As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nears the end of its third year, music has become an important way to keep people’s spirits up — and a pillar of Ukraine’s defense.
Motivational rock songs. DJ sets. Folk tunes. All bring people together, giving them a sense of normality and joy amid constant thoughts of war.
Concerts have also become an important way for the stretched military to collect donations for the war effort.
Defiant in the face of Russian denial of Ukraine’s heritage, young people have embraced traditions like folk dancing. Many are learning the steps to the hopak or kozachok, dances their great-grandparents might have enjoyed.
Rys, a cultural organization, gives lessons and organizes events with live music where dancers twirl, stomp and swing. The group has also sought and preserved old musical instruments and recorded folk songs that have been passed down for generations.
Concerts in Ukraine include appeals for money for the military. Some musicians also donate their time and money.
Dmytro Vodovozov, a drummer with Antytila, one of Ukraine’s best-known rock bands, buys and repairs vehicles for the army and organizes retreats for the children of soldiers through the Antytila Foundation. The band penned a radio staple titled “Fortress Bakhmut,” an ode to Ukraine’s yearlong defense of the eastern city that fell to Russian forces in May 2023.
A small indie band, The Feels, now donates a portion of ticket sales and holds auctions during shows to raise money for the military. One charity it supports is Musicians Defend Ukraine, which seeks to provide musicians-turned-soldiers with vehicles and other equipment they need at the front.
The band’s show in April last year was its first since the invasion, which scattered its members. They once wrote lyrics in English but have switched to Ukrainian.
The charity has helped support artists like Serhiy, a drummer who is now serving in the Ukrainian army, by raising money to buy an SUV for him and his unit.
Serhiy said the stresses of combat near Bakhmut had spurred him to listen to old, and eclectic, favorites, including funk, jazz and rock. He was never without his drumsticks, he said, playing on his legs, even when he was serving in a front-line bunker.
Serhiy Zhadan, one of Ukraine’s foremost poets and writers, is also the lead singer for punk band Zhadan and the Dogs.
He is prolific on social media, using various platforms to help fund the purchase of hundreds of vehicles and raise tens of thousands of dollars for drones, medical supplies and other equipment to support the military. He recently enlisted in Ukraine’s National Guard but still has a busy schedule of concerts and poetry readings.
Many musicians use performances to draw attention to and raise money for other causes.
Mariia Zakaliuzhna, a DJ from Lviv who performs as MarichkaPorichka, streamed a set amid tropical plants inside Kyiv’s Botanical Garden to help relieve its budgetary crisis. Russia’s invasion in late winter meant the park was closed during its peak flower season, when it normally generates most of its earnings.
Music also serves other purposes important for morale: inspiring patriotism, paying respects to the dead, motivating troops or defining national identity.
“We try to live, because while we’re living our lives, Russia will never win,” said Ksenia Baryola, co-owner of Keller, a nightclub in Kyiv.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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