In Between The Notes
March 12, 2026
Host: Andrew Kushnir
Guest: Marichka
EXCERPT FROM INTERVIEW
ANDREW KUSHNIR: If you’re comfortable today, I wouldn’t mind hearing it, in this room even. I don’t know if, we’ll blow the mics out. But it’s also, I mean, it might be the stuff that needs a warm-up.
MARICHKA: No, it doesn’t. I don’t need any warm-up.
ANDREW: Really?
[MARICHKA SINGS AND KIND OF BLOWS OUT THE MICS]
INTRODUCTION
ANDREW: You’re listening to Kultura Rising. I’m Andrew Kushnir.
My guest today is someone I’ve esteemed from a distance for quite some time. I was a bit intimidated by her, come to think of it. She’s always had this creative edge, this avant-guard quality to her, which I’ve found sparkly and mysterious and humbling.
I mean her name is Marichka. Just Marichka. Like Madonna. Like Cher. Marichka.
My first encounter with singer-songwriter-ethnomusicologist Marichka (yes, ethnomusicologist!) was in a church hall in Toronto, many years ago, catching a dress rehearsal of a show called Counting Sheep. Counting Sheep was a Ukrainian folk opera that she’d co-written after the Euromaidan revolution, otherwise known as the Revolution of Dignity – this is in late 2013 and early 2014 when Ukrainians took to the streets and successfully ousted the pro-Russian regime of President Viktor Yanukovych. It was also a watershed moment for Marichka as an artist, as I will discover. And then I followed her into Balaclava Blues, the badass Ukrainian Canadian trio, that brought a kick-the-door-down quality to Ukrainian music and ascended even more meteorically after the full-scale invasion. The group went on to raise tonnes of fundraising dollars for Ukrainian humanitarian and defense efforts. And then, more recently, I’ve discovered her latest music project – a very different style, a very stripped back feel – it’s called The Daughters of Donbas.
So, it wasn’t long before me and my producers Pippa and Alison were exchanging excited emails about one of Marichka’s latest releases: her song 4.5.0. – which gets talked about in this interview – and which Marichka graciously allowed us to use as the theme song for Kultura Rising. That’s right, little did you know that you were already getting steeped in Marichka’s musical stylings.
What really comes alive for me in this interview is how Marichka has become a female kobzar. Or I’ll coin it here and now if the word doesn’t exist already: a kobzarina.
The kobzars were these nomadic balladeers who for centuries traveled town to town singing folkloric songs – dumy, they were called – epic poem songs that reminded Ukrainians of their past, particularly as an enslaved people. Many of the kobzars were blind and they had boys or young men that would serve as their minders or guides, migrating from town to town, performing in the streets. But the thing was, kobzars would not only tell the old stories through song but also carried with them the news of the day. They were a kind of cultural internet, connecting communities, and connecting Ukrainians to one another across vast distances.
The Soviet authorities loved this. As you can imagine. Mm-hmm.
In December 1930, Stalin called a congress of the kobzars to Kharkiv – which was then the capital of the Ukrainian SSR. Those who showed up – 337 delegates from every corner of Ukraine – those kobzars were packed into train cars just some distance from Kozacha Lopan rail station, near the Russian border. They were taken from the cars to the edge of a forest and shot over a freshly dug trench. Their musical instruments were burned.
Marichka has come to braid politics and music herself, and defiantly so. She’s done intricate preservation work – for years she’s studied and collected and disseminated ancestral Ukrainian songs. And she’s also risked her life as an accredited journalist visiting the front lines. Marichka has an immutable calling: to witness and gather and bring into the future what it is to be Ukrainian. She’s doing it for us, for herself, and for her kids.
And in her own way, she’s becoming living history, living culture, poetry and punk. She wasn’t someone to be intimidated by. Quite the opposite. Marichka is pure inspiration.
Without further ado, here’s the kobzarina herself.
THE CONVERSATION
ANDREW: I want to talk about a very specific sound, bilyi holos.
MARICHKA: Oh, my gosh.
ANDREW: White voice? Is that how you would translate that?
MARICHKA: Do you know, it doesn’t have a name. It’s kind of focused. Like, I hear first time about, like, bilyi holos, white voice, open voice, only here.
ANDREW: Ah, really? So, in Ukraina, they don’t talk about, “Okay, let’s move into some bilyi holos.”
