NINA MATVIYENKO: «I’m so afraid I won’t finish singing»
Nina Matviienko / jetsetter.ua
Nina Matviienko (October 10, 1947 — October 8, 2023) was a singer and a People’s Artist of Ukraine. Her professional career spanned fifty years. Her repertoire included over two hundred and fifty songs — not a single one in Russian. Throughout her life, she promoted Ukrainian songs and the Ukrainian language.
She performed Christmas carols, New Year’s songs, spring songs, songs for Green Holidays, Midsummer, Petrove, harvest, and post-harvest celebrations. Wedding songs, lullabies, funeral chants. Psalms, historical ballads, love songs. She recorded thirteen albums and four compilations.
She appeared in seven films and five television series. She toured Mexico, Canada, the United States, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, Korea, France, and Latin American countries. She embodied the image of a new Ukrainian woman.
FAMILY ROOTS. THE BEGINNING OF A LEGEND
T
he house used to be beautiful: warm, spacious, built of oak, but it burned down. Another one was hastily built as children kept arriving. The first was born in 1940, and seven years later — Nina. Tiny, weighing no more than two kilos. She lay in the cradle, mostly silent, not even crying for food.
Her mother shuffled back and forth, puzzled: «Well, look at that, quiet as can be. Must be she’ll die». But she didn’t die, because, as people said: «A small crow, but a big mouth».
More children came to the household — eventually, there were eleven. One pair of shoes for all seasons. One bowl of borscht. Yet the moment a drum or accordion sounded, she would run toward the music. She loved singing with her mother (from a young age, she held her part perfectly in a three-part harmony).
Poverty persisted, and the idea arose to send one of the children to a boarding school — they’d be better fed there. The mother chose Nina. Since she was so lively and talkative, let her go; she’d adapt to new circumstances better than the others.
The boarding school had its own strict rules. Any misdeed meant hours on your knees in the corner. But she endured. She never once celebrated her birthday, so she long didn’t understand what such a holiday meant. All they gave was a couple of candies. What saved her was that on Saturdays she could come home — as long as the frosts and blizzards didn’t get in the way.
She eagerly awaited summer — three whole months with her mother, the house, and the fields. She had to get up early, before sunrise. As soon as the light hit — time to tie flax. She worked so fast that the field overseer didn’t believe it, thought she was sneaking bundles from others.
Once, he hid and watched, but Nina turned out to be impeccably honest. Years later, a fellow villager saw her on TV and quipped: «I bet singing’s easier than harvesting rye». The overseer defended her: «Nina knows how to do both well».
She truly was diligent. She did track and field, acrobatics, and threw grenades. She often fell in love, but always platonically. At seventeen, she liked a teacher named Ivan. One day, he came into the yard while she was holding a broom — she froze, unable to move.
Soon after, Ivan saw her on stage and wrote her a letter: «Hello, little songbird». Nina kept that slip of paper for quite a while.
MUSICAL CALLING AND THE HEART OF AN ARTIST
After boarding school, she went to work. She was a timekeeper, a copyist, and a crane operator’s assistant at one of the factories in Korosten. She attended auditions, and her mother, observing her efforts to join various ensembles, would joke: «Go on, puff away, maybe you’ll squeeze out a note».
With her first paycheck, she had a coat made — and wore it to her vocal audition for the Hryhoriy Veryovka National Choir. She was accepted and immediately cast as a soloist, remaining one for over twenty years. For a long time (17 years), she was banned from traveling abroad due to accusations of Ukrainian nationalism. They demanded she include Russian songs in her repertoire, to which she always replied: «If you want Russian — listen to Zykina».
The trio «Zoloti Kliuchi» («Golden Keys») formed spontaneously, but became something extraordinary. The girls would sing as if rinsing notes in running water. The melody flowed like a river, then suddenly split into three bright, ringing streams. She met Valentyna (an alto) in the dormitory. The girl arrived late to the commandant when all the beds were taken. Nina offered her a place to sleep — for several months they shared secrets before bed and built two-part harmonies.
More ensembles followed: Kyiv Camerata, Kobza, Mriya, Berezen, Dudaryk, Khreshchatyk, Dumka, the Kuban Cossack Choir. Sometimes, in the evenings, they would gather, sit on the curb, and hum something softly, quietly.
Once, Nina suddenly belted out a phrase at full strength. She sang a line and fell silent — and in response came a nightingale. When the bird paused, she sang again. The nightingale answered. And again. It sounded so piercing, so soulful, for Matviienko had created a duet with a bird.
LOVE, FAMILY, AND SONG
That love might never have happened — but the stars aligned just so. On January 8, Nina was performing New Year’s carols at the Philharmonic. A young artist named Petro was in the audience with his father, enchanted by her voice. By the end of the concert, he declared, «She will be my wife!» His father nodded in approval.
