Russian singer Monetochka (Liza Gyrdymova), who lives in exile after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022, released a song in honor of the International Women’s Day titled “Mom Has a Secret.”
All of the women featured in the video for the song, as well as Monetochka herself, are mothers but also high profile and vocal activists who oppose the war and the current Russian regime.
She taught me how to play dominoes, Fixed the wheel on my scooter. And stood in the cold at the Kremlin, With an indecent and ambiguous poster. My mom can’t come to Chechnya. And it’s bad to joke around in front of grandma. But you can’t put my mom in jail. Because I’m still just a little kid.
The released video features journalists Katerina Gordeeva, who has her own popular opposition YouTube video channel and currently lives in exile, Anna Mongait, a journalist for Russia TV Rain, banned in Russia, TV host Tatiana Lazareva who had also, as other women from the list, expressed her firm anti-war stance and lives in exile, and Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova who spent several years in prison and is strongly against war and Putin’s regime. It shows very popular actresses Chulpan Khamatova who features in a lot of anti-war videos and plays, currently in exile, Varvara Shmykova, who also has anti-war stance and had to leave her career and country because of it, and Maria Shalaeva who was detained at the opposition rally together with her son and had to leave Russia. The video includes politician Yekaterina Duntsova, who tried to run against Putin in the upcoming elections and has an anti-war stance (she is still in Russia), lawyer Mari Davtyan, who fights against domestic violence in Russia, and Yulia Vanalnaya, the widow of opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
Nadya Tolokonnokiva with her daughter. The poster says I will come to a protest, so they would let mommy go. Screenshot from YouTube video on the Monetochka YouTube video channel. Fair use.
Over the past two years, many new stories have emerged about strong, brave, and intelligent women opposing war and death. I know there are many of them not only in this clip but also among my listeners. Not all stories receive widespread public attention, but each one undoubtedly makes the world a better place. We are strong, we can fiercely protect our families, fearlessly fight for our country, and support each other like sisters – that’s what I’ve learned about women in recent years. I am happy to be one of you, I am happy to be “just like all the other girls,” because the other girls are simply amazing. Happy March 8th, I love you, support you, and look up to you.
The video currently has over 800,000 views on Monetochka’s official YouTube channel.
As Radio Liberty reported, Monetochka had spoken out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and left Russia in the fall of 2022. In January 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justice added Monetochka to the list of so-called foreign agents. The department mentioned that she was raising money for Ukraine. The singer commented on her inclusion in the list on Telegram with the words “oh yes!!!”
Monetochka also made it to the government list of banned musicians. In February 2024, it was reported that officials from the Administration of the President of Russia issued promoters and producers with an updated list of banned musicians. It now includes 77 Russian artists and bands.
This article was written by Daria Dergacheva and originally published on the Global Voices website on 27 February 2024. It is republished here under the media partnership between Global Voices and Shouts – Music from the Rooftops! and a CC BY 3.0 Deed license.
There is cultural resistance in the anti-war music of some Russian musicians
Screenshot from YouTube video by Monetochka. It consists of videos sent by her listeners from Ukraine and Russia. Fair use.
This article was written by Alyona Fedotova and originally published by Global Voices on their website on December 23 2023. It’s republished here under the media partnership between Global Voices and Shouts.
Music is a powerful tool of resistance, and has been used this way for centuries. In the late years of USSR music played a big role in supporting dissent and new ideas. More recently, in Russia, which wages a full-scale war on Ukraine since February 24 2022, some musicians sided with the Russian pro-war authoritarian government, but some others became vocal in their anti-war statements.
Unfortunately, thoughtful anti-war songs in Russian get less attention than the warmongering tunes of a leather-clad Kremlin singer Shaman (Yaroslav Dronov). In 2022, he released a song titled “I’m Russian” (in Russian: “Я русский”, romanized as “Ya russkiy”). This track quickly rose to fame, becoming a significant part of popular culture in Russia. It garnered over 42 million views. However, the song also was ridiculed on various Russian social media platforms. Further on, Shaman became a welcomed singer at various pro-government and pro-war rallies. Some people compare him with models from Nazi propaganda posters. The fact of his un-ironic popularity is discussed on YouTube and in online media which publishes columns on contemporary Russian culture in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
It almost seems like there is no music culture in Russia beyond his output but there exists, in fact, also cultural resistance. If Russian antiwar music of the 2020s were a subgenre, there would be several headliners.
Popular musicians with anti-war stance
First, there’s a supergroup made of frequent collaborators, a rapper Noize MC and a high-pitch singer Liza Monetochka, joined by her partner Vitya Isayev. In a series of charity concerts “Voices of Peace” they perform their new war resistance songs, but their most popular one, a banger “People with Guns” was penned a few years before February 2022.