MARICHKA: No, nobody calls it bilyi holos. But I think it’s so beautiful, bilyi holos.
ANDREW: Yeah…
MARICHKA: Like when I found it is called bilyi holos, it’s, like … wow.
ANDREW: But for somebody who’s never heard that sound, how would you describe it?
MARICHKA: I call it, personally, wild voice.
ANDREW: Wild voice, okay.
MARICHKA: Yeah. Yeah, because like normal human and normal life, regular life doesn’t use it. Like, nobody uses it.
ANDREW: Yeah, let’s talk about that. Part of my curiosity around this white voice, this clear voice is, I don’t remember hearing it growing up in Canada in the Ukrainian community. I don’t remember that sound. But when I hear it, I feel like it’s calling on some ancient genetic memory in my body.
MARICHKA: Wow.
ANDREW: There’s something about it that feels, the first time I heard it, I remember going, ‘oh, I come from that sound, I think.’ And yet, it wasn’t how we sang it in the… I went to church here, we would sing in choirs. I just never remember that bilyi holos, when, we would never go into that wild or, you know, I would almost call it like at times it feels primal. It feels like it almost skips the throat. It like comes from the stomach sometimes. There’s something so powerful about it. It’s like a warrior sound.
MARICHKA: Okay, can we have a separate discussion about that because it’s so interesting what you’re saying right now. I really get it, as an ethnomusicologist, I really feel it. And you like, your body language, you’re like showing how you feel it. You know, it’s coming through your body. It’s exactly what I am telling, how I feel it. Because the school of this traditional voice kind of, it doesn’t exist. You can’t go to school or academy and learn it.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: It’s like some individual people sharing their experience, how they feel it can be explained to other people. But because this is tradition. It’s from people to people like who live in a village and keeping this tradition, and it’s not about teaching. It’s never been about teaching.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: You’re just preserving something. You’re just hearing that and you’re carrying it or not.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: Mostly not, right now. So, for people who are trying to learn this tradition and the singing tradition, for me, it’s mostly about hearing, listening to recordings of old recordings, old voices, and trying to find, connect this sound through your cells, DNA, or whatever. I feel exactly — I can’t explain it. It took a lot of years just to find this voice inside me.
ANDREW: It’s not subtle, right? It’s not subtle. And it’s, it’s loud.
MARICHKA: It’s loud and wild. It’s exactly… it’s like out of the, you know, I don’t know how it’s in English… It’s not like in a ‘do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti’ thing, it’s kind of in between. And I’m thinking, how I can do that? My ears aren’t trained in this kind of music. So, I have to completely rebuild my brain to try to do it.
ANDREW: But doesn’t it feel, I mean to listen to it, I always think that is coming from somewhere deep.
MARICHKA: That’s exactly how you show it. Like what I found, it’s actually coming like from the ground. And you have to imagine that your body’s way more bigger than you.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: It’s how you feel this sound. It’s not in your body. It’s something like, out, and very big and huge. And you try to reach somebody far away. Like with this kind of voice vibrating.
ANDREW: And it also feels like somebody from far away is trying to reach you.
MARICHKA: Exactly. This voice was used for communication. This is the first thing. It’s why this voice is like that.
ANDREW: Huh.
MARICHKA: It’s used for communication. Communication with the mortal world, communication with spirits, communication between people who is far away. You don’t have, like, phone, internet, anything. You have your voice to communicate. So, this is exactly what I’m using now. It’s like I’m communicating with this voice.
ANDREW: If you’re comfortable today, I wouldn’t mind hearing it, in this room even. I don’t know if, we’ll blow the mics out.
MARICHKA: Uh, yeah, we will blow [the] mics.
ANDREW: But it’s also, I mean, it might be the stuff that needs a warm-up.
MARICHKA: No, it doesn’t. I don’t need any warm-up.
ANDREW: Really?
[MARICHKA SINGING]
ANDREW: That was stunning. That was stunning. I don’t know what happens. But my eyes just fill with water when I hear that…
MARICHKA: oh, my gosh.
ANDREW: …that tonality is just… there’s some magic in that.
MARICHKA: Definitely.
