), Stepan (1944-2000), Bohdan (1947-2000), and a sister Kateryna (b. 1949). The parents named their fourth child Nazariy (this name means "dedicated to God"). He was born when his father was already 64 years old. The family itself was musical: his father had a tenor voice and sang in the church choir; his mother, in addition to singing, played the mandolin and performed at the local folk theatre. As a young boy, Nazariy also started singing.
On 1 September 1959, Nazariy started school in his native village. At the age of twelve, Nazariy suffered his first heavy blow - his father died. His mother had to send her son to the Vyzhnytsia boarding school. He studied conscientiously, took part in clubs, preferring the choir. After completing the eighth grade at the boarding school, Nazariy continued his studies at Vyzhnytsia Secondary School No. 1, where he graduated in 1969.
After graduating, Nazariy applied to the University of Chernivtsi to study at the Geography Department, but was not selected. He had to go to work as a seismologist for the Western Ukrainian Geological Exploration Party. At the direction of the military enlistment office, he took a driving course. Only on the second attempt in 1970, when he was already a soloist in Smerichka Levko Dutkovskyi, Nazariy managed to enter the university.
After classes, he would often come to listen to the rehearsals of the Smerichka VIA at the Vyzhnytsia House of Culture, which was led by Levko Dutkovskyi. The head of the ensemble noticed the regular visitor and offered to sing a song of his choice. It was a song by Ihor Poklad called "Kokhana". The director liked the young singer's voice, and in the autumn of 1969, Nazariy began singing in Smerichka.
His acquaintance with a young Bukovinian composer and medical student, Volodymyr Ivasyuk, played a major role in Nazariy's life. The audience heard "Chervona Ruta" and many other songs by the young composer. In the summer of 1971, he took part in the filming of the musical film "Chervona Ruta" with Levko Dutkovsky's songs "Incomparable World of Beauty" and "If Love Passes". This film made the soloists Nazariy Yaremchuk and Vasyl Zinkevych popular favourites. But after the filming, the second tragedy in Nazariy's life occurred - his mother Maria Dariivna, whom he had nurtured a great love for throughout his life, died.
The first artistic recognition came from the songs "Chervona Ruta" and "Vodohrai" by Volodymyr Ivasyuk, "Horyanka" and "Incomparable World of Beauty" by Levko Dutkovsky. For the performance of these works, the Smerichka ensemble and its soloists Nazariy Yaremchuk and Vasyl Zinkevych were awarded the title of laureates of the All-Union competition "Hello, We Are Looking for Talents" and "Song of the Year - 71/72", where they confirmed their high artistic skills.
In 1973, the Smerichka ensemble was invited to the professional stage of Chernivtsi. Since then, Nazariy, fully devoting himself to pop song, has been studying at the university part-time. At the Philharmonic, Nazariy led an active creative life, performing in concert halls packed with spectators, sometimes two or three concerts a day.
In 1972, the composer Levko Dutkovskyi introduced Nazariy to his first future wife Olena Shevchenko, who was offered a position as a soloist in the Smerichka vocal and instrumental ensemble.
Olena Shevchenko: "I was invited to come to the Chernivtsi Philharmonic, where Smerichka worked. Levko met me at the entrance. We started to climb the stairs, and Nazariy Yaremchuk came towards us. He was black-haired, with radiant eyes, and smiling. "Meet him," Levko says, "this is our Nazariy. I shake his hand, and he shakes mine. We meet eyes and... that's it. It was love at first sight..."
On 1 January 1975, Nazariy and Olena got married. The civil marriage was registered in the village of Pylypets, Mizhhiria district, Zakarpattia region, where Olena's parents lived. The village head gladly agreed to facilitate the registration of this marriage on a New Year's Day holiday when he found out who Olena was marrying. On 19 February 1976, the young couple gave birth to their first son, who was named Dmytro, and later, on 23 March 1977, their second son, Nazariy, was born. Nazariy and Olena were married for 15 long and happy years, from 1975 to 1990.
Their divorce in 1990 was a tragedy for their children and a shock to their friends. Olena remarried and moved to Kyiv, while Nazariy remained in Chernivtsi.
