"Lullaby for a Son"

II It is a tradition that mothers all over the world sing lullabies to their babies. Lulling her precious child, every mother wishes them peace, joy, a carefree, long and happy life - warding off fears and misfortunes. A lullaby in any language sounds like a prayer, like a charm.
    We got the idea for "A Lullaby for My Son" after watching Katerina Gordeeva (a Russian journalist, documentary writer and author) interviewing mothers of young boys who were essentially sent off to be slaughtered by their country. A country that unleashed an unjust war, depriving them and their families of their future and possibly of their lives. Our hearts break at the thought of what the Ukrainian mothers are feeling right now - unbearable horror and despair!
   The power of a mother's love is immeasurable - a woman who gave life will fight for that life, no matter what. Today, we want women all over the world - expectant mothers and those who have already experienced the happiness of motherhood - to stand up for their children! The lullaby is a symbol of hope, but also a protest against absolute evil. It is a wake up call that can and should now sound louder. Love will save the world! Mothers of all countries, lullabies of all countries - unite!

After the war began, we, musicians from Germany, Russia, and Argentina, created a project, a kind of musical anti-war manifesto, and gave it the name "Lullaby for My Son.
Back in May 2022, a few months after the war began, we thought of recording Russian and Ukrainian lullabies so that they would echo in tandem. Why this and why lullabies? A lullaby is a musical genre that has no analogies and requires no translation or explanation. It is comprehensible and close to anyone on this planet, even if nobody has ever sung a lullaby to them. Each of us has a mother who gave us life. Through these lullabies we have decided to address first of all mothers from Russia. Here is, for example, the lyrics to episode 3: "It is the ninth month of war, the ninth month of a terrible slaughter that is claiming more and more lives; civilians are dying in Ukraine, soldiers who are defending their land are dying. For what? !.. For what? !.. And it takes exactly nine months for a new life to be born... Perhaps it is naive to rely now on women's solidarity, to call for it, to beg for it. But motherhood has no nationality, a mother's love is infinite! We steadfastly believe this! Every mother wishes her child a long and happy life. Russian mothers, listen to the magical sound of Ukrainian lullabies! LISTEN WITH YOUR HEART! It is in our power to stop the war! "
A lullaby is a completely universal and at the same time personal story. It deals with some basic truths that, first and foremost, are understood by women. Mother's are often lullabies' creators, they are a kind of medium, repeating words like a mantra, like a spell from time immemorial, which pacify both the baby and the mother. There are such concepts as "a mother's instinct", "a mother's intuition", "a mother's love", "a mother's solidarity". That said, of course, we're not discounting fatherhood and all that goes along with it. However, most of the wars on Earth have been started and fought by men.
It seems to us that this is really a universal language in which we can communicate and through which we can make a direct appeal to Russian mothers - "protect the lives of your children, protect life in Ukraine, wake up!' Everyone's degree of empathy is different, as is everyone's degree of understanding. But, we hope that through lullabies, one can appeal directly to the heart rather than the mind. Arguments to the intellect often do not work, because the dodgy human mind, especially one stuffed with propaganda, finds all kinds of excuses. But the heart of every Russian who hears a lullaby in Ukrainian is sure to go a long way. At least we would like to believe it. According to psychologist Alexander Kolmanovsky, a person in a state of affect (which is, in our opinion, the state in which many people in Russia now find themselves) cannot hear arguments of reason. All that can be done is to appeal to the human in them, to their most positive feelings and translate them into kindness and warmth. This is how lullabies work.
As Anna, our soloist, says, "every time my heart sinks, there is a lump in my throat and I have to make an effort to hold back tears when I, a Russian, start to sing in Ukrainian, it's not easy…"
We would like to believe that empathy, the ability to empathize with another's grief as one's own, somehow still lives in people's hearts. John Donne's words come to mind: "Each man's death diminishes me, for I am one with all Mankind, and therefore do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for you."
We understand that Russia is becoming more and more closed every day. You can ban freedom of speech, shut down independent media, etc., but you can hardly ban singing and listening to lullabies.
One more important nuance... Because for many Ukrainians the topic of "Russian aggression" is terribly painful, the idea of combining Ukrainian and Russian lullabies was initially quite risky. We understood that we were on thin ice. But we consciously decided to do this because in our opinion, the authorities in Russia manipulated in a sneaky way the feeling of "us and them", the supposed "otherness of the Russians" and thus the idea settled in the minds of many people that there, in Ukraine, are enemies, that their pain does not concern us. If we now allow this "poison" to spread and destroy everything that is human in all of us (regardless of nationality and religion), then we, even if unconsciously, are playing along with those who unleashed this vile war.           
This idea that "maternal pain and maternal solidarity have no boundaries" is close to Ukrainian mothers as well. We have words of support from many people in Ukraine. Just recently we came across a letter from a Ukrainian mother, her name is Olena Stepova. Apparently, she wrote it back in 2014, but it seems that we are talking about the events of 2022, the beginning of a full-scale war. (https://uamodna.com/articles/pysjmo-k-matery-russkogo-soldata/ ) It's astonishing! And, in fact, it is clear why it looks like this - the pain of a mother's heart has no statute of limitations; both then and now, we are talking about the same thing - war is pain, it is great sorrow and it is inhuman. In this letter Olena appeals to Russian mothers "there are no other children, children are not for war!", this letter sounds like a cry "come to your senses, we are all mothers and we have something to lose!" From the affected side we hear the same words, the same thoughts that "women are first and foremost about love". "You and I have the same tears," she writes, referring to Russian mothers, and this is the absolute truth, in our opinion.
In conclusion, we want to reiterate that no matter what, the power of a mother's love is immeasurable, the woman who gave life will fight for that life, no matter what. The lullaby as a symbol of hope, but also as a protest against absolute evil, as a cry to"come to your senses" can and should now sound louder.