ANDREW: Yeah. Okay. So, I want to… I want to ask you about some of these – I would call them watersheds in your life. These moments when everything seems to change. And something that I read about recurringly is the Revolution of Dignity being a really big moment in your trajectory as an artist. And I’m wondering what – there’s probably no way, we could spend hours talking about your experience, be it at the barricades, be it, you know, at some point, you’re in a bullet-proof vest in this story to, you know, navigate that extraordinary revolutionary moment. But I’m curious about today. What comes to mind when you think about that point in your life?
MARICHKA: This was a moment – you mentioned the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 – this was a moment that I became a completely different person. I was 38 years old. And I completely, I changed my language, I changed my name. I changed my belief on who artists have to be and what to do in general, because I always truly believed that like, music, art, it’s out of politics, and it’s not supposed to be a part of the politics family. Then I, like, switched to the opposite, and that you have to use your voice to, you know, to talk about important things, important for your people, for your country. You can change the perspective of view to certain things. And this is my… I decided, like, my art is political, for sure. Yeah, so it was a huge changing, huge. And for my kids as well. For all my family, can you imagine we was… I was grow up in Russian-speaking family. All my kids speak Russian. Like, everyone speaks Russian. Now, it’s like, I don’t remember who used Russian anymore in our language before and my youngest daughter, she doesn’t know even a word, like in Russian. And we all chose a completely different life. It’s hard for my mom, yeah. It’s hard for my mom, and she was probably like… the last person who decided to do that. We never pressed her to do anything because, you understand, you know, when you’re 70, it’s kind of, it’s hard for your brain to switch to another language, but she did it.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: And so my mom started to call me ‘Marichka’ and I’d never been Maricka in my life.
ANDREW: What was your name originally?
MARICHKA: I was like, ‘Masha,’ I’m officially Maria.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: And then like now, in 2014, I decided to be Marichka. It’s life changing completely, everything is different.
ANDREW: Of course, of course. And we, you know, with a name comes relationships. Right?
MARICHKA: Yes.
ANDREW: There’s certain associations, certain sort of memories attached to names.
MARICHKA: Absolutely.
ANDREW: So to decide that you’re going to actually effectively rebrand yourself.
MARICHKA: Absolutely. From scratch, from zero. And at 38, it’s so hard. You’re like a different person. You’re like that, boom.
ANDREW: Were you performing at the Maidan?
MARICHKA: Oh, yeah.
ANDREW: So, when the protests were peaceful, were you part of that, sort of whole kind of…
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: Can you talk me through that? And then things turned violent.
MARICHKA: You know, it was a point when we have a folk ensemble called Bozhytsi and like every single band…
ANDREW: So you had a folk ensemble
MARICHKA: Yes.
ANDREW: called
MARICHKA: Bozhytsi
ANDREW: Bozhytsi
MARICHKA: Yes, Bozhytsi.
MARICHKA: So, we decide… Like every single band, or like musical band, was able to go to that revolutionary big stage and to perform something for people who is staying there. And it was already a couple of weeks probably that the revolution started. I was thinking, ‘Should we go? Maybe not, because we are out of politics.’ Yeah. And there… it was a moment when the first people was killed, and they said, ‘No, we have to go, because we…’, I was actually… it was a tragical moment when we decided to do that, because we used to learn a special genre as a folk ensemble called psalmy. So, this genre used only in a funeral, or like remembrance day, mostly in a funeral.
ANDREW: Okay.
MARICHKA: So, you can’t sing it at a concert. You, kind of, you can’t sing it anywhere. It’s a special genre, and we know it a lot, and we spent the last two years learning this genre in the way to record an album. We think this is a moment that we can… this is a specific time that we should be on stage and sing these specific songs, like for these first three people who was killed on the Maidan. So, it was my first step as an artist. That’s it. Then I just… then I was watching everything from the stage, and [the] stage was very high. And it was all coffins, kind of in the river, on the hands, like right, you know, I don’t know how I can explain you, it’s such…
ANDREW: Did I hear you correctly? You said the coffins?
MARICHKA: It’s coffins, yeah.
ANDREW: The coffins were being floated above the crowd,
MARICHKA: Exactly.
ANDREW: like in a mosh pit, the way we carry bodies,
MARICHKA: Exactly.
ANDREW: but it was coffins.
