Vasyl Ivanovych Zinkevych (; born 1 May 1945) is a Soviet and Ukrainian singer, actor, dancer and costume designer. Alongside Nazariy Yaremchuk, Sofia Rotaru and Volodymyr Ivasyuk, Zinkevych was one of the faces of the Ukrainian roots revival music of the 1970s.
Zinkevych found his initial fame as the lead singer of the Ukrainian VIA Smerichka and as the lead actor in the 1970 film Chervona Ruta. His interpretations of Volodymyr Ivasyuk's songs "Chervona Ruta", "Myla moia" and "Na shvydkykh poizdakh" made him known all over the Soviet Union. He was appointed a People's Artist of Ukraine in 1995, received the Ukrainian State Prize in 1994 and became a Hero of Ukraine in 2009. Several of Zinkevych songs, as well as some of his dance choreographies, made it to the "Golden Fund of Ukrainian artistry".
Biography
Early life
Zinkevych was born several days before the end of World War II in the village of Vas'kivtsi in western Ukraine. From a young age, Zinkevych loved drawing and wanted to become a metal worker. Zinkevych then went into required Soviet military service, first being stationed in Lviv and later in Czechoslovakia. During his service, as opposed to most of his colleagues, he became engaged in dancing rather than singing or playing music.
After completing military service, he moved to the tradition-rich Bukovina region, where he thought he could learn the craftmanship of metal work best. In 1968, he moved to Vyzhnytsia and was enrolled in the College of Applied Arts. He became involved in traditional dancing at the Dim kul'tury, the local cultural centre, in the dancing ensemble Smerchina. He also started to design and stitch national costumes.
Smerichka
Early years
Composer and musician Levko Dutkivsky started a VIA named Smerichka in 1967 in that same cultural centre as in which Zinkevych danced. However, the group's main lead singer moved away from Vyzhnytsia in 1966, leaving Dutkivsky to find a new singer. When Dutkivsky struggled to find a replacement, Vasyl Vaskov, the leader of the dance ensemble Smerchina, suggested Zinkevych.
Dutkivsky taught Zinkevych to sing, and found himself pleasantly surprised by Zinkevych perseverance. However, when a local television station wanted to use a recorded version of Smerichka's song "Snizhynki padayut'", Zinkevych failed to deliver the version that Dutkivsky had desired. Television producer Vasyl Strihovych asked Dutkivsky to find another singer.
Eventually, this last version by Zinkevych was chosen over the version that Ivasyuk sang, with Ivasyuk also preferring Zinkevych's version to his own.
In 1969, Zinkevych proposed that Nazariy Yaremchuk should join the group, to which Dutkivsky agreed upon hearing the latter's singing voice.
Chervona Ruta and international recognition
In 1970, Zinkevych, without having any prior acting experience, was cast as the lead role of Boris in Chervona Ruta, one of the first Soviet television musicals. He played opposite to Sofia Rotaru, who played the female lead role Oksana. The film was debuted in 1971 and was a widespread success throughout the whole Soviet Union, but especially in Ukraine. In the film, Zinkevych sang several songs that became hits throughout Ukraine and most of the wider Soviet Union, such as "Myla moia" and "Chervona Ruta". For a long time, Zinkevych and Rotaru were miscredited to have sung "Vodohray" in the film, but the version that was played in the background was sung by Yaremchuk and Maria Isak.
Due to the group's growing popularity, Smerichka was asked to perform a song during the first annual Pesnya goda in Moscow in 1971, alongside already established names such as Iosif Kobzon, Eduard Khil and Muslim Magomayev. In their Hutsul attire, Zinkevych and Yaremchuk looked very out of place in the Russian capital. The performance however was well-received by the audience and the clear confusion of the group, who was miscredited as "Semerichka", led to humour as well.
For most of the early 1970s, Yaremchuk and Zinkevych performed as a duet and as shared lead singers of Smerichka, with sometimes Yaremchuk and other times Zinkevych taking the lead vocals. Despite Yaremchuk's growing popularity, Zinkevych was not left hurt in his pride this time. According to a fellow Smerichka singer, Zinkevych treated Yaremchuk, who had already lost both his parents by age of 20 in 1971, as a younger brother.