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"Awakening" from Kitka
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The Interplay of Destruction, Exile, and Renewal: Kitka’s Shira Cion Talks About Chernobyl Survivors Preserving Rusalka Songs and the Historians Following in their Paths

A group of babi (grandmothers), we encountered on our journey had been forced out of their ancestral village, Richica, located in Zone One, the area most strongly affected by the Chernobyl disaster. The government had resettled them in a different village, Havronshchyna, about an hour and a half south of Ukraine’s capital, Kiev. These women recounted their painful story of trying to return home to the forbidden zone to pay respects to departed relatives in the graveyard, and to fetch family photos and a few other keepsakes. As they approached their village, they saw it in flames. The government had set fire to their homes, to prevent them returning to the irradiated area. It was a heartbreaking story. And of course there were the countless tales of terrible illnesses resulting from radiation exposure. We found it so ironic and poignant that it was precisely in the region of Chernobyl Zone One that some of the richest Rusalka-rituals and song traditions had flourished, and that the few remaining keepers of this tradition were now having to practice it in exile, away from the actual graveyards, rivers, and fields that housed the spirits of their departed.

                                                   
We recognized that these few women possessed a worldview that is fading away and we felt that this worldview must be understood, transmitted, and transformed if it is to survive.


We joined these women in Havronshchyna for the culmination of the Rusalka Week festivities, but this year, we weren’t the only visitors. Four busloads of reporters, film crews, and ethnographers pulled into the village on the day when the elder women planned to send the Rusalki on their way back to the underworld. Only fifteen years before, a folklorist had described the streets streaming with singing women. But the year we went, Mariana said, “There were five old ladies, and six or seven cameras!”

 

Mariana encouraged us to sing along with the women, even though we felt out of place. We were afraid to sing because we weren’t sure if it would be considered appropriate or respectful to the ritual. But Mariana urged us on, and we had to trust her that our voices would be welcome. As the sun sank, the villagers and visitors donned handmade wreaths, and the grandmothers sang, joyfully shouting the lyrics of the next verse back to us to echo back to them. The village women were excited that the sound was huge and strong, like it used to be. Though the Rusalki songs appeared to be fading, the women of Havronshchyna seemed happy they would live on in the U.S. Mariana told us with a laugh, “Someday those ethnographers might be headed to San Francisco to record!”



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Singing Shapeshifters in the Shadow of Chernobyl: Kitka Ignites ...
The Interplay of Destruction, Exile, and Renewal: Kitka’s Shira Cion ...

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