MARICHKA: It was coffins. And you don’t see, like, even arms. You see this coffin, kind of, in a river of hands. And it’s like very young… you saw them. Like, it’s open coffins. And I was … can you imagine, I was singing these like thousand-year-old songs, this is coffins with the young people, and I saw it from above.
ANDREW: You were on the stage as this all happened?
MARICHKA: I was on the stage. Yeah, I was on the stage.
ANDREW: Yeah. So, you’re, you know, again, it’s not just, you know, when you’re in the crowd, you’re shoulder to shoulder with people, you feel like you’re a part of something, but it’s hard to take in the big picture.
MARICHKA: You can’t even see that. You will not see that.
ANDREW: But from the stage, you were able to kind of behold this very
MARICHKA: whole picture, yeah,
ANDREW: extraordinary… and it wasn’t just that moment. For you, it was, your mind was cast back a thousand years.
MARICHKA: yeah, and you see that, like thousands of people, you know, like in the street, far away,
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: because it’s unbelievable. How you can recreate this, this, this picture? We try to do it in, in a theatre later.
ANDREW: With Counting Sheep.
MARICHKA: Yeah. With Counting sheep. But we, we tried to do in a theatrical way to, to do that. We use the same songs that they sang, like, on the Maidan this day. But –
ANDREW: And let’s talk about Counting Sheep, because this is the piece, I’m not going to call it a musical, but it’s a, it’s a piece with music certainly.
MARICHKA: We called it folk opera.
ANDREW: You call it a folk opera.
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: Brilliant. And so, this folk opera, and I think I saw one of the very first versions of it, at least in Toronto. And I was completely swept up in it. Because for me, again, it’s one of those things when you’re engaging with Ukrainian culture as a Ukrainian, it’s like, it’s, it somehow skips your brain and goes into your spine. But it really felt like the intention was to help people, be it in Toronto or wherever you, you toured the piece, to help them feel the revolutionary spirit. To feel the chaos of revolution, to feel the persistence, the hope, the defiance. It really was, I felt, a very energizing and kind of, forgive the language, but it was badass. There was like something a bit punk about it.
MARICHKA: Of course.
ANDREW: And I just want to figure out when you had the idea to create a folk opera after that transformative experience in the Maidan.
MARICHKA: Well, we started with writing a whole script with dialogues, monologues, like stories because we collected, we speak with a lot of people. We did it. We rehearsed it. And like two weeks before the release
ANDREW: Before an audience was coming, yeah.
MARICHKA: we decided it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. You know, like, that’s not true, because it’s just not true. It’s not touching you. And we decided, what we have to do, yeah, we realized the only thing that’s really touching is the songs, the songs we’re using. I would decide, what if you just cut every single word and we keep the songs in.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: Can we do the same with the songs and, you know, choreography, something, and the food?
ANDREW: Yeah, because it was immersive. I remember it had the quality of a dinner party.
MARICHKA: Yeah, that was the plan, for the people to be involved.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: And do the same things we did…
ANDREW: Which was eat…
MARICHKA: Yes,
ANDREW: …together and protest together
MARICHKA: …protest together, eat together, sing together, and
ANDREW: rescue one another.
MARICHKA: Yes, everything. And we did it in the, in the theater space and it works with the songs perfectly without knowing everything, any single words, because like everything is in Ukrainian, you know, it’s a foreign language.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: It works perfectly.
ANDREW: But people got it.
MARICHKA: Yes.
[MUSIC]
ANDREW: You’ve gone back, both as an accredited journalist to the front line. And also, you did medics training, right? And so, again, you’d have every chance to stay here in Canada, to stay safe. And you’ve got four kids, and yet you felt called to great danger, to… back to the land.
MARICHKA: How you explain it? You know, I have an Indigenous friend who, like, only one used the right words, to explain even to myself. ‘Why I’m going? Why I’m going?’
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: She just came to me and says, ‘Marichka, you’re going to Ukraine.’ And I said, ‘yeah’. And she said, ‘you feel a call. It’s calling you.’ And I’m, like, how did she know. It’s exactly like that. I say, ‘Yeah, it’s calling me.’
ANDREW: Hmmm.
