Art and War Go Hand in Hand; the Russia-Ukraine War is No Exception

Art has long been a way to protest war in many cultures, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict — which marked its one-year anniversary on Friday — is no exception to the rule.

I’m a first-generation naturalized American of both Russian and Ukrainian heritage, so for me watching this war unfold has been interesting, to say the least.

During my undergraduate career at the University of Kansas, I completed a semester-long research project on Western themes and influences in Russian rap music. It was the perfect thing to examine with a deep dive, as I was majoring in Journalism and also taking classes in Political Science, Russian and Global Studies.

That project would be an interesting one to repeat now.

Who do Russian creators make their art for now? A few years ago, I would have argued that they seek to westernize their audiences within Russia. What about now? Since leaving the country, Russian rap star Morgenshtern has toured all over the world, including several stops that he made in the United States.

Another rapper, Oxxymirron, was Friday’s “Picture of the Day” on Wikimedia Commons when a photo of him performing a charity concert against the war in Berlin landed on the site’s front page.

Roman Abalin, known on YouTube as NFKRZ, is another Russian media creator who fled the country, refusing to be conscripted and sent to the front lines in Ukraine.

Before leaving the country, he first left his hometown of Chelyabinsk in eastern Russia to live in a much more modern Saint Petersburg, a place where he sought greater opportunities. Saint Petersburg has, since its inception, been one of Russia’s most westernized cities by design. It was built by Peter the Great to be Russia’s rival to Venice or Paris.

Yet still, Abalin left even there when the war broke out and moved to the country of Georgia, where he continues to create content, much of which is critical of the war and would undoubtedly land him in jail or worse if he chose to remain in Russia. (Disclaimer for the video, it does have some mildly explicit language if you choose to watch it.)

Now, all this being said, if we as conservative Americans saw men with long hair, tattoos or even painted fingernails leaving this country and refusing to fight for it, conservatives — myself included would probably call them with the knowledge available to us under the circumstances similar to what the Russians that have stayed are calling those who left … basically wusses.

However, this feels different.

Morgenstern’s hit song “Domoi,” meaning “to home” or “go home” in Russian, was released several months before the invasion in December of 2021 but still hits the nail on the head in many regards.

The song’s audio track starts with a news broadcast, the theme of which can be translated as “We’ve found Morgenstern; he and his new wife have fled Russia and are now living in the lap of luxury in Dubai at the Hotel Palm Jumeirah.”

The first few lines of the song are translated as follows:

“I don’t understand what’s going on with me yet,
But someday I will understand.
Yes, I don’t want to go home yet,
But someday I will go.

I don’t understand what’s going on with me yet,
But someday I will understand.
Yes, I don’t want to go home yet,
But someday I will go.

Did you see how I did run away?
Across the border, by passport, right in the railway carriage. (wait, it was possible that way?)
I am just going on the train,
News are louder than Oxxximiron’s comeback. (By accident I became old, sorry)

I miss my cars and my jewelry,
but nothing shines brighter than my own smile.
We are walking in Dubai with overweight package of money.
You can take away my business, but you won’t take away my happiness.”

The lyrics, especially the ones about not even being able to leave Russia on a train published in December of 2021, seem to have been almost prophetic, as Russian men were not allowed to leave when the conscription began.

Shortly after the war broke out, Morgenstern released another song called “12,” which was explicitly against the war and had a much more somber tone than more of his discography to date. The end of the song’s music video includes as a sample a phone call his producer Slava received from his mother as she hid in a cellar from bombs when the war broke out. Click here to watch the video (be aware of explicit lyrics and imagery).

The bridge that was blown up over the Black Sea, cutting off a key transportation route between Crimea and mainland Russia begins in Kerch, my father’s hometown. He, like all of the men who I’ve written about here, left Russia in pursuit of better opportunities for themselves and their family. My father first left Ukraine to return to study in Russia itself as that’s where the best educational opportunities within the former Soviet Union were, and then left Russia for America as that’s where he saw his best opportunities to be for himself and his family, including me.

I visited Russia multiple times growing up to see my extended family and was even once taken to my father’s hometown as a young child. Unlike many families in America and even elsewhere in the world who don’t leave their hometown for generations at a time and live down the street from extended family, any future children that I may one day have may never see their mother’s country of birth, or their grandmothers or grandfather’s hometown. The irony of the fact that this war broke out the week that I got married to my husband who is also a first-generation American is not lost on me.

The artists and the creators that make their art for global consumption are documenting their histories, the same as journalists and writers like myself do. It is all much more meaningful when your own history coincides with global events.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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