Russian Peace Song Video Project

This project was started by Steve Balkin, Professor Emeritus, Roosevelt University. Email: sbalkin@roosevelt.edu ; Ph: 312-341-3696  Our goal is to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine, save Russian lives and Ukraine lives and bring freedom to Russia.

Press Releases and Information Essays.

Press Release 1, February 24, 2023

Examples of Russian Peace Song Videos

White Cranes (Russian version with English subtitles)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSHdcMcCE1U

May There Always Be Sunshine.
English version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d51vYKHT5zk
Russian version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcdfQsnUHuk

12 by Morgenshtern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX0TPbCSAbM
Comment:
Rap for Peace: Russian Rapper and Ukrainian Producer Take a Stand Against Putin’s War
https://www.artshelp.com/morgenshtern/

Moscow Nights – first stanza with English peace lyrics.  Lyrics by S. Balkin, melody
by Vasily Pavlovich Solovyov-Sedoi.
Moscow is asleep.
With my heart to keep.
Softly our souls yearn a peace to roar
Dear, if you could know
How I treasure so
A quick stop to this insane Ukraine War

Moscow Nights sung with the regular English lyrics by Helmut Lotti.
Moscow Nights sung in Russian by Dmitri Hvorostovsky (with English subtitles)

Example of a Peace Song Jingle
The KARS for Kids jingle in the USA is a song focusing on a phone number.  Below is a jingle using the phone number that Russian soldiers can call to arrange for a voluntary surrender to Ukraine, using the melody of KARS for Kids.  To be effective, of course, it has to be in the Russian language with Russian rhyming and to a familiar Russian melody.
Plus Three Eight
Zero Six Six
Five Eight Zero
Three-Four Nine-Eight

Plus Three Eight
Zero Six Six
Five Eight Zero
Three-Four Nine-Eight

Surrender now,
Don’t be late.
Live today,
Choose your fate.

Do the Russians Want War? – by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Eduard Kolmanovsky. with English and Russian subtitles.  Many consider this 1961 Soviet song a peace song but some consider this a  pro-war song.   If we were to use the melody, the lyrics would be reworked to be strongly pro-peace in the abstract and strongly pro-peace to stop the war in Ukraine.  The lyrics, as a poem, was cited by Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in his address to the Russian people immediately prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Anniversary of the war. Artemy Troitsky and Russian protest. This webpage presents very good links, examples, and commentary about Russian and Ukrainian peace songs.   https://www.svoboda.org/a/k-godovschine-voyny-artemiy-troitskiy-i-russkiy-protest-/32259971.html
In the final podcast of his Music in Freedom series, Troitsky presents historical Russian (Soviet)  Peace Songs.  

Other Information on why songs are important propaganda.

Russian Pop Music Icon Comes Out Against the War in Ukraine.
“Alla Pugacheva, whose stardom has spanned from the Soviet era to after the Cold War, said the invasion of Ukraine had turned Russia into a “pariah.” —  She has been called the goddess of Russian pop and the No. 1 Soviet personality in Russia.”  If she agrees, our project wants to give her old Soviet or new peace songs to record. – SB
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/18/world/europe/alla-pugacheva-ukraine.html

Also see this: More Than Just A Singer’: Russia Takes Notice As Pop Icon Pugacheva Crosses The Kremlin.  Radio Free Liberty, September 20, 2022
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-singer-pugacheva-crosses-the-kremlin/32043274.html

The Propaganda Power of Power of Protest Songs: the Case of Madison Protest Songs: the Case of Madison’s Solidarity Sing-Along.  Journal of Contemporary Aesthetics, 2013. Music is explicitly composed or performed to raise awareness of  oppressive
conditions….The meanings may be subtly encoded as in the case of slave
songs of the American South. Or the messages can be overt, as in the case
of protest songs that highlight conditions of oppression and injustice.”  …
“music might be used as lullabies, valentines, or even to keep kids from loitering in parking lots. A third-party use of a piece of music or musical performance
occurs when someone takes a piece written or performed by another person
or group and presents it to a listener (or listeners) for their own
communicative purposes.”
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1285&context=liberalarts_contempaesthetics

Why Does Music Bring Back Memories?  Neuroscience News, March 10, 2013
https://neurosciencenews.com/music-memory-22756/

American Idol: American Pop Culture and Soft Power in Cold War Europe
by Rochelle Nowaki,  Hohonu 2015.  Most interesting is the Stilyagi movement, after WW2, where Soviet youth became infatuated with jazz, rock, and soul music and the high style of clothes that was associated with that.  https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hohonu/volumes/documents/AmericanIdol-AmericanPopCultureandSoftPowerinColdWarEuropeRochelleNowaki.pdf

The Stilyagi Culture of 1950s Moscow can be seen in this beautiful 2008 film, Hipsters (or Stilyagi in Russian).  The music and dancing and story are great!!  Here is a two minute clip from youtube in Russian.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfck-H8pC8E&t=138s

