Abstract
In the harsh snowy days of late November, 2004, I joined hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square in Kyiv, to protest the unfair presidential election which had been rigged in favor of the corrupt government -sponsored candidate. I was there as an international election observer and was simultaneously researching the role that Ukrainian-language popular and folk music were playing in the protests, dubbed as the Orange Revolution (Helbig 2006). Music has had such a long history of politicization in Ukraine that newspapers printed the names of Ukraine's most well-known musicians and the candidate they supported, either the opposition candidate or the government -sponsored one (Klid 2007). These affiliations were based less on political ideology as they were ruled by ethnic identity, language choice between Ukrainian and Russian, regional identity, and religious identity. Among the performers on Maidan Nezalezhnosti were an African-Jamaican duo calling themselves "Chornobryvtsi" (Black -Browed), performing Ukrainian folk songs dressed in Ukrainian folk garb for the crowd. The passion with which the crowd embraced Chornobryvtsi made it clear that outsider validation of Ukrainian ethnic identity and culture was at the root of the protests. The crowds' chants of "Chor-no-bryv-tsi! Chor-no-bryv-tsi!" signaled an embrace of non Ukrainians who supported Ukrainian language and culture, perceived by protestors to be under threat by the Russian -oriented policies of the political regime. The role of African and Jamaican musicians in that critical historical moment also brought forth the role of migrants and foreigners living in Ukraine in Ukraine's ongoing political and cultural identity struggles, in terms of its vacillating leanings between more pro-Russian and pro-Western ideologies and policies. Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, the highly mediatized involvement of African musicians in Ukraine's pop-folk music scenes has broadened the contemporary public sphere beyond the ongoing ethnic Russian and ethnic Ukrainian culture wars since Ukrainian independence in 1991. The continued popularity of African musicians helps foreground issues of pluralism and multiculturalism that reinforce the notion of Ukraine as a patchwork quilt made up of many different ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups, including ethnic Russians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, ethnic
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.