Its sarcastic lyrics go like this:
“All “bad” guys with guns will be killed “Good” ones will make holes in their bodies And if suddenly “baddies” are to triumph It would mean the other ones were “baddies””
Many music videos by these artists are important for their visual component. “No One Got Hurt” by Voices of Peace wouldn’t work the same without the accompanying animated videos that are connected to two important periods of Russian history: depressive Soviet animation from the 1980s and minimalistic black and white Mr. Freeman, an animated protagonist from early 2010s Russia, a period defined by anti-Putin protests.
“I’ll Survive,” another song by the young singer Monetochka, has been released as a music video on YouTube. It was made from short video clips filmed by her Instagram and TikTok followers, including civilians that survived the siege in the east of Ukraine.
“Burn, Burn,” another popular song of hers, is now accompanied by an animated music video directed by Lado Kvataniya to reflect the horrors of the invasion.
Another superstar of Russian rebellious music is a rapper Oxxxymiron with his angry song “Oyda,” calling for the decolonization of Russian heritage. Miron Fyodorov (Oxxxymiron’s real name) is famous for his word puzzles and literary references.
His lyrics for the track include “Our flag/Has white snow and blue river (and nothing else),” and the video an image of a white-blue-white flag of Russia, a novel symbol chosen by some anti-war groups to deny the necessity of any bloodshed. Russian authorities label both the song and the flag extremist and forbidden.
Actually, “oy, da” is a neutral interjection that can mean both “oh, yeah” and “if you must;” One could even call it somewhat an analogue for Old English “Hwæt” in the beginning of “Beowulf.” A fortnight after the premiere of “Oyda,” a part of Russian society was shocked by the verbally similar on-stage exclamation “Goyda!” from a Kremlin supporter, actor Ivan Okhlobystin. According to a historic anecdote, the latter word was used by oprichniks, the repressive soldiers of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century, right before they massacred people in the name of the tsar. “Okhlobystin” is referenced in a music video in another protest song “Anthem of the Doomed or Goyda, Orcs!” by Maxim Pokrovsky.
“We are farting gases and drilling oil. The Third Reich is no match to us, we are the Third Rome! The boss [Putin] will decide for you and me Which one is flying back home as a Cargo 200 [killed in action]”
Pokrovsky is the front man of the famous rock band “Nogu Svelo,” and one of the most outspoken critics of Putin’s regime among Russian artists. Since 2022 he has released many tracks like “Ukraina,” “Generation Z,” and “We Don’t Need War,” that have become quite popular among Russian-speaking people all over the world.
Vladi, Zemfira and Yuri Shevchuk also recorded anti-war tracks
Another popular musician, rapper Vladi, released a full album of anti-war songs called “February Goes On and On,” meaning that the month of February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is never ending for those who grieve this war. One of the songs, the track “How the F*** Is It Possible?,” perfectly records the first shock of the aggression from a point of view of an anti-war Russian.
Another important song is “Meat” by rockstar Zemfira, an uncomfortable, sorrowful tune, her singing ranging from the whisper “What did we come here for?,” that expresses the muteness of Russians, to the cutting scream “It’s midnight in Mariupol,” the prominent city’s destruction being just one of the horrors that shocked the songwriter.
Young producer and score composer Dmitry Emelyanov has worked with many popular Russian artists, including Zemfira, but hit the spotlight in 2023 with the album “Wolves at a Shooting Ground,” that he co-wrote with Yuri Shevchuk, the front man of the famous rock band DDT, founded in 1980. In 2010 Putin embarrassed himself by pretending not to know who Shevchuk is — the artist’s tongue-in-cheek answer “I’m Yura, a musician” quickly became a meme and the name of a documentary about him. His latest album includes brilliant tracks like “Motherland, Return Home,” and the hopeful “The Funeral of the War” that may appeal to a more conservative audience due to its deceptively old-fashioned sound.
Dude, sing a bright song,
Sing about love – and let it be We will unite with the whole world To plan a funeral for the war
Music puts emphasis on the tragedy of mothers losing their children in this war
Manizha Sangin, a civil rights activist, the last Russian artist to perform in Eurovision, and Lado Kvataniya’s spouse, released “Soldier,” a dance-centered performance in English, that puts an emphasis on the tragedy of the mothers losing their children during their military service.
The same idea is behind the music video of “Happy New Year, My Son” by Maxim Pokrovsky — mentioned earlier — and his band Nogy Svelo starring Chulpan Khamatova and Arthur Smolyaninov, two famous Russian actors in exile.
Little Big, a popular band that was supposed to go on Eurovision in 2020 released a video, “Generation Cancellation,” that angered some viewers for not putting blame on any side of the conflict.
Some musicians do not directly condemn the war but use other means of expressing the stance
At the same time many Russian artists release compositions that have multiple readings. Some fans might perceive them as anti-war, but many would call this opinion either a stretch or wishful thinking. It is in tune with many people willingly replacing censored words like “war” and “blast” with substitutes offered by state media. Softer lyrics allow the promotion of a song despite Russian censorship. Popular in the early 2000s rock singer Diana Arbenina’s tracks “A Night without a War Declaration” and “Don’t Be Silent” still exist only as records from her live shows posted by fans online.
