Meet Ruslana Lyzhychko, the Soul of Ukraine’s Revolution
On an extraordinary night, Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin forces were turned back by a band of protesters led by a tiny pop star.
The
crackdown on Maidan, Kiev’s main square, began after 3 a.m. when most
of the protesters had gone to sleep. Thousands of Ukrainian interior
ministry units quietly approached from all sides, preparing to cross the
barricades of the “Eurolutionaries” The tents had occupied downtown
Kiev for almost three weeks. Their only defense was a woman’s voice on
the loudspeaker, stubbornly chanting: “Maidan ye! (Maidan exists) This
is a peaceful protest!” The few hundred people left in the square
repeated the woman’s words, as if it might protect them from tens of
thousands of gleaming shields and rubber clubs prepared to strike.
The
bitter cold had drained the protesters’ energy; it was unclear how they
had even survived the freezing wind for so long. Ahead was a painful
night of tough confrontations and the threat of violence. “Ruslana,
spivai! (sing!)” somebody yelled from the crowd around the stage in the
middle of the square. The orator, a petite woman in a black jacket and
tight jeans, which were tucked into short Ugg boots, grabbed the
microphone tighter and sang the Ukrainian national anthem: “Souls and
bodies we'll lay down, all for our freedom.” He voice seemed to warm the
air a little.
The pop star Ruslana Lyzhychko has become the
revolutionary leader of Ukraine’s pro-E.U. protest movement. Her voice
seems to take over most neutral hearts and make the laziest bodies move.
Her hit Wild Dances won the Eurovision song contest in 2004, but
bright costumes and tours to Chicago and New York were forgotten this
winter. On Wednesday, just like each of the 11 previous nights, Ruslana
arrived at the protest with an ambitious goal: she wanted justice and
freedom for her country. In an interview with the Daily Beast she said
she hated politics and described her role in the opposition simply as
“charging Maidan with freedom-loving energy.”
But
she was nervous. A few hours before the clashes with police, Ruslana
arrived at the opposition’s headquarters on the second floor of the
Trade Union building on Independence Square to meet the press and
prepare for one more night of resistance. She looked exhausted, and her
hair was a mess. Two make-up artists worked simultaneously on her face
and Amy Winehouse-style hair, as she was discussing the strategy for the
night ahead with ten opposition activists who were squatting in a
circle around her. If she were to make a song about Ukraine, she would
put “Rise up!” as the key line for it, she said.
Back in the
square, the wind swayed giant portraits of another woman hung by a
Christmas tree. It was the voice of this woman, Yulia Tymoshenko, that
had warmed the hearts of protesters in Maidan during the Orange
Revolution in 2004. Today, the former prime minister is in jail,
sentenced to seven years in a cell. Was a jail term possible for Ruslana
one day? “Special battalions looked for me in my car during the attempt
to cleanse Maidan on Tuesday night but I was on stage singing – it was
music that saved me,” Ruslana said.
She was an “emotional, impulsive and unpredictable woman of enormous
winner’s ambitions,” her advisor Karina Yasinovat said in an interview.
Earlier this week she promised protesters to set herself on fire if
president Yanukovych and his government did not hear the opposition
demands for Ukraine’s integration with Europe. “I am not afraid of your
clubs, I am not afraid of your gas attacks! I am just a singer, singing
songs for peace in Ukraine!” she yelled into the microphone, standing
shoulder to shoulder with other political, religious and public leaders.
Explore the Ukrainian protests with this stunning photo in a recent episode of 'Darkroom.'
By
4 a.m. the square filled up with more protesters. Men wore orange
helmets. The moment came for the three-week conflict between pro-Russian
authorities and the pro-E.U. opposition to boil over. Leaders of the
opposition called all women and children to come on stage and all men to
join the “life walls”, the resistance along the perimeter of Maidan.
Some new arrivals ran to join thousands of activists standing shoulder
to shoulder, pressing against hundreds of interior ministry shields
pushing them away from the southern entrance to the square. From the
hill side the scene looked almost surreal: a massive wave of orange
helmets representing integration in Europe struggled to withstand even a
stronger wave of black helmets issued by the pro-Kremlin government.
Two young men were wrapping themselves in E.U. flags, as they ran to
the square. A couple of pensioners Vitaliy Ilyin and his wife Svetlana
could not sleep, when they heard about the crackdown on Maidan. “This is
the new Ukraine, that we support,” said Ilyin leaning on his cane. “And
this is the old Ukraine threatening to turn us into a dictatorship in
the style of Belarus." Meanwhile, Ruslana returned to the microphone –
her life’s longest, almost 10-hour long performance went on. It was “a
pure miracle” that saved the square, she said. She felt ready to play
“the role of soul” for Maidan’s protest, “if needed, I will sing every
night in Maidan until next presidential election in 2015.”
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