MARICHKA: I don’t hear any voices, of course. But it’s calling me very deep, because I feel… I remember the moment when I feel it’s not enough just to sing the songs around the world and to talk about that.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: Yeah. I have to be there, even in the… I know I can’t go and join the military forces, but I can do something. I can learn something, that I can be helpful in a situation there as a human, like, physically, I can do something. Sometimes I feel you have to do something physically. It’s why I joined the medical training. I want to learn how to help, to care [for] the injured bodies. I want to learn it, and I can share it to other people. So, it’s how I ended up being like, I’m not a medic, but I was a medic unexpectedly, because I learned how to do that in my platoon. So, I just packed the medical bags and I brought from Canada everything they needed because I find they don’t have the things that
ANDREW: Hmm.
MARICHKA: needs to be necessary. And this, like, medical bag, medical bag, I brought tourniquets and I just wanted to make sure my guys, my 30 men, they have it.
ANDREW: Yeah. It’s so hard for me to hold this because I completely… I can… I think I can wrap my head and heart around that need to be there physically and to actually do something. And then I’m sitting across from you and I’m aware of how much you hold in your body as a cultural figure. The songs that you’ve collected as an ethnomusicologist, your body of work as an artist, and I get so worried about losing that, like, it really scares me. The thought of losing more culture because you feel the call to be there physically and do something for the infantry, for the army, for Ukraina. It’s a really hard thing to hold together.
MARICHKA: Especially, when I think…
ANDREW: And you’re a mom!
MARICHKA: I know people who understand like how, ‘why Marichka, why [are] you going, you have four kids?’ And I’m thinking, am I more important than this, like, famous opera singer, who went there and was true to their…? Am I more important than a lot of women who have lots of kids in Ukraine? Why am I more important because I’m living in Canada, and I have like, yes, I realize my kids [are] not in Ukraine. They’re like in a more safe space here. And I have a lot of family to take care of them, so I think like, okay, I can go, you know, risk myself, I can, like, I want to be helpful. I feel useless sometimes. Sometimes I have this kind of mindset that is like, it’s not enough, what I am doing. It’s not enough. But I’m thinking like, am I better? Should I think about myself? But I’m like, preserving so much important things. I have to take care of myself. I understand what I’m talking about. I have the same feeling about a lot of people who [are] carrying a lot. It’s so unique for Ukraine, the historical and in general, but they’re all there.
ANDREW: I know, there are so many artists on the front line.
MARICHKA: But this is my values. This is what I want to do. That is like, I feel if I will not do that. I am… Like, my kids will not have the same feelings about myself as a mother. I want for them to not only have a mom around, but to be proud of myself. You learn in the literature at school, you’re reading about these kinds of people doing these crazy things, that maybe not…maybe our community not accept it. So, our social world will not accept a mother leaving her four kids and going to the warzone – for what? But, you know, this is, I don’t want to be a hero, you know, or somebody, like it’s nothing about that. But this is a people who, like we’re reading, like watching many moments in, wow, this is a human, like, with a capital letter, this is a human. I want to be this Human.
ANDREW: And to be able to look into your kids’ eyes, regardless of what happens and know that you did everything you could, you know, I think…
MARICHKA: Yeah, and I’m pretty sure they will understand.
ANDREW: Yeah, well again, and when we start talking about the culture and the land and the body, all kind of being combined, it really seems like you’re feeling called to defend parts of yourself,
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: right? It’s
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: not just a place, it’s not just a people
MARICHKA: No.
ANDREW: out there, it’s not just a country or an idea. It’s something about your own sense of self that you feel called to defend.
MARICHKA: Definitely. It’s artivism. Artivism.
ANDREW: Artivism.
MARICHKA: I think this is exactly about the music. I didn’t find it in music but this is exactly like, in an artistic way, you’re trying to do activism,
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: you know, to put attention on something. So, I kind of like create this thing and call it musical artivism.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: It’s always more than music. always more than me, always more than everything. It’s like about, kind of like, this kind of connection. I want audiences to feel what I’m feeling, what I live through in like an hour.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: How to do that?
ANDREW: Yeah, it’s like this metaphor I sometimes use, it’s like putting the ocean into an aquarium. It’s like
MARICHKA: Exactly.
ANDREW: that vast chaotic, extraordinary, turbulent thing and how do we put it into a container so that people can actually behold it.
