Bring Them Home
Listening Post 395. The song is tender and spellbinding, even without reading the translated lyrics. It’s title, 4.5.0., is Ukrainian military code for “All is well,” and it paints a dream trapped in the heart of every parent and every child’s nightmare (video 1). It’s also at the center of an extraordinary album, Songs of Stolen Children. Since invading Ukraine, Russia has been responsible for abducting at least 20,000 children, separating them from their families and—in an effort to purge Ukrainian identity and language—forcibly placing them in Russian households. Human rights bodies and journalists have focused attention on the abductions but have had little impact.* Now there is another force in the struggle, led by Marichka, a Ukrainian-Canadian singer-songwriter and ethnomusicologist who has also served as a front-line war correspondent and combat medic. On Songs of Stolen Children she leads a remarkable women’s ensemble, Daughters of Donbas—the name taken from the Ukrainian region most battered by Russian forces. The album mixes new and traditional compositions, combining elements of Ukrainian folk and Indie pop, chamber music and a cappella harmonies. Also notable is the bandura, a string instrument banned, and their virtuosos persecuted, by czars and communists alike in recurring efforts to undermine Ukraine’s culture. The album’s 12 tracks mobilize folklore and metaphor, echoing enigmas, spirits and pathways home that animate fairy tales and lullabies the world over. Riddle (video 2) draws on both a folk song and the true story of a grandfather whose questions to his rescued granddaughter help remind her of who she is; while Red Boots Tango (video 3) gives a buoyant cadence to a young person’s struggle to alter destiny. Echoing early twentieth-century sorrows that eerily presage today’s suffering, Foreign Land commemorates Ukrainian girls, many of whom never returned, sent abroad to work as indentured servants (video 4). And Soon, I Will Be Back focuses on three children and the mementos each of them took as they fled their homes (video 5). Powerful in subtlety, hopeful amid despair, Songs of Stolen Children weaves a tale of love and darkness that still has no end.
*Organizations and authorities that have accused Russia of abducting Ukrainian children include the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. Ukrainian authorities have documented some 20,000 abducted children between the ages of four months and 17 years, though the true number may be much higher. An estimated 2,000 captured children have been reunited with their families, often after harrowing journeys and Herculean efforts by family members.
Daughters of Donbas: Songs of Stolen Children
Дочки Донбасу – пісні викрадених дітей
Tracks recorded in Canada
Marichka: Vocals, piano
Alina Kuzma: Vocals, bandura
Maria Gurak: Backing vocals
Olga Kostianyuk: Violin
Zoë Santo: Viola, vocals
Lusine Navoyan: Cello
Natalie Kemerer: Double bass
Meika Sontag: Violin
Charlee Wielgoz: Cello
Rachel Melas: Double bass
Tracks recorded in Ukraine
Marichka: Vocals, keyboard
Volo Bedzvin: Cello
Khrystyna Makukh: Violin
Denys Markevych: Double bass
Valeria Bezdukha: Viola
Maria Gurak: Backing vocals
Lisa: Okaryna
Anastasiya Voytyuk: Vocals, starosvitska bandura, Chernihiv bandura
Producers: Daniel Rosenberg, Marichka
4.5.0.
Lyrics: Izdryk, Marichka / Music: Marichka
From the album notes: Despite the pressure of propaganda, forced Russian citizenship, name changes, bans on speaking Ukrainian, and complete separation from family, an invisible bond always remains between a child and their mother—through the memory of the body, through the voice, and through love that cannot be canceled or forbidden. The song “4.5.0.” became a symbolic invisible response to this forced silence and lack of communication with parents. In military language, this code means “all is quiet,” “all is well.” It is a code of hope that one wants to hear every day. It is a belief that despite the tragedy of separation, everything will eventually be 4.5.0.
(From the Ukrainian lyrics)
When you reach the edge and step over
And the darkness swallows you up
Just think of one thing she would say:
“Don’t be afraid, I’m here for you”
When you’re cornered in your last fortress
You’ll give up almost without a fight
Remember this: “I am with you, I am here
Don’t give up, I’m with you
Don’t give up, I’m with you
Your hope is my weapon
Don’t be sad, I’m with you
4.5.0. will be again”
When despair and doubt, fatigue and fear
Squeeze your heart with deafening sorrow
There will sound like a revelation in your voice:
“Do not be sad, I am here, I am with you”
And when the world’s axis breaks
When the sky folds like parchment
Out of nowhere her words will come
“It’s all right, I’m here”
“I’m here”
Riddle / Загадку
Lyrics: Marichka, based on a Ukrainian folk song / Music: Marichka
Album notes: This song is based on a lyrical folk song in which a boy asks a girl riddles. We reimagine it as a dialogue between a grandfather and his granddaughter, in tribute to 12-year-old Kira from Mariupol who experienced the death of her father, the occupation of her city, deportation and captivity in Russia, and psychological trauma. Her grandfather, upon heroically finding Kira in Russia and successfully bringing her back home, would ask her riddles to jog her memory, and remind her who she was, where her home was, and her family’s love for her.