In 1975, the Zinkevych-Yaremchuk duo broke up. Vasyl moved to Lutsk and became a soloist of the Svityaz ensemble. Nazariy, having received his diploma, got a job as a senior engineer at the Department of Economic Geography at the university. But his love for song proved to be stronger than anything else - on the advice of Levko Dutkovsky, he returned to the Philharmonic for good.
In 1978, Yaremchuk was awarded the title of Honoured Artist of the Ukrainian SSR. He was also awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples.
When Volodymyr Ivasyuk tragically died, Nazariy was one of the first people to come to Lviv for the funeral, despite the authorities' ban. At the time, it could have cost him everything: his career, peace of mind, and reputation. The mourning procession began with a large wreath of white flowers, which Yaremchuk carried with Levko Dutkovsky. It was very dangerous at the time, but Volodymyr was a great friend to them, and they were not interested in the consequences.
It should be noted that for a long time Yaremchuk played the role of a lyrical hero on the stage, but he said that he liked to perform songs that combined lyrics and civic sound. In the 80s, Nazariy Yaremchuk was a romantic singer, singing the song "Invite Me to Your Dreams". Nazariy's first giant disc "The Incomparable World of Beauty", named after a song by L. Dutkovsky (1980), is one of the best discs in the Ukrainian discography of that period.
1981 was the year Nazariy began his journey to international recognition. The Smerichka ensemble represented Ukraine at the international Bratislava Lyre competition. Soloist Yaremchuk became its diplomat. In 1982, Nazariy as a member of Smerichka won the Mykola Ostrovsky Republican Prize. In 1984, the singer was awarded the title of laureate of the All-Union review-competition of thematic programmes dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. In 1985, he was awarded a diploma at the XII World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow. After Levko Dutkovsky left Smerichka in 1982, Nazariy Yaremchuk became the ensemble's artistic director.
During the Afghan war, Nazariy travelled to Afghanistan several times and performed for soldiers. In addition, the singer spent a lot of time searching for new talents and supporting amateur groups. Nazariy Yaremchuk supported many young performers. In particular, Oksana Pekun from Ternopil, Svitlana Zaichenko from Zhytomyr, Zhanna Bodnaruk from Chernihiv, Nina Shestakova from Kharkiv, Inessa Bratuschyk, Orest Khoma and Irchyk from Lviv, Bohdan Stashkiv from Ivano-Frankivsk, Mykola Romanov from Kyiv, Olga Dobrianska, Alla Natalushko from Chernivtsi, and others.
In 1986, after the Chornobyl disaster, the singer visited the 30-kilometre exclusion zone three times, where he performed for the liquidators of the accident.
In 1987, Nazariy was awarded the title of People's Artist of Ukraine.
Professional pop required professional training. In 1988, Yaremchuk graduated from the Faculty of Stage Directing at the Karpenko-Kary Kyiv State Institute of Culture.
Throughout his artistic life, the artist toured all the republics of the former Soviet Union and many countries, and repeatedly participated in the song festivals of the time - Kyiv Spring, Moscow Dawns, Crimean Dawns, Belarusian Autumn, White Nights, Merzishor, Lights of Highway 77, and some others. Together with VIA Smerichka, he participated in the cultural programme of the XXII Olympic Games in Moscow, the First International Festival of Political Song and all the prominent forums held in the country at that time.
Nazariy met his second wife, Daryna, in the village of Tyudiv. They were neighbours, lived close by, but did not know each other personally. When they met, Nazariy had been divorced for a long time, and Daryna had been raising her daughter alone for four years after her husband's death.
"It seemed to me that I had known Nazariy all my life - I communicated with him so easily. He is such a famous singer - and such a simple and sincere person. We didn't even notice that we had been talking all night. No one made any promises to anyone. But I realised that that day was a special day in my life. After Nazariy left, my brother Ivan, who introduced us, confessed what the singer had said to him: "It seems to me that we will soon become a family."
- Daria Yaremchuk
The wedding took place on 2 February 1991. We got married in the Church of John the Baptist in Kosiv. There were a lot of people in the church. The priest was very happy to be marrying such a famous artist. After the marriage, the Yaremchuks began to raise their children together. Nazariy loved to go for walks with his sons and stepdaughter, proud to have such beautiful children. Soon after, they bought an old house in Chernivtsi, built in the 1920s, on Internationalna Street (now named after Yaremchuk), which was in a terrible state: fungus on the walls, leaking roof. I had to redo everything to make it a normal house.
