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 Jamala, a 32-year-old singer, won a domestic competition on
Sunday night to represent her country.
After