“There are things that cannot be bought, reproduced or invented. They can only be preserved... Authentic singing of Donetsk Region. These are not just songs - these are the voices of our grandmothers, they are the memory of life, love, loss and hope.”
This is how Larysa Polishchuk, an immigrant from Donetsk Region and now an ambassador for peaceful change in the Lviv region, explains the meaning of the initiative, which she started back in 2014: to save a collection of audio cassettes with recordings of folk songs of her native land, collected by Professor Olena Tyurikova.
During the war, these recordings could have been lost. However, today they are preserved. Larysa was able to take the cassettes out during the evacuation, and now they have been partially digitized - specialists from the Laboratory of Musical Ethnology in Lviv have been working on this. Scientists Yuriy Rybak and Larisa Lukashenko digitized 30 cassettes out of 100 in the collection, and the recordings themselves were systematized and transferred to the Digital Archive of Folklore of Slobozhanshchyna and Poltava Regions. With the assistance of the archive’s founder, Honored Artist of Ukraine Halyna Lukʼyanets, 100 songs from this collection became open to researchers and everyone who wants to hear the true voice of Donetsk region.
Larisa Polishchuk presented the results of her song initiative in Lviv, within the walls of the Mykola Lysenko National Music Academy. The event brought together resettled women from Donetsk region, Lviv women, and representatives of the city’s cultural environment. The live song was brought to the meeting by singer Valentyna Koroleva from Dobropillya and her manager Lyudmila Khoruzhy. For the guests, it was an opportunity to hear the voices of their grandmothers and great-grandmothers. To feel a connection with their native land. And remember: in times when the struggle for historical truth continues, the Ukrainian singing of Donetsk region sounds like proof of its Ukrainian roots.
“We have taken a historic step. A step that is important not only for culture, but also for our identity, for historical truth, for the future of Donetsk region. These are not just records. These are proof. These are memories. These are the Ukrainian voice of Donetsk region, which has sounded for centuries and sounds today,” concluded Liliya Kislitsyna, president of the NGO “Smarta”. It was within the framework of the “Smarta” project “Ambassadors of Peaceful Change”, with the technical support of UN Women in Ukraine and with funding from the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) that the initiative “Voices of Donetsk Region: Preserve, Hear, Pass on” became possible.