{"id":139282,"date":"2025-03-04T15:09:36","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T20:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/03\/04\/can-ukraines-biggest-rock-band-help-shape-the-countrys-future\/"},"modified":"2025-03-04T15:09:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T20:09:36","slug":"can-ukraines-biggest-rock-band-help-shape-the-countrys-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/03\/04\/can-ukraines-biggest-rock-band-help-shape-the-countrys-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Ukraine\u2019s Biggest Rock Band Help Shape the Country\u2019s\u00a0Future?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tOne night during the last week in February, a crowd of fans wrapped in Ukrainian flags gathered in front of the 4,200-capacity Tempodrom in Berlin to shop for keyrings and souvenirs with Ukrainian emblems and pose for pictures with a person dressed up as a dog that has become a symbol<\/a> of the country\u2019s war effort. Inside, before the band Okean Elzy<\/strong> took the stage, fans spontaneously sang part of the Ukrainian national anthem, which at least three-quarters of the people there seemed to recognize.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Oleg<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tA Year Later, Ukrainian Musicians Are Navigating Wartime\u00a0Lives\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tOkean Elzy (pronounced so it sounds like a duo of \u201cOkee and Elzee\u201d) has been one of the most popular acts in Ukraine for more than two decades, and in the three years since Russia invaded the country, both it and frontman Sviatoslav Vakarchuk<\/strong> have become symbols of its cause. As that cause becomes more urgent \u2014 and as the number of Ukrainian refugees who live elsewhere grows \u2014 the band\u2019s music is also starting to resonate more outside its home market. <\/p>\n

\n\tLast year, the band released its first English-language album \u2014 the obvious but inexact musical comparison is Coldplay<\/a> \u2014 and signed a global deal with Warner Music Group to expand its audience internationally. Now Vakarchuk, who goes by Slava, is using his stature as a popular musician to raise awareness of his country\u2019s plight, without getting trapped in a morass of specific politics. In pop music terms, he is more akin to the Bono<\/a> of 1983 \u2014 the white-flag-waving moral crusader for peace \u2014 than the Bono of 2003 who took meetings with lawmakers.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of his goals is to show the West another side of the country they are supporting. \u201cI don\u2019t want Ukraine only to be associated with news from the frontline,\u201d Vakarchuk says over a cup of coffee in a hotel lobby the next day. \u201cWe love sympathy, we love compassion, we love support, but we want people in the West to also to fall in love with something, and Ukrainian culture is a perfect thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis raises an obvious question: What did he think of President Donald Trump<\/strong>\u2019s car wreck of a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong>? \u201cRussia is the aggressor,\u201d Vakarchuk says in an email, days after an interview in Berlin the day after the concert. \u201cUkraine is defending itself. We are sincerely grateful to the American people for all the help Ukrainians have received and are receiving.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Neil<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tNeil Young Plots Free Ukraine Gig Ahead of European\u00a0Tour\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tVakarchuk needs to walk a tightrope of sorts \u2014 he was involved in politics years ago as a member of Ukrainian parliament and he founded the political party Holos (it translates as \u201cvoice\u201d or \u201cvote\u201d), but he has retired from that. His politics were pro-Europe, which can be contentious in a country that has only been independent in its modern incarnation since 1991 and has been struggling with Russian interference or invasions almost ever since. \u201cI treated politics as a public duty,\u201d he says, noting he retired from it a half-decade ago. \u201cI hate it as an operational thing. I have no taste for fighting for power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVakarchuk seems to see music as the continuation of politics by other means<\/a> \u2014 not only as an art form but also a way to influence the world. To him, \u201cMusic is the most influential thing that changes the world.\u201d If rock bands and pop culture played at least some role in bringing down the Iron Curtain \u2014 and Bruce Springsteen<\/a>\u2019s 1988 concert in East Berlin might have played a significant one<\/a> \u2014 why can\u2019t Okean Elzy have some influence? Vakarchuk takes care to point out that he\u2019s retired from politics \u2014 he wants the war to end, but he doesn\u2019t want to go back to that. But at a time when rock barely tops sales charts, let alone topples walls, simply thinking that way sets the band apart from most of its peers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s part of the reason the band started recording in English. Back in 2022, when Okean Elzy played Prague, Vakarchuk was recognized on the street by people who knew him less from his music than from his appearances on television news, where he sometimes commented on the Russian invasion. \u201cMany of them said, \u2018We love you and we support you, but we can\u2019t understand what you\u2019re singing,\u2019\u201d Vakarchuk remembers. The next day, the band decided to make an album in English. That required a global promotional push, which in turn required a big label that could match Vakarchuk\u2019s ambitions. \u201cI don\u2019t only want to break the band in the West,\u201d he says. \u201cI want to break Ukraine<\/em> culturally in the West.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Paul<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tPaul McCartney Brings ‘Now and Then’ to America, Speaks on Ukrainian Freedom at Surprise\u2026\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tThis could be more important than it might seem. Americans and Europeans tend to see foreign military conflicts as remote \u2014 which, in geographic terms, the war in Ukraine is. But the conflict is essentially about whether the country can break out of Russia\u2019s geopolitical orbit to move toward Europe politically. Having Ukrainian artists to admire might matter \u2014 especially since Trump seems to admire the raw power politics of Russian president Vladimir Putin<\/strong>. It could make a difference if Americans feel that Ukraine deserves not only sympathy but also support to achieve a peace deal that secures its independence.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe Ukrainians most of all want an end to the war and a sustainable and just peace with security guarantees for Ukraine,\u201d Vakarchuk says. \u201cWe are fighting to achieve this goal and we are grateful to everyone who supports us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor now, the band\u2019s show comes with a good deal of patriotic flair, but much of that comes from the audience. \u201cIt\u2019s an inevitable reaction to use your political tokens, like flags, to shout at the world \u2014 \u2018We\u2019re here! And we\u2019re big and we\u2019re strong,\u2019\u201d Vakarchuk says. But Vakarchuk hopes that both his band and his country will move beyond this. \u201cWhen we are finally done with the war and we secure our independence and develop as a normal European nation, like Denmark or Sweden,\u201d he says, \u201cthen the politicizing of events will go.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One night during the last week in February, a crowd of fans wrapped in Ukrainian flags gathered in front of the 4,200-capacity Tempodrom in Berlin to shop for keyrings and souvenirs with Ukrainian emblems and pose for pictures with a person dressed up as a dog that has become a symbol of the country\u2019s war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}