They met only a year later, and at first, they were just friends. Gradually, tenderness began to emerge in their conversations. One morning, Nina decided to watch the sunrise by the Dnipro River, hoping to see the star rise above the horizon. Suddenly, she heard determined footsteps behind her. Petro had followed her — and kissed her breathless.
They held their wedding in Nedilyshche, her home village. Her parents set tables in the orchard and served guests dumplings with blueberries, buckwheat pancakes, blood sausage with grated potatoes. Traditional wedding songs were sung.
A year later their first son, Ivan, was born. Then came Andrii, and seven years after that — Antonina. The children addressed their mother formally, using «Vy». When she realized her daughter had inherited her voice, Nina wept with joy, and her brother wrote: «I don’t believe in God, but I thank Him that you’ve poured yourself into your own child».
At first, the family lived in a one-room apartment in the Vitriani Hills. At night, they would unfold their beds and couldn’t move about — a relative also lived with them. Nina and Petro slept on a folding bed in the six-meter kitchen. But it was all right… She cooked memorized lyrics, and nursed colds.
She first performed the song «Wild Geese» not alone but together with her unborn son — she was pregnant at the time. The audience was so deeply moved by the lyrics and the manner of her performance that letters arrived by the sackful. Petro supported her, painting icons and decorating churches. On canvas, he depicted poplars with «non-poplars», paradise trees, Cossack Mamai, and a pensive wife in red.
From rehearsals and concerts, Nina would rush home — she had to feed everyone and lull them to sleep. Yes, she did get carried away at times, was full of love, but never allowed her infatuations to grow into serious relationships. She cared about her own fulfillment and freedom. Sometimes, she doubted people — but never, ever, song.
When the Chornobyl disaster occurred, she was just returning from Latin America. No one around her grasped the full consequences, so she asked the KGB men. They all replied as one: «It’s worse than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima». The flight home felt endless, and she cried the entire way.
At the arrivals hall, she was greeted by smiling children and her husband — but inside her, there was nothing but sorrow. After returning, all she wanted was to sleep. She felt like a fly that had drunk poison, collapsing with every step. Her child tugged her toward the swing outside, but she could barely walk.
WITH GRATITUDE, EVERY DAY
Life never stood still for a moment. Her sons grew up to become artists (Ivan took monastic vows and received the name Januarius), and her daughter followed in her mother’s footsteps. Petro, once her closest friend, became a stranger. Nina remained true to herself.
Into old age, she led an active lifestyle. She drove a car, exercised, crocheted. She wore her hair long to the end. She hardly used makeup, didn’t drink alcohol, didn’t eat meat, and her favorite drink remained hot milk. She wrote poems, essays, and short stories. If she hadn’t become a singer, she would have studied to be a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature.
She began each day with gratitude. She would say: «Lord, what a gift you’ve given me. You blessed me with two eyes!» And she’d sigh: «I go to church, I pray, but my sins don’t get any fewer». She adored peonies, watermelons, and decaf lattes. She believed that one shouldn’t seek happiness — one must create it with their own hands.
To young performers, she advised being honest with their songs. She respected Ukrainian traditions and insisted that people come to the Christmas table wearing embroidered shirts. One of her favorite songs was: «A black cloud is gathering, and behind it, a gray one. Is there anyone in this world as unlucky as I…»
SINCERITY AND INNER PEACE
Over time, her soul changed, and Nina stopped weeping over her mother’s cherry tree. She longed for something lively, modern — so she sang with «Tанок на майдані Конґо», performed a song by Katia Chilly, and created a duet with Dmytro Monatik. After fifty years of marriage, she parted ways with her husband — she yearned for sincerity and inner peace.
She continued to call in spring, to carol, to lull. She never once performed songs about Lenin or the Party, and viewed her own voice as a confession. A cleansing of the soul. Often, after concerts, people would approach and say: «It felt like we were in church. As if we confessed and took communion».
She gladly voiced films and music projects. She became the narrator in the animated film Mavka: The Forest Song. She was awarded the Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker for her significant contribution to spreading goodness on Earth and the title of Honorary Citizen of Kyiv.
Then, quite suddenly, she fell ill. Pain gripped her in a vise. The diagnosis was grim. As long as she had strength, she walked barefoot on the grass and drank her favorite latte. She asked for no men to visit — only women: she was ashamed of her helplessness. She spent two months in the hospital and missed home terribly, so her coffin was first brought to her yard — to let her «breathe» the garden, the late blooms, the homestead. To take one last look.
People used to say that the voice of Nina Mytrofanivna was the voice through which Ukraine sang and wept. And when asked what she would do first when Victory came, she would answer: «I will shout at the top of my lungs: “Glory to Ukraine!”»
She didn’t make it.
She didn’t shout.
The singer passed into eternity — but we still hear her voice. In it, evening sits on the doorstep of a house, the meadow blossoms with daisies, cuckoos count down the irreversible, and the heavy, weary sun rolls down from the hilltop.
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