What you’re opening an easy door to is your work as an ethnomusicologist because it’s so clear that you are this kind of sponge in the world. You’re an extraordinary emitter, you’re a communicator, but also, you’re really collecting, you’re noticing patterns and you’re, you’re, you know, this idea of ethnographic research, paying attention to people and how they relate to one another, is part of your wiring as an artist.
MARICHKA: Yes.
ANDREW: So, I really want to talk about this pandemic project that you’ve brought to fruition. Which is your…this extraordinary website, this archive you created. I want to get the website right. It’s folk-dash-ukraine
MARICHKA: Yes, dot com
ANDREW: dot.com. Tell me about this.
MARICHKA: It was my dream before all this craziness started that I always think, when I will be retired, I will do this kind of archive because I want to share it to the world. I want for people to not be like me and discover
ANDREW: Discover it late.
MARICHKA: There’s, oh my God, you’re going to like, oh my God, is it exist in Ukraine? I want everyone [to] just fell in love. And then I always think, what is the way to bring people, bring the ocean to [the] aquarium and, you know, to make people love, love Ukraine. What I like. So, this is kind of…this archive is like my aquarium [LAUGHS].
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: And I was thinking, I don’t want a, you know, square website, just as people can go, oh, this is like this one, this one. I want it to look like, wow! It is like all about Ukraine.
ANDREW: a work of art in and of itself
MARICHKA: Definitely. So, I worked hard to like, find every single detail to put on the exact page and it will be exact from this kind of region, even like piece of, you know, jar. Okay.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: It will be from this – like, nothing is random.
ANDREW: Yeah. And to be clear, this is a container. When you say, again, this image of the ocean, the aquarium. These are archival recordings you have of, it sounds to me, you know, and again, I’m not an ethnomusicologist, but I take it these are rare. Some of these, some of these recordings are…
MARICHKA: Most of them is rare.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: But it’s not only my archive. I used to buy it from the people who recorded it. Why I say buy, because I was naive and think, okay, I created this archive. Everyone will give me their archives because I wanted to put for free for all people around the world.
ANDREW: For the greater good!
MARICHKA: Yeah, but no, it did not happen.
ANDREW: There were a few price tags you had to deal with. I imagine many, because there are currently – I went on to it this morning – there are 458 songs currently.
MARICHKA: Right now. I have a lot. I have way more.
ANDREW: Okay.
MARICHKA: I don’t have time to see it and put it there, you know, for
ANDREW: I know.
MARICHKA: now.
ANDREW: We’ve got to find you an assistant.
MARICHKA: Oh, that, I need some kind of, you know, in my ideal world it will be some organization or if not some person who says, ‘Marichka, okay. You don’t worry about anything. Just do that. Like wake up in the morning and take the sound, put to the archive and do lyrics, translation, transliteration. That’s what I want, what I imagine, you know, because I have, it’s just sitting in my computer, in a Google drive, and I feel so bad because, you know, I can die tomorrow and it will sit in my computer.
ANDREW: And there’s all this treasure.
MARICHKA: All these treasures, and nobody has access, and I think, goodness, who will do that? Maybe I can dedicate for some students who I believe can do that and not [indecipherable]
ANDREW: like,
MARICHKA: And just do it song by song.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: Because…
ANDREW: …it’s extraordinary. I mean, there are regions, so all kinds of parts of Ukraina that you can tap on, and it’ll, sort of, highlight that region. Specific genres, which I found very satisfying, so the ability to be able to, you know, like, be it wedding songs, summer songs,
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: humor songs,
MARICHKA: Yes.
ANDREW: you know what I mean. And then, of course, one can search the songs themselves, you know. And you’ve, as you’ve said, the text is provided both in Ukrainian and then in transliteration.
MARICHKA: Yes.
ANDREW: I was really grateful to have come across this and just the labor is apparent, but the gift of it is also apparent, you know, I got lost in it. It’s easy to get lost in it…
MARICHKA: It’s easy to get lost in it that way,
ANDREW: Yes. One, one spell after another.
[MUSIC]
ANDREW: I want to ask you about this most recent musical project. So, Daughters of Donbas.
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: And the project I think has a specific name, Songs of Stolen Children Project. Is that, that’s the name of the project?
MARICHKA: This is for people to understand more who is Daughters of Donbas.
ANDREW: Yeah, so tell me about Daughters of Donbas.