Oh, the maple tree grows/Grandfather meets his granddaughter
Oh, my granddaughter, my little berry/Guess this riddle for me
Oh, what grows without roots/Oh, what burns without flame
Oh, what twists around the tree/Oh, what dries up the heart
Oh, what is silent, but has a voice/Oh, what cries, but has no tears
Hope grows without roots/And love burns without flame
A path home twists around the tree/Being far from you dries the heart
Thoughts are silent, but have a voice/The soul cries, but has no tears
Red Boots Tango / Якби мені черевики
Lyrics: Taras Shevchenko / Music: Marichka
Album Notes: “There is no such thing as a stranger’s children” — Ukrainian saying.
This means that when any children are in danger or have been illegally taken from their parents, it is the responsibility of every mother and father to do everything possible to ensure these children return to their families and grow up in their native land. No one has the right to kidnap them, ban their language, rename them, or erase their identity. This is exactly what Russia is doing to Ukrainian children in the occupied territories. In 2014, Marichka, now a mother of four, started to fight for human rights in the Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv—for every child’s right to live in a free democratic country. During this time she composed a tango to the words of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. This piece was performed only once, on the most violent and deadly night of the Kyiv protests. Now with newfound relevance, the song is ready to be heard again.
If I had shoes/I would go out to dance
My sorrow!/I have no shoes
But the music plays and plays/Causing me grief!
Oh, I will go barefoot across the field/I will search for my destiny
Look at me, black-browed one/My fate is false
Unlucky me/My fate!
Girls are dancing/In red shoes
I am bored with the world/Without wellness, without love
I wear out my black eyebrows/I wear them out in a foreign land!
Oh, I will go barefoot across the field/I will search for my destiny
My destiny!/Look at me, black-browed one
My destiny is false/Unlucky me
Foreign Land
Lyrics & music: Traditional
Album notes: This is a reinterpretation of a traditional Ukrainian strokova (indentured servant) song. Born of hardship, this genre once gave voice to thousands of girls who were sent away to work in foreign households. They were often as young as 12, and rarely returned home. Maria, grandmother of Marichka, Daughters of Donbas co-founder, was one of these girls. This is an ancient folk lament, a mother’s voice, foretelling the plight of stolen children today.
On Sunday morning the blue sea played with the waves
A mother packed up her daughter
To leave for a strange land
To a strange land with strange people
Oh, who will pity you, my daughter?
Those who will beat me will pity me
I’ll never again live with you, my mother
When, my daughter, should I expect you to come home?
When the grass in the garden grows, my mother
The grass grew and grew and began to dry
The mother was waiting for her daughter to return, and began to cry
Did you hear, my mother, how I came to you?
How I flew as a bird above your window?
How I cooed like a dove?
If, my daughter, I could hear you
I would open all doors and windows
To let you fly in
Soon, I Will Be Back / Скоро я повернусь
Lyrics: Viktoria Amelina / Music: Anastasiya Voytyuk
Album notes: Anastasiya Voytyuk is a Ukrainian musician, bandura player, singer and songwriter who, in addition to her talent, is known for her kind heart. She is an activist and volunteer who uses music to heal communities, soldiers on the frontlines and veterans in the hospitals, also bringing Ukraine and its culture to audiences around the world. Her song “Soon, I Will Be Back”resonated so strongly with our theme that we asked Anastasiya to record it for us in Ukraine. It was written based on a poem by Viktoria Amelina, a novelist, journalist and war crime researcher, who collected stories of people forcibly taken from their homes. Viktoria was killed by a Russian rocket during her visit to the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region in 2023.
When Mira left the house
She took a single bead from the box
When Tim left the city
He picked up a small stone from the street
When Yarka left the garden
She took an apricot pit
When Vira left the house
She took nothing
Soon, I’ll be back, she said, and took nothing at all
Mira grew a jewelry box from the bead
She grows a new home inside that box
Tim began a new city from a stone
It looks like the old one, only there is no sea
Yarka planted the apricot pit
And around it the garden became Yarka’s
And Vira, who took nothing
Is the one telling this story.
When you run from home, she says
The house behind your back grows smaller
So you can survive
The house turns into a little grey stone
A bead, last year’s apricot pit
A shard of glass cutting your palm all the way
A Lego figurine, a shell from Crimea
A sunflower seed, a button from your father’s uniform
Then the house fits into your pocket, and there it sleeps
You must take the house out of your pocket
In a safe place, when you are ready
The house will slowly grow
And you will never
Remember, never
Be without your home
And what did you take with you?
I took only this story — about returning
Here: I’ve pulled it into the light
It is growing
Soon I’ll be back, she said
And took nothing at all
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