Olga Zaitseva-Herz, a Ukrainian ethnomusicologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alberta, came to the University on Thursday to present her research on modern Russian pop music and its role as a propaganda tool in the war on Ukraine.
The presentation, held in ten Hoor Hall before an audience of faculty and students, was hosted in collaboration between the University’s departments of history and modern language and classics.
Zaitseva-Herz taught a section of RUS 362, Advanced Russian Grammar and Composition II, and performed at Druid City Brewery as a guest vocalist with the history department’s The 603 Band on Friday.
Margaret Peacock, associate professor of history and scholar of Slavic history, introduced the lecture and Zaitseva-Herz’s body of work to the audience. “Her dissertation was on the intersection of Ukrainian musical themes with North American musical themes,” Peacock said. “It’s a transnational, really ambitious project that we are hoping will become an amazing book soon.”
As an extension of her dissertation work, Zaitseva-Herz’s lecture also covered Ukrainian pop music and its role in countering the narratives of Russian music, which has recently become absorbed with propagandistic lyrics and bellicose imagery. “I was deeply shocked when I saw firsthand how songs actively contribute to Russia’s war on Ukraine, not just symbolically, but directly,” Zaitseva-Herz said.
She explained that Russian pop music served a key role in convincing people of the need to fight and that many Russian artists worked in collaboration with the Kremlin to create music designed as a propaganda vehicle.
Zaitseva-Herz also said that references to World War II were crucial to this aim, as the Russian government’s official narrative of the war was that it was “de-Nazifying” Ukraine, as it had once done to Germany, and fighting NATO’s western influence by invading. Zaitseva-Herz even showed old songs from World War II-era Russia that had been repurposed as screeds against Ukraine. “Why are songs such a convenient tool for transmitting messages?” Zaitseva-Herz said. “They contain multiple components — lyrics, music and visuals — that reach people on multiple levels at the same time.”
Modern Russian pop artists, like Shaman, have become incredibly popular by doubling down on Russian patriotism. Zaitseva-Herz showed the music video for Shaman’s song “Я Русский,” or “I am Russian” in English, which became a massive hit in Russia for its over-the-top patriotism and fiery, nationalist lyrics. In live performances of the song, Shaman mimes hitting the “big-red button,” a common motif in a country that places national pride in its nuclear stockpile, a phenomenon called Nuclear Orthodoxy.
Another song that Zaitseva-Herz played during her talk centered entirely around the Russian nuclear missile Sarmat, using word-play to compare its name with Russian words for family, religion and country. Another showed Russian workers building weapons and creating a parade of citizens marching under the banner “На Вашингтон” — “to Washington” — a play on the World War II-era slogan “To Berlin.”
Zaitseva-Herz said that the invasion did not come as easy as the Russians thought, however. Some Ukrainian songs had managed to pierce the bubble of Russian online censorship and convey the horror of the war to Russian nationals across the border. Since the Russian army largely relied on the labor of conscripted prisoners and minority ethnic groups, many average Russians had no idea of the extremity of events occurring in Russia’s military campaign. Russia’s propaganda campaign hadn’t been going quite to plan either, Zaitseva-Herz said. The Russian rock band Antytila sold tickets for a concert in Ukraine in 2024 under the assumption that the area would be under control by then. Ukrainian resistance had been much tougher than anticipated, and the bubble of information control was partially broken. “They didn’t play that concert,” Zaitseva-Herz said. “But there are still so many bubbles that exist and communities that have been impacted by this music, outside of Russia as well.”
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