Ukrainians have chosen a Crimean Tatar singer, Susan's Jamaladinova (Jamala), and her song about the mass deportation of Tatars under Josef Stalin as the country's entry for this year's Eurovision song contest.
Ukrainians have chosen a Crimean Tatar singer, Susan's Jamaladinova (Jamala), and her song about the mass deportation of Tatars under Josef Stalin as the country's entry for this year's Eurovision song contest.
The song, which is called “1944”, refers to the year in Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin sent 240,000 people on crowded trains to barren Central Asia. The lyrics begin: "They come to your house, they kill you all and say: 'We're not guilty'."
According to The Telegraph, the 32-year-old is a well-known jazz singer in Ukraine and beat five other finalists competing to represent the country at Eurovision in Stockholm in May after a vote by the public and a panel of judges.
Jamala was born into a mixed Tatar Armenian family and was inspired to write the lyrics by her grandmother’s stories about tragic events. A record number of over 300,000 Ukrainians voted in the national selection for the contest.
Meanwhile, RT writes that Ukraine is apparently courting trouble by choosing a song with politically loaded lyrics for the upcoming Eurovision contest, which explicitly bans participants from using the event for promoting any political agenda.
