“Watching the images constantly of everything that is happening in Ukraine until today, I was frankly overwhelmed”testified Thursday, May 12 on franceinfo Sylvie Vartan. “It’s like booster shots.” Sylvie Vartan has recorded a five-track album which includes The Maritzawhich the singer revisited and whose profits will be donated to Unicef for the benefit of Ukraine.
Sylvie Vartan says to herself “upset” by what the Ukrainian people are going through. “I can totally put myself in the shoes of these children.” She admits reliving her departure from Bulgaria. “We did not flee the war, we fled a brutal dictatorship”but “it was the same principles that were applied”. With this album, which will be available from Friday for download and May 27 in physical form, Sylvie Vartan hopes “to rally and touch the hearts of the greatest number”.
franceinfo: The Maritza is the river of your childhood in Bulgaria. These images of this terrible war in Ukraine resonated violently with you. That’s what you say in this song. For what reasons ?
Sylvie Vartan: This version that I chose to put on this disc is very particular. Because I obviously added this text which relates to what is happening in Ukraine, but also in other countries at other times. I experienced almost the same despair when I realized that I would never see my loved ones again. We left them on a station platform, running after a train that was going far away, but towards freedom. So it was very violent and very mixed feelings of happiness. Because the train was rolling towards freedom, which was France for us in this case. And at the same time, there was the desperation of leaving everyone we adored on a station platform. It is terribly heartbreaking. And it’s true that looking at the images constantly of everything that’s happening in Ukraine until today, I was frankly overwhelmed. It was unbearable for me, like booster shots. Not that I forgot what I went through. I never forgot. It’s like a wound forever open. But still, it brings tears to my eyes. It’s something that still upsets me so much.
You were eight years old when you fled Bulgaria to reach France and Paris. Can you imagine the trauma of these children who fled the war in Ukraine, sometimes even without their parents?
But yes, it’s horrible, it’s frankly horrible. I can totally put myself in the shoes of these children. It’s unbearable for me. Because I know how fearful I was, how scared I was, how alert my parents were. Of course, that has nothing to do with it. It is worse for those children who hear bombs constantly and for some who are separated from their parents. But what horror! There can be no greater horror to see this country utterly demolished, utterly annihilated, and those lives shattered forever. We didn’t flee the war, we fled a brutal dictatorship. It was the same principles that were applied, the same parades, the same people who disappeared for no reason. We didn’t know where they were. All because they hadn’t posted Stalin’s portrait on their balcony. All that comes from the same way of thinking, being and acting, unfortunately. But I couldn’t imagine, and I don’t think anyone in the world could imagine, that history could repeat itself like that.
Does the resistance of the Ukrainian people impress you?
It’s really unbelievable. It reconciles with the human race, in a certain way, a certain human race. Because these people who have lost everything, who have taken a bag, nothing but the minimum, who are holding their children by the hand, who are fleeing, who are walking nonstop without knowing where they are going, that commands admiration. I think that these people, for years and decades, will go down in history. I hope we will learn. But do we learn? Because the proof is that, at the end of the day, everything starts all over again in an even more horrible way.
What comfort could these Ukrainian people have?
I think what also gives them courage is knowing that maybe the world is behind them. Most of the world is behind them. And today, thanks to social networks, we still manage to know where the truth is, despite everything. And we must try to help, to relieve. But can we do anything when we are touched like that in the heart and we see children all alone lost, walking? We told them, go straight ahead, you will find the light. It is hopeless. It’s horrible.
A final word on the choice of these songs. It is obviously not random. Can you tell us what dictated your choice?
During my career, I had the chance to be able, through my songs, to express my feelings. Anything that is true and that hits you in an authentic way, physical, emotional, has a bigger resonance. It is true that The Maritza set the tone for many authors to write me songs that revolve around courage, hope. This is what encouraged me to choose these songs. Then, with regard to Odessa, it really felt like she was prescient. It’s a song by Jay Alanski necessarily inspired by the theme of The Maritza. I sang it for the first time in 1998, 30 years later The Maritza, it’s crazy. And then Odessa, it is also the symbol of a woman who leaves her man on the quay. It is also the symbol of heartbreak, escape and the need for freedom. So those were standout songs for this project. And I’m happy that it won over Unicef because, thanks to them, there will perhaps be greater influence. And we will manage to rally and touch the hearts of the greatest number.
Listen to the full interview with Sylvie Vartan here
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