In 1991-1993, he gave concerts abroad, in particular in Canada, the USA, and Brazil. Abroad, he had a long-awaited meeting with his brother, whom few people knew about - it was a family secret that for decades they preferred not to disclose. Nazariy's father had a son from his first marriage, Dmytro Yaremchuk (1914-2010), a lawyer by profession, 37 years older than the future singer. In the 1940s, when various Ukrainian nationalist groups were active in Bukovyna, Dmytro joined the OUN of Melnykivka. He did not accept the Soviet occupation and left for Canada under a false name. Later, when he got back on his feet, he helped his relatives because he knew how hard the family was living. The brothers met many years later, when Nazariy became a famous singer and toured abroad. He dedicated his famous song "The Stork from Ukraine" to Dmytro and all Ukrainian emigrants.
On 2 March 1993, the Yaremchuks gave birth to a girl, who was named Marichka in honour of Nazariy's mother. The older children immediately fell in love with the baby and played with her. And Nazariy took his daughter's little pillow with him on tour, which he considered his talisman. Then suddenly Nazariy found out that he had cancer.
In 1995, Nazariy's friends helped him travel to Canada, hoping that Western medicine could help. However, the surgery was performed too late and did not help. But even when seriously ill, Yaremchuk continued to perform. After returning from abroad, Nazariy appeared at Yuriy Rybchynsky's party and everyone noted how much weight he had lost.
On 30 June 1995, after a long illness, Nazariy Yaremchuk died in Chernivtsi. The singer was buried in the central cemetery of Chernivtsi.
In March 1996, Nazariy Yaremchuk was posthumously awarded the Shevchenko State Prize by a Presidential Decree.
Nazariy Yaremchuk's statements
"A song is everything to me. It is an expression of human feelings. I cannot imagine my life without song. Everything is permeated with this feeling: my family, friends, colleagues at work, creativity. That's why the song is always with us. Every warm welcome relieves fatigue, because a person is happy when he or she brings joy to people and gives them pleasure. I want to sing beautiful songs for you that sink into your soul, into the memory of your heart, carry good thoughts, and enchant you with the beauty of melodies."
"Each of us must constantly be in flight - through fate, above the hustle and bustle. And at the same time, however, not to take our feet off the ground. Remember the sacred things - why you live, where you come from, what you strive for, what you tell people, from which well you drink living water. I'm past the age when you pay attention to the little things - autographs, popularity. I am concerned about something else: what will happen to our song garden tomorrow? "
Prizes, awards, titles
1978 - Honoured Artist of Ukraine, Order of Friendship of Peoples.
1981 - won three awards at the Bratislava Lyre International Pop Song Contest:
the main prize of the audience,
the prize of the Central Committee of Komsomol of Slovakia,
the prize for artistry.
1982 - together with Smerichka, he won the Nikolai Ostrovsky Republican Komsomol Prize.
1984 - awarded the title of laureate of the All-Union review-competition of thematic programmes dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War.
1985 - winner of the All-Union Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow.
1987 - People's Artist of Ukraine.
1995 - Honorary Citizen of Chernivtsi.
1996 - Shevchenko Prize for concert activity in 1973-1995.
Awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine with the Order of the State (22 August 2021, posthumously) - for outstanding personal services to the Ukrainian state in the development of musical culture, the formation of national identity, many years of fruitful creative activity and high performing skills.
Honouring the memory
Memorial plaques to Nazariy Yaremchuk were installed on the buildings where the singer lived in Chernivtsi, the Chernivtsi Regional Philharmonic, the Vyzhnytsia Palace of Culture, etc. A museum-room of N. Yaremchuk was also created in the Chernivtsi Philharmonic.
2000 - Lyceum No. 6 in Ternopil is named after Yaremchuk.
Streets in Kyiv, Chernivtsi, Vyzhnytsia, Ternopil, and many other Ukrainian cities were named after N. Yaremchuk.
In his honour, 101 kurinas of the Ukrainian People's University named after Nazariy Yaremchuk were also named.
In 2003, the Yaremchuk Family Song Festival was founded in his honour [Archived 17 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine], founded by his sons, Honoured Artists of Ukraine Dmytro Yaremchuk and Nazariy Yaremchuk Jr.
The song "In the Garden of Eden" by Stepan Hyha.
