Hits that overcame the “Iron Curtain”: the path of Ukrainian showbiz from totalitarianism to Eurovision

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These days in Liverpool, the Ukrainian band TVORCHI is competing in the most famous Eurovision Song Contest in the world. The competition itself has existed since 1956, and Ukraine took part in it for the first time in 2003, and the very next year, in 2004, Ruslana scored the highest number of points with the song “Wild Dances” and won. Since then, participants from Ukraine three more times won the most favor of the world public and judges and won prizes. However, how did it all begin? Where does the tradition of Ukrainian pop music come from? What was sung on the Ukrainian stage before and besides “Red Ruth”? Who were the ancestors of the “Vidyukin Brothers”? Whose voices managed to break through the “iron curtain” and even get on tour to America? Today we will remember together. Sofia Rotaru – “Invite me in my dreams” One of the most underrated songs from Volodymyr Ivasyuk’s treasure collection. His brainchild – the song “Red Ruta” performed by the same Sofia Rotaru – won not only All-Union, but also European fame. Instead, “Invite me in my dreams”, despite its unparalleled beauty and the quality of the arrangement, still remains one of those that has been bypassed by popularity. Despite the efforts of the authorities at that time to make the Ukrainian stage show inferior and provincial, Sofia Rotaru toured many countries in America, Europe, Asia and Australia. She performed about 400 songs in Romanian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, Polish, Italian, English and German languages. She starred in many musical television films, gaining immortality and worldwide fame for Ukrainian songs. Volodymyr Ivasiuk, the creator of her unforgettable hits, was probably severely punished for this. The authorities tried to pass off his crime as suicide, but no one believed this lie. Nazarii Yaremchuk – “Ozovysya” By 1980, the singer Nazarii Yaremchuk acquired the status of a national star in Ukraine. With his participation, they recorded a disc giant (that’s what the big records were called) with songs by Ivasyuk and Levko Dutkivskyi. “Ozovysya” is the song that opens the record and sets its general tone. The tone of the Bukovyna aphrodisc. Obviously, world trends did not escape the creators and performers of these songs. Trendy guitar and synthesizer effects, dance rhythms, seductive female backing vocals – all this makes the album relevant for its time. This disc is considered outstanding for Ukrainian pop music, and with it Nazarii gained international recognition. A tight touring schedule throughout the Union, sold-out concerts, mountains of flowers for a decade – until the collapse of the Soviet empire. After 1991, Yaremchuk successfully toured the USA, Canada and South American countries. Valentyna Kuprina – “Fairytale” A song from the 60s in a style that can be considered a Latin American bossanova. It is worth noting that musicians from the Caribbean archipelago had a powerful influence on the development of the world stage, in particular, American jazz, introducing elements of Brazilian and Cuban folk instruments, as well as all kinds of percussion, into the drum set, which was just taking on a modern appearance at the time. After Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, the music of the peoples of Latin America was no longer branded as bourgeois. Now it was the music of the “fraternal working Cuban people”. It became not only pleasant and fashionable to perform it, but also legal. Valentina Kuprina, a native of Kharkiv Oblast, was the number one singer in Ukraine in the 60s. She sang in various groups in Kyiv and Moscow. Her vocals, recognized by contemporaries, were called a mystical voice. She made many recordings on Ukrainian Radio, helped the newly formed VIA “Kobza” to record their first album. VIA “Kobza” – “Three Trembits” The collective VIA “Kobza” is one of the flagships of the Ukrainian VIA movement, which spent ten years in endless tours and was one of the first to visit America with commercial tours back in 1982. However, not in the USA, but in the South. Paradoxically, the Soviet authorities tried to silence the voice of Ukraine, and when they failed, they boasted about it and sent it for export as their own gain. VIA “Kobza” was an ensemble of seven members, where all the instrumentalists were also excellent vocalists, and the rock sound of the electric organ and rock percussion parts were successfully woven into the sincere Ukrainian polyphonic