She is the most international Ukrainian artist of the moment. Jamala made the leap to stardom by win the Eurovision Song Contest that was held in Stockholm in 2016. Only six years had passed since the publication of their first album, entitled ‘For every heart’. Upon triumphing in Eurovision, her life took a 360-degree turn; stamps with her image were issued and she was distinguished with the title of People’s Artist, the highest honorary recognition for a singer in Ukraine.
And again, six years after all that, his life changes again; like that of the 41 million compatriots who suffer the siege of the Russian Army every day. Jamala, 38, is today a war exile. Installed in Istanbul, where her sister lives, she has put her popularity at the service of Ukraine, raising her voice as an ambassador of peace to ask for international solidarity with her own and raising funds for the underprivileged and the future reconstruction of everything she is pulverizing Vladimir Putin.
solidarity tour
After passing through Germany, Lithuania and Romania, his solidarity tour stops this Saturday in Barcelona. Jamala performed in the Sala Apolo, in the first concert of Eurovision artists prior to the festival that has been held in the Catalan capital. She will later sing in Madrid on a couple of occasions; on the 6th, in ‘United for peace. Ukraine in the heart’, a special program that will be broadcast by La 1 on TVE, and on the 16th, in another Eurovision party that will be held in the La Riviera room.
In each and every one of these quotes, the interpreter sings ‘1944’, the song with which she won Eurovision, curiously defeating Russia in a heart attack vote. In an interview granted to EL PERIÓDICO, the artist explains that “in the different solidarity events, in total we have raised almost 68 million euros in support of Ukraine. We have obtained the funds during the live broadcasts of the program ‘La Voz’, the national selections of songs for Eurovision and in special concerts. In the next few days I will also be traveling to Iceland to continue raising money.”
The deportation of the Tartars
Jamala composed 1944. At the press conference she gave in Stockholm just after winning Eurovision, she declared: “I wish this song didn’t exist!” And it is that the piece narrates the drama of the deportation to Central Asia of the Crimean Tatars by order of Stalin. “I know from my family’s tragic history what a great drama it is when people are forced to leave their homes,” explains Jamala. My great-grandmother and her young children were deported from Crimea by the Soviets in 1944. I don’t want that same trauma and struggle for my children.”
For all these reasons, “I want to help my country regain peace and be rebuilt. We have no other option for our future and that of our little ones. These are not abstract words, for me.”
They only gave us five minutes to pack.
Jamala recounts her exile with pain: “The war caught us by surprise at 5 a.m. on February 24. The evacuation of the little ones was decided on the same day that kyiv was bombed for the first time. We were only given five minutes to pack. Until then, it was not aware of how hard it is to pack your life into such a short amount of time. You look around in despair because your whole life is there, the things you love and have fought for.” There was no time to lose: “I took the documents, dressed the children in the clothes that could keep them warm and tried to control my nerves and think about what had to be done from then on”.
The four longest days
The ordeal had just begun. “We marched in the direction of Ternopil and then towards the border with Romania. There a friend of my sister picked us up, who drove us to Istanbul. The road was in poor condition; It was the longest four days of my life.. I tried to focus solely on my children, because the thought that I had left my husband, my family and my friends behind was unbearable.”
The conflict is leading to disaster not only in my land but also in Europe
The artist explains that “in all my activities I talk about how Russia has brutally attacked Ukraine and I ask for the war to end. The conflict is leading to disaster not only for my land but also for Europe.” Four million refugees, nine million displaced people. “Nearly half of the children have lost their homes and 136 have already died. And that’s just official numbers, who knows what’s in the places we can’t reach!”
Jamala urges ad nauseam that we take “the streets to ask politicians to act”, because if Russia gets its way, “the world will have more authoritarian regimes. Will this bring us peace? Will they help solve urgent problems like climate change or other humanitarian dramas?
second victory
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Jamala’s was Ukraine’s second Eurovision win. In 2004 Ruslana had already achieved it, involved in the democratic and pro-Western struggle in her country, which led to the Orange Revolution the same year that she won the festival. This year, Ukraine is once again the favorite of the contest, although the members of the Kalush Orchestra, their representatives in the ‘show’, are involved in assisting the victims of the war.
When Ukraine organized the 2017 edition, as the winning country, Russia already played the card of provocation, sending Yuliya Samoylova, an artist who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy that forces her to move in a wheelchair and who entered Crimea for a Russian border post and not by a Ukrainian one. Crimea had just been annexed to Russia in an internationally unrecognized operation. The Government of Ukraine warned: Samoylova would be arrested if she entered the country. Despite international pressure, the local authorities did not give her the arm to twist and Russia decided to withdraw from the festival, convinced that she had embarrassed Ukraine, although portrayed in her methods.