Changing His Tune for Mother Russia
“As the Kremlin seeks to remake Russia’s institutions to comport with its militaristic worldview, cultural figures are picking a side. One singer made his choice — and is growing rich. ” (March 10, 2023) — This article is about Russian pop star: Yaroslav Y. Dronov (aka Shaman) and his endorsement by V. Putin.  If Putin thinks thinks it important to have songs of war. The West should think it important to have songs of peace injected into Russia.  – SB https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/world/europe/shaman-putin-russia-ukraine-war.html 

Across the Globe, the Russian Diaspora Finds Ways to Protest Putin’s War.  (February 27,2023) .
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/world/europe/russia-diaspora-protests.html

Putin thinks War Songs are important to motivate people to support his special military  operation.   Learn about a few of them in the NY Times.  (February 22, 2023).
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-rally.html

Why more and more Russians are backing the war. (April, 2022) in the Spectator.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-more-and-more-russians-are-backing-the-war/ “Russians who approve of military action in Ukraine do so for different reasons: because they believe the propaganda, because they harbour imperialist views, because they see military action as self-defence against a Nato attack, because they are patriots who stand by their ‘country, right or wrong’, or because they just do and can’t really explain why.”

This youtube video is not a peace song but a good example of how an international pop star can speak to the Russian people and and have a positive effect to try to stop this War.  You can transform Arnold’s ideas into Russian song lyrics. – SB  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWClXZd9c78&t=129s

 

**
One Like Putin/Такого как Путин, example of 2009 Putin propaganda film, glorifying the virtues heterosexuality.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk_VszbZa_s&t=6s

Propaganda Images Against The War

These images are free to use to post and share inside Russia.  Please send us other related images and the links to them.

Military Recruitment Poster with the title: Lackeys, it’s time to die for the tyrant. Designed by Viktoriia Nemtsova, Steve Balkin, (and the Russian Military).

Stop Putin’s Bombing of Civilians. Designed by Steve Balkin and Viktoriia Nemtsova

Free All Political Prisoners. Designed by Viktoriia Nemtsova

Board of Advisors

Ron Baiman, Ph.D. in economics and a retired professor of economics from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.  He is a founder of the Chicago Political Economy Group (CPEG).  One of his concerns is how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is affecting climate change.  Influenced by his musical daughter, he is an amateur fiddler and an aficionado of folk music and dance.

Josh “Socalled” Dolgin, International Klezmer teacher and musician who plays accordion and piano; is also a Canadian rapper and record producer.  He  is the subject of a documentary, The “Socalled” Movie, for the National Film Board of Canada.  Josh has generated several record albums including Isaac Babel’s Tales From Odessa: A Socalled Yiddish Musical in 2017. He has performed twice in Carnegie Hall and worked with world class musicians including Itzhak Perlman, The Mighty Sparrow, Matisyahu, and Theodore Bikel.

Viktoriia Nemtsova, runs a website development studio with her husband and 10 employees. She is an expert in Search Engine Optimization and also has skills in Quality Assurance testing of websites, digital design, and marketing consulting.  She has a Master’s Degree in economics from Moscow University.

Andrei Poliakov is a professional musician, composer and producer who received a fundamental classical music education as a pianist in Russia, and continued with his professional musical career performing with several world-renowned orchestras including the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, later diversifying his musical taste and capacity into jazz, rock, and pop genres, performing and recording with various bands and as a solo act. Andrey is now residing in Europe with his family, moving ahead with various musical and business projects. He composes songs in Russian and English languages and instrumental pieces focused on piano as a main instrument.

Yuri Rashkin is a classically trained musician who plays piano and bass in jazz, rock, blues, and bluegrass bands. He is originally from Moscow, Russia and passionately wants to help his home country, the United States, by informing viewers around the world about American foreign and domestic policies through his news analysis, interviews to many news outlets, and his YouTube channel Rashkin Report, where he reports and interviews guests about different topics, including the war in Ukraine. He broadcasts primarily in the Russian language and is thus able to penetrate inside Russia. Yuri is headquartered in Beloit, Wisconsin where his Rashkin Report works as a version of (or as an homage to) Radio Free Europe or Voice of America. He is also an adjunct professor at University of Wisconsin Whitewater teaching courses in Communications and Public Relations and is an elected member of the Rock County Board of Supervisors. His full bio is at https://www.janesvilleareastories.com/yuri-rashkin

Slava Tolstoy is a guitarist and producer based in Boston but with Russian roots. One of his projects is the International String Trio which fuses Gypsy Jazz with World Music. Recently, he is partly back to exploring his Russian roots, writing and performing songs in Russian as a solo artist and with a band. He recently released They Stayed Behind (Они Остались Там) a powerful song and music video based on lyrics by poet Vadim Yampolskiy.

Kelly Tzoumis, Professor of Environmental Studies at DePaul University specializing in Environmental Policy.  She works globally on teaching sustainability and environmental health issues.

Alex Udvary, distinguished Romani Cimbalom player and Hungarian-Slovak folk music researcher.  Has been a soloist with many symphony orchestras including the Cleveland Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He performed for Van Cliburn, Itzhak Perlman, and producer Joseph Pasternak.

Alex Wolpert, Professor of Computer Science, part of the new Music and Computing Program at Roosevelt University.

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