MARICHKA: So, it wasn’t me who created this project, which is interesting. So, it was a producer, Daniel Rosenberg, who do it like a radio program here. We’d never met before, which is weird. So, he’s based in Toronto, and he came to me last year in October and says, ‘Marichka, I was blown away by the fact that I learned from some kind of news, that it’s like, huge amount of Ukrainian kids was stolen by Russians. I want to do something about that.’
ANDREW: Thousands upon thousands of young people who have been essentially kidnapped.
MARICHKA: Yeah kidnapped, kidnapped to Russia. And he said, ‘Would you be interested to be part of this project?’ Like as a musician, I think, of course, yes. Of course, yes. So, I am there. I have to be so in and learning, researching, connecting. And so, I ended up being a co-producer of this project, not only a musician being involved. So, I was able to go to Ukraine and to meet actually some of the kids who was survived and came back from their filtration camps in Russia and…
ANDREW: Parents are fighting to get their kids back, is that right?
MARICHKA: Yeah, it’s kind of impossible, it’s so hard. It’s so hard. Because the name is changed, the documentation is changed, you can’t track the location of the kids. All their phones was taken away. The adoption part is so fast that your kids with a name change and birth certificate change can be adopted [by] another family. And Russia is so huge. No way.
ANDREW: What turns my stomach, there’s so many aspects of this that turn my stomach, but the thought of these young people being raised into soldiers that will then invade Ukraine.
MARICHKA: Yes, they can go, yes. It’s the part of the politics now in Russia. They’re taking kids, to train them, start with a young age, start with singing… Russian anthem, every single morning they have to wake up and sing Russian anthem, sing Russian, like patriotic songs, they go to…
ANDREW: But wait a second, songs aren’t political.
MARICHKA: Songs…
[LAUGHTER]
ANDREW: I’m being cheeky.
MARICHKA: Yeah, yeah, I know.
ANDREW: Of course they’re political.
MARICHKA: Of course you’re not allowed to use Ukrainian language, you’re not allowed to be yourself, kind of even by your name, they change your names.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: And if you wake up, you’re so vulnerable when you’re a kid, you don’t really know who you are, you question this, even in a normal life. But when you’re kidnapped and you have to do it every single day – their brain is changed.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: Even if you’re a parent and you’re able to bring your kid back, their brain is completely washed,
ANDREW: Yeah. Well, there’s this lyric, I mean, “4.5.0.” is the first single I think
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: from the project, and that’s the military code for all clear, or things are safe, essentially.
MARICHKA: Yeah, if you say [to] me like ‘4-5-0’.
ANDREW: 4-5-0
MARICHKA: Yeah, I will say, I’ll say, cool, plus, plus, plus.
[LAUGHTER]
ANDREW: So that’s good news, 4-5-0.
MARICHKA: Is…that means nothing is lying around. No shooting, everyone is alive, nobody injured, it’s just the goodest news ever.
ANDREW: And so that’s been reframed as a metaphor in this song. The lyrics aren’t part, there’s a poet, Yuriy Izdryk
MARICHKA: Izdryk, yeah.
ANDREW: wrote the poem that you were inspired by.
MARICHKA: Yeah. Yes, but it wasn’t about, I think it’s kind of about, you know, a couple in love. But I just re-imagined it, that it’s like a mother and their child and she says like, I wish to hear 4-5, like, my voice is reaching you. Now again, we’re coming back to our point about, like, feeling and communication with just white voice.
ANDREW: Yeah.
MARICHKA: So, this moment, like, [VOCALIZES], like any song, this is communication. For mother to daughter, like, reaching, like, through her chest and voice and saying that I just want you to believe and hear, that everything will be 4-5-0. And this kind of, like, secret code, you know, that, like, anyone from that side, like, don’t understand what that means.
ANDREW: There’s this one lyric. ‘When you’re cornered by your last fortress, you’ll give up almost without a fight. Remember this. I’m with you. I’m here.’ And what cracks me, or cracks my heart around that lyric is we’re not just talking about this young person’s body and life. But it’s like, in part, their Ukrainianness. Like, when they try to take away your Ukrainianness from you, know that I’m here.
MARICHKA: This is a fortress, you’re Ukrainian. This is what, even in unconscious mind, you feel it.
ANDREW: Yeah. I have here a quote, when the poet heard your song for the first time, he wrote three words back to you. Do you remember what the words were?
