That was one of the happiest days in my childhood and, perhaps, in my entire life. The doors of the summer kitchen were wide open because there was a heat from the oven, from which my mom had just taken out pies. Outside it was fresher than indoors, but it was still quite warm. You can already run without a hat and over clothing in the yard. Trembling steam was playing on the sunbeams above the town. It was so nice and tickling on the chest. For it is a Spring!
Everyone was at home, even the elder brother arrived from a college in the evening. Mom told him that tomorrow I have a birthday. My brother asked me how old I was. I was rustling with a wrap from candies “Pilot”, not knowing how to formulate my age in one word. That’s why, I replied: “Today I’m four, and tomorrow I will be five.” The answer made my brother laugh.
When the time had passed, I easily figured out: this happy day fell on April 7, 1979. As an adult, I found out that this simple family story took place during the last month of Volodymyr Ivasyuk’s life – the famous composer was gone in late April that year. I could not understand how this young and talented life could end up when such a magnificent spring was blossoming? When there were sun and warmth, greens and birds, joy and happiness! When my life had just begun and seemed that everything good and the most interesting would be ahead. How could the enemy rise his arm? Why such injustice had happened?
These questions were troubling Ukrainians for four decades. Criminal cases concerning the murder of the famous composer, which the Soviet authorities tried to show as a suicide, were opened and closed and then closed again. Nobody was punished for a serious crime not only against the extremely talented person but also against entire Ukraine. Back then, in the spring of 1979, I still didn’t care about these things, and I hadn’t heard about Ivasyuk at all, unlike my brother. For not every Ukrainian student sang exclusively Komsomol songs in the seventies. In their repertoire, there was a place for Ivasyuk’s songs.
The artistic works of Volodymyr Ivasyuk are so remarkable that without him it’s simply unrealistic to imagine a Ukrainian pop song. Take him out and you will have a vacuum! When you imagine Ukraine without Ivasyuk it feels terrible! The works of the young composer and the poet became like a breath of fresh air, a crystal-clear creak from fresh springs. Personally, I feel the breath of spring in them. Well, all the music of Ivasyuk and his figure for me are a solid spring. Explosive and straightforward, unbridled and wide open. As well as that spring of my childhood, which came suddenly and struck me with its warm and heady scent.
For Volodymyr Ivasyuk spring was not only the end but also the beginning. The future composer was born in the village of Kitsman in Bukovyna region in the family of teachers in the spring, 70 years ago on March 4, 1949. The boy was doing music since childhood. It had become his vocation, although Volodymyr received a medical degree.
“He graduated from music school with two specialties – violin and piano. After entering the medical institute, he still attended the evening course at the music school, which was famous for its teachers,” told to DUMKA the youngest sister of the composer Oksana Ivasyuk, candidate of philological sciences, associate professor, head of the scientific research laboratory of Hrinchenko studies at the Kyiv University named after B. Hrinchenko. “He graduated from the medical institute, entered the postgraduate studies, he even had started to conduct experiments and write a dissertation. They were talking about him as a promising scientist. However, music had overcome everything, and Volodymyr abandoned all his activities, except for the composer’s work. I think, after the popularity of “Chervona Ruta”, he realized that he wants to be a composer. It was a strong and motivated step.”
One of the most popular festivals in Ukraine, founded 30 years ago, was named “Chervona Ruta”. Later, after Ukraine has become independent, Volodymyr Ivasyuk was honored posthumously with the Shevchenko State Prize (1994) and the title of Hero of Ukraine (2009). In Lviv there is a monument to the composer, in Chernivtsi, there is a museum, in a number of towns streets are named after Ivasyuk. However, as for those who raised their hands on the artist, we have only the general formulation – it is likely that killers were from KGB. The drawers of the Moscow archives are still firmly closed.
According to Oksana Ivasyuk, in honor of the seventieth birthday of her brother in Lviv and Chernivtsi – cities closely connected to Volodymyr’s life and work, for several days in a row, there will be numerous artistic events, evenings and concerts. In the best halls, with the participation of symphony and chamber orchestras. They will also celebrate the anniversary of the great Ukrainian in his native Kitsman, Lutsk, and Vinnytsia. During this time, Ivasyuk’s songs will be heard in the other Ukrainian cities as well.
Volodymyr Ivasyuk will always be thirty years old. Young and fascinating. As well as his outstanding songs. As well as the spring, which will soon blossom throughout Ukraine.
Viktor Tsvilikhovskyi