melos. For the first two years of their career, the group did not have a guitarist. The electric guitar was quite organically replaced by two electric banduras. The focus on modern world pop music in combination with sincere Ukrainianness deservedly introduces this band into the hall of fame of Ukrainian rock and roll, if one ever appears. “Hutsuli” – “No, it’s not me, it’s not me” The group, which did not travel halfway around the world, did not become a diploma holder, or a laureate, and did not receive any honorary titles, gathered on New Year’s Eve 1969. In the same period when rock music was experiencing its formation in its homeland – the British Isles. They were inspired by the “heavy” sound of the band Deep Purple, as well as the band Black Sabbath, which were strictly banned in the Soviet state: Satanists, they say, and occultists. “Hutsuli” themselves are considered to be the oldest group in Ukraine, which plays hard rock to this day – for more than 40 years! Their heavy, catchy guitar riffs decorate ironic, grotesque lyrics about the life of a Carpathian village, sung in a hoarse grandfatherly voice. Their music did not sound everywhere, but had a significant influence on the next generation of rock groups of western Ukraine, among which were the “Hadyukina Brothers”. It was this self-deprecating style of the “Hutsuls” that became the basis of the “Brothers” style, which became popular far beyond the borders of their homeland. “Hutsula” band To do something new, you need a lot of courage. And in order to play heavy rock in a scoop, it was needed a hundred times more. And who knows what would have happened if “Hutsul” could compromise or if there was no ugly scoop. Perhaps we would have another world-famous band… The band exists to this day and rehearses at the same base, in the city of Kosiv, where they gathered for the first time many decades ago. Ensemble “Mriya” – “Fog in the valley” If you think that there was no swing in the scoop, then you are wrong. The influence of Louis Armstrong and other pioneers of free world music is hard to miss when listening to songs like “In the Valley of Fog.” This is pure swing, with absolutely crystal, angelic singing of the ensemble “Mriya” and a solo on the bayan. Diamond performance. VIA “Arnica” VIA “Arnica” of the sample of 1974 is a youth surf-rock of the Beach Boys. Most of the repertoire consisted of cheerful, entertaining songs about the passion of youth, playful and sometimes erotic motifs. Smashing funk with electric guitar and brass section. It was in this group that the singer Sestrychka Vika, Victoria Vradiy, began her career, who will soon receive an award at the “Chervona Ruta-1992” festival and gain fame as a rock singer. The Arnica team had a long and difficult journey. Dozens of vocalists and musicians passed through the band. He still occasionally gives concerts to celebrate the anniversaries of his appearance. Every time they take place in Lviv with great success. VIA “Vodogray” – “Enchanted Circle” The brainchild of the Dnipropetrovsk Philharmonic, which absorbed the jazz juice of the city at that time. For the most part, the team performed Soviet zakazukh, but at the same time managed to record jazz-rock arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. The Melody company released several of their records, and the ensemble also participated in the recording of music for several Soviet films. And here are a few more examples of successful compositions by groups that, unfortunately, did not become famous, but performed high-quality Ukrainian funk. Just listen to them: VIA “Karpaty” – “You Smiled” It was in the VIA “Karpaty” that Volodymyr Ivasyuk, while still a student, first performed his immortal “Chervon Ruta” together with the soloist of the ensemble Olena Kuznetsova. In the context of that scary era, when composers and poets were thrown into mental hospitals and concentration camps, the fact that it survived is a success for Ukrainian pop music. Some records literally survived in the last copy. And even if its authors did not tour all over the world, their achievement lives on, and now it is finding its listener again. Excavated from the ashes, these songs resound after decades of silence and oblivion. Young professionals and enthusiasts reproduce the works of their predecessors, trying not to lose the main idea of ​​their works and to give this music a new life. LANGUAGE – “Green Maple” Read also: Imagine that you are in Odessa. How Liverpool hosts Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine

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