Many Ukrainians would have liked to celebrate the Eurovision victory of the Kalush Orchestra group on the squares of their cities on Sunday night.

However, the curfew during the war does not allow for nocturnal gatherings.

So the celebrations were small, if at all, and it wasn't until the day after that that young people got together on the streets.

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

  • Follow I follow

Whoever showed mixed feelings Sunday after winning the song "Stefania" by Kalush Orchestra was Stefania herself, the eponymous heroine and mother of musician Oleh Psiuk.

She said on Ukrainian television on Sunday that when her son started appearing as a rapper, it was "a shock" for her.

When she saw his clothes, she thought: "That's how homeless people run around." She will now try to get to know his music, "a new field for me", better.

Meanwhile, the bakers in Kalusch, the group's hometown, announced that they wanted to offer a "Stefania" jam slice on Monday.

The Ukrainian State Railways announced that it would rename train number 43, which runs from Kyiv to western Ukraine and there also through Kalush, to "Stefania Express", and at the main stations along the route the loudspeakers would always play the appropriate song in greeting to play.

Deutsche Bahn boss Olexander Kamyshin wrote on Telegram that this was “the first train in the world to be named in honor of a mother”.

In its statements surrounding the final, the group called on the world to help Ukraine and in particular the last defenders of the almost entirely Russian-occupied and largely destroyed city of Mariupol.

They are still holding out in the Azowstal steelworks there.

The group later said it was more important to deliver what was actually an illicit "political" message than to avoid the risk of disqualification at all costs.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Facebook on Sunday that "everything will be done to ensure that Ukrainian Mariupol can host Eurovision, a free, peaceful and rebuilt Mariupol".

Zelenskyj congratulated the group and wrote: "Our courage impresses the world, our music conquers Europe."

search for identity

With Kalusch Orchestra, Ukraine has won the ESC competition for the third time, and each time the musicians have also become important political actors in their country.

In 2004 the singer Ruslana was successful with her performance "Wilde Tänze";

her number was not overtly political, but rather an expression of the search for a new identity after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In this quest, musicians often drew on sources from the rich folk and ethno music of western Ukraine.

The search for identity went hand in hand with a political turning away from Russia and an orientation towards the European Union.

So it was logical that in autumn 2004 the singer Ruslana Lyschychko became one of the faces of the pro-European, peaceful "Orange Revolution".

The same battle had to be fought again in the winter of 2013/2014, when President Viktor Yanukovych, under pressure from Moscow, wanted to halt the country's years of preparation for EU association at the last moment.

Ruslana was one of the tireless animators of the protests on Maidan Square in Kyiv.

The protests were successful in the end, but Russia occupied and annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

The next ESC winner came from there in 2016: Jamala, a member of the Crimean Tatar Muslim minority.

Her song "1944" dealt with the suffering of her grandmother and the Tatar people, who were deported to Central Asia in 1944 on Stalin's orders.

Russia protested against Jamal's song because it contained "political or similar" messages, but the promoters denied it:

Now, in 2022, Kalush Orchestra, with its rap and folklore elements, once again draws on the traditions of western Ukraine.

The verse of the song, which addressed the mother, "I always come to you through ruined roads," was read as prophetic.

The song was written just before the Russian attack on Ukraine.