Ukrainian singer (bass), poet and translator. Performer of songs, romances, and arias by Ukrainian and foreign composers. Member of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine (since 1975), Honored Artist of Ukraine, Honored Artist of Ukraine. He worked at the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
Biography.
Viktor Zhenchenko was born on October 11, 1936, in the village of Obolon, Poltava region, in a family of teachers. He lost his parents during the German-Soviet war. From 1943 he was brought up in the Khorol orphanage. He graduated from the Kharkiv State Conservatory.
He died from complications of COVID-19.
His works
Moaning
Among the thirsty steppes
A gray-haired glory has been groaning for centuries,
Calling its well-fed,
Sleepy contemporaries...
He worked at the Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theater (1960-1962), the Alisher Navoi Tashkent Opera and Ballet Theater (1962-1965), and since 1965 he has been a soloist at the Kyiv State Philharmonic. Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR.
He performed the parts:
Elector (Mykola Lysenko's "Natalka Poltavka");
Mephistopheles (Faust by Charles Gounod);
Konchak, Galician (Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin);
Salieri (Mozart and Salieri by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov);
Gremin (Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Tchaikovsky).
Poetry collections.
"String" (1971);
"Father's Violin" (1974);
"The Sunny Side of the Street" (1980);
"In the Shine of Poplar Graces" (1983);
"Yaryna's Wreath" (1984);
"Poetry" (1986);
"Despise Your Fear" (1997);
"Visual Poetry" (2000);
"Thirst for Two (2001);
"I live" (2006).
Translations.
Translated from Kazakh, Uzbek; some translations from Tatar, Belarusian, Russian, Azerbaijani, Latvian and other languages. He is the compiler and translator of the anthology of Croatian poetry "In this terrible time" (1996).
From Uzbek.
"Songs of Uzbekistan (1972);
"Stories" by X. Nazir (1975);
"Adventures of Turtkoz" by S. Anarbayev (1984);
selected works by Zulfiya, Sayyar, M. Babayev, E. Vakhidov, A. Ibodinov, and L. Makhmudov.
From the Kazakh.
"Together with Father" by K. Naimanbayev (1983).
Awards.
Honorary title of Honored Artist of Ukraine (1997)
Winner of the Andriy Malyshko Literary Prize of the Dnipro magazine.
Chevalier of the Orders of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Volodymyr the Great and the Holy Archangel Michael.
Family.
Son - Ihor (b. 1962), book artist, landscape painter, designer, publisher, teacher. Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine, Chairman of the Board of the Kyiv Union of Book Artists. He is the head of the Zhnets publishing house and teaches design at the Institute of Journalism at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University. His daughter Yaryna is a leading international tourism manager, his son Vasyl is a police officer, and he has two grandsons, Yevhen and Stanislav.
Her daughter-in-law is Maryna, an editor, teacher, and associate professor at the Educational and Research Institute of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. She is the editor-in-chief of the Kyiv-based publishing house Zhnets.