The anxious song “I’ll Have to Be Silent” from a much younger Erika Lundmoen sounds like a direct answer to that. As Apple Music describes, Lundmoen is a singer-songwriter who infuses the Russian pop scene with her unique blend of escapist melodies and heartfelt vulnerability.
And for some musicians “to be silent” was a good piece of advice: recently Arbenina’s concerts were prohibited in Russia, which also happened to most of the people mentioned in this article.
Some songs and artists have a sudden comeback in playlists of anti-war audiences. Take for instance Alla Pugacheva, a Soviet superstar who for decades was a fairy godmother of mainstream Russian pop. As soon as her husband, TV comedian Maxim Galkin, opposed the war and their family left the country, she faced a terrible fake news campaign aimed against her. “I once asked Yaroslav Dronov [Shaman] to say one important thing, now I will say it too, although no one has asked me to: ‘You will hear from me again!’ Whether you like it or not, life has shown I am still in your hearts,” the diva wrote on Instagram earlier this month.
While all living Russian musicians must pick a side, even dead artists are resurrected with some help from AI technologies to make a point. For example a popular in the 80s rock singer Viktor Tsoi, who died in 1990, is AI-resurrected in this music video. His electronic copy sings the critical anthem from 1988, “A Train on Fire,” originally written by another rock star, Boris Grebenschikov. The metaphor of the train on fire is about the country, from where there is no escape and which is in war with its people.
If one checks any comment section under the music videos in this article they will see that listeners often regret the small size of the anti-war music audience, even if the same video was streamed millions of times, making this sorrow futile.
Acclaimed producer Roman Liberov has recently united some of the artists mentioned above and many other musicians. Together they filmed the concert “We Exist,” that premiered on December 12, 2023. Through this musical project anti-war artists oppose the narrative of Russian war resistance as a marginal point of view. Perhaps their music will help to overcome the narrative of an imaginary or not pro-Putin majority in Russia.
Okean Elzy band’s lyrics speak to resistance and perseverance
A screenshot from Okean Elzy YouTube channel with the title of the song “Misto Vesny” (The City of Spring). In the lower right corner, a message in English and bellow in Russian reminds of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
This article was written by Filip Noubel, the managing editor of Global Voices. It was published on the GV webpage on March 25th 2022 and republished here under the media partnership between GV and Shouts.
Russia’s war on Ukraine is also a cultural one: the denial of a separate identity from the “Russian World,” the bombing of cultural and religious buildings, and more. Thus resistance in Ukraine is not just military but also cultural, and in that war, music takes a central place.
The Ukrainian band Okean Elzy (Океан Ельзи in Ukrainian, literally Elsa’s Ocean) is a prominent star in the country’s music scene. It was founded in 1994 in Lviv, a historical city in western Ukraine. After the band moved to Kyiv, they began to receive international attention and became the first modern Ukrainian band to be played on MTV Russia in 1998. Eventually, the band became widely known and gained fans in many post-Soviet countries. Most Russian speakers can, with little effort understand or guess the meaning of Ukrainian lyrics. The band also started performing concerts in Russia and Europe, and eventually gained cult status in Ukraine.
Since then he has spoken publicly about the war, calling Russian celebrities to break their silence and speak out against the war. Until the war, a number of Russian singers had a huge following in Ukraine and made commercially successful tours in the country.
Since the war started, Vakarchuk has performed for free to Ukrainian audiences, often solo, by singing and playing the piano or the guitar in subway stations, in front of railways stations and temporary relocation camps.
One song he plays regularly has a special significance. It is called “Місто весни” (Misto Vesny, or “The City of Spring”) and is dedicated to his home town Lviv.
The original version, which came out in 2021, is a duo with singer Irina Shvaydak, from the band Odin v kanoe. Vakarchuk, who wrote the lyrics, explains this is the first song he wrote about his hometown.
Today Lviv has become a gateway for over 3 million Ukrainian refugees who have left eastern and northern parts of their country to flee Russian bombs and seek refuge in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. They all transit via Lviv, by train, cars, buses. From the late 18th to the early 20th century, Lviv was also part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and today symbolizes prevailing Ukrainian aspirations to once again be part of Europe and distant from Russia.
Thus the lyrics of the song have gained a symbolic meaning and indeed seem to speak to today’s tragedy. The song opens with the followings words:
Why do I dream that, again and again / I am walking with you in my hometown Lviv / It smells of spring, and the sun sets / On the banks of a river that is no more /…/ What is dear to you does not die easily in Lviv.
Indeed the last words, when translated into Russian, sound like a defiant message to Russian troops: “Во Львове так просто своё не умирает,” meaning “What is dear to you does not die easily in Lviv“
