War Ruins Ivan Dorn’s Effort to Reconcile Russia and Ukraine

Ukrainian musician Ivan Dorn has almost completed his first album in five years by February.

“Dorndom” was recorded in a village in northern Ukraine and is a more conceptual project than his trademark trans-genre pop. In LP, 33-year-old Dawn, born in Russia, sings in Russian, like most hits that have won star titles in both Ukraine and Russia.

He set a release date at the end of May and his team worked on putting together a global tour that included dates from both countries. After that, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Against the backdrop of missiles, catastrophic hospitals, theaters and apartment buildings pouring into Ukrainian cities, I felt it was wrong to release Russian music that was not reflected in these events.

“People are too language-sensitive so far,” he said in a recent interview after a sold-out concert in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Instead of running and promoting “Dorndom”, Dorn wants to release it someday. Its name is a combination of the words of himself and the Russian house — musicians are currently playing old hits in Europe and America to raise money to help Ukrainians at risk. ..

“I’m trying to figure out how well this album works today,” Dorn said.

Such concerns are well known to Ukrainian artists like Dawn, whose national culture and politics have long been intertwined with Russian culture: leaders make your country part of their own. Is it correct to play in a country that claims to be? Artists need to switch to writing and singing in Ukrainian. Does this mean that Russia can lose access to a much larger audience and market?

After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 Okean EllisThe most popular rock band in the country, and Monatique, Widely famous Pop singer stopped playing in Russia.

Born in Russia and raised in Ukraine, Dawn took a different approach. He said he continued touring Russia to build a “cultural bridge” between neighboring countries.

“My idea was this. I will capture as many people as possible with my music so that they do not attack my country,” he said. “People who came to my concert were convinced that they would not fight in the war with Ukraine.”

At a concert in Moscow in 2016, Dawn said from the stage, “There is nothing between us. It’s nothing but friendship.” Asked the crowd Shout “Hello, Kyiv!” People raised their hands and shouted ecstatically.

Although he sings in Russian, Dawn says he has always tried to emphasize his Ukrainian identity. Over the years, his catchy songs, covering hip-hop, house and experimental music, have gained a reputation similar to Pharrell Williams.Recently, Russian critics Voted for his debut album The best record in the last 30 years since 2012.

However, according to Ukrainian news reports, Dawn’s efforts to preach friendship between the two countries have caused anger among some Ukrainians, including repeated criticisms from nationalists.

Today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last month that Russia was occupying one-fifth of its country and was trying to occupy more, saying that the mission of friendship could be seen as a failure. But he doesn’t regret it.

“Russian propaganda machines were very powerful,” he said. “If we spend a week in front of Russian television, we’ll start believing that we’re Nazi fascists,” he mentions the false accusations that the Kremlin uses to justify the aggression. Said.

Dawn is currently focusing on breaking ties with Russia and supporting Ukraine in the war. Turn the headquarters of his label Put in a volunteer center and remove his music from the Russian streaming service. He also canceled contracts with Russian brands and artists.

In the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, dozens of Ukrainian pop stars appeared on Russian television. Many of them permanently emigrated to Moscow, creating a cultural scene that blended the influences of both countries.

Subitrana Roboda, Popular Ukrainian singerMoved to Moscow in 2017 and was able to find a much larger established pop industry than the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Early in the war in Ukraine, Roboda said her hometown was largely turned into rubble.She posted video Most of them came from Russia and shed tears to her 13 million followers on Instagram, saying that the war was “the worst thing that happened in my life.” Later she released the song in Ukrainian and announced that she had moved to other parts of Europe.

As the war broke out between the two countries, Russian artists also faced tough choices. Stay in Russia and either support or protest President Vladimir Putin’s war, stop acting and flee.

Even in Ukraine, the music industry is not united in the face of Russia’s invasion.

Yuri Bardash, one of Ukraine’s most successful producers this month — Called Ukraine has surrendered Ukrainian artists like Dawn to “legalize” and accused them of “promoting the war by traveling in Europe.”

No matter how many Dawns wanted peace between the two countries, his support for Ukraine was never a problem when Russia invaded. He was born in Chelyabinsk, Russia, but two years later he moved to Slavutych, Ukraine, when his father, his physicist, was sent to work on the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident.

Dawn had a cousin in the town of Birsk, Russia, which he visited as a child, and helped shape the sense of Ukrainian identity.

“They will tell me:’You’re weird, you’re funny,'” he said. Dawn taught them a language and introduced Ukrainian hip hop. “Whenever you are among the Russians, you want to emphasize that you are Ukrainian,” he said, claiming your identity.

He said that only one of his Russian families has been in contact since the beginning of the war. A cousin called, saying he left Russia for Turkey, but the rest of his family supported the war and could not be persuaded otherwise.

In the decades immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, such divisions between families were virtually unimaginable.

Russia’s leading producer, Mikhail Kozlev, recalled holding a festival on a Moscow radio station, which at the time felt like a unified cultural space, and introducing Ukrainian artists.

“I deliberately tried to fill the Russian radio waves with Ukrainian music and a band from Moldova in the Baltic States,” Kozyrev said. “It didn’t matter where the artist came from until 2014,” he said. “For me, it was one unified post-Soviet soundtrack.”

Kozyrev, who has now left his country, like many liberal-minded Russians, says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made the cultural division between countries permanent and irreversible. But Dawn sees things more philosophically.

“We forgot history, but now we’re back,” Dawn said. “I’m sure time will pass and I’ll forget what happened now,” he added, referring to a long-term future that transcends generations. “And we will discuss again — peace and war will happen again.”