MARICHKA: Yes, I remember. I even want to make a tattoo of these three words.
ANDREW: A tattoo?
MARICHKA: Yeah, I want…
ANDREW: I think I want this tattoo, as well. He said: ‘Cut, Burn, Love.’
MARICHKA: Exactly. It’s not literally ‘cut’. It’s kind of like, you know, your position in life. It’s about energy. They just, you can, you can see like, you know, like, cut, burn, and love. It’s everything. It’s how we want to live. And like, oh, goodness. I was so scared to send him the music to his powerful lyrics, because like, how I can make it better, not better – even like a little bit closer to this powerful poem he wrote. And he like, he just sent me this reward. And I’m like, oh, I want to die right now.
ANDREW: You know that when one listens to the song, I understand why he said that.
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: The song is, it’s an extraordinary song.
[MUSIC]
MARICHKA’S CULTURAL RECOMMENDATION
ANDREW: As is my custom, at the close of our interview, I asked Marichka to recommend a Ukrainian artist or piece of Ukrainian art. She had two wonderful musical acts to share.
MARICHKA: I’m still in love with DakhaBrakha.
ANDREW: That’s the brilliant folk quartet from Ukraine: DakhaBrakha. You should really hear the soundtrack they created for the Oscar-nominated film Porcelain War. It’s brilliant. And then Marichka recommends:
MARICHKA: Maryna Krut, and what she’s doing with the bandura, as a traditional instrument, but in a new way. So, I very [much] like when you bring in traditions to the modern level, that can reach the younger audience.
ANDREW: You’re reminding me of that idea, that argument, well, art isn’t political, and I’m reminded of the bandurists, right, in the ‘30s.
MARICHKA: Exactly.
ANDREW: You know, brought together several hundreds of them, the kobzari, right?
MARICHKA: Yes.
ANDREW: And being executed by…
MARICHKA: Exactly.
ANDREW: You know,
MARICHKA: Yes,
ANDREW: by the Soviets…
MARICHKA: by the Soviets. All at once.
ANDREW: Yeah. And so, you know, that’s what I think of, you’re a kind of kobzar.
MARICHKA: Yeah.
ANDREW: You are, because you’re holding the songs.
MARICHKA: And I’m – the kobzari, there was news. They like telling the battles and stories, what’s going on. It was what kobzari were doing. They do it, not only historical moments, but they… they were the news. So, they’re sitting in squares, in a market, and telling what happened, and this…battle… there. I’m a kobzar, without kobza, but I’m kind of, with my voice, I’m telling the world through the music, what’s going on in Ukraine, and there was kids… yeah, I’m a kobzar.
[MUSIC]
ANDREW: I love that. Thank you so much for this. This has been so wonderful.
MARICHKA: Thank you.
CREDITS
Kultura Rising is written and hosted by yours truly Andrew Kushnir.
Alison Broverman is our senior producer.
Pippa Johnstone is our executive producer.
Mixing and sound design by Mark Angly.
Original music by Daughters of Donbas (feat. Marichka).
Podcast graphics by Nicholas Luchak.
This has been an original podcast from The Shevchenko Foundation, Canada’s premier, national, charitable foundation for Ukrainian Canadian arts, heritage and culture since 1963. Here’s a little bit more about it.
MELANIE TURGEON: I’m Melanie Turgeon, and I have the pleasure of being a professor of music at the Kings University in Edmonton, Alberta. And I am the conductor and artistic director of Kappella Kyrie Slavic Chamber Choir, as well as the co-director and faculty member of the Ukrainian Art Song Project’s Summer Institute. The Shevchenko Foundation has made it possible for myself personally, as well as the organizations I’m with, to kind of live out our dreams and our hopes and see them, you know, come to fruition. And my hope for the future would be that this work is continued because especially at a time like this, a war time, I think it’s so important not for just Ukrainians to know the glories that Ukrainian art and music has to offer, but for the broader community to know that there’s so much music out there that has been suppressed for various political reasons, or, you know, maybe it’s new music that is being written, maybe in reaction to what’s going on in Ukraine right now. And I would love to see that support continue so that it is on the world stage where it belongs.
[MUSIC]
ANDREW
I hope you join us next time and that you’ll keep showing up on the cultural front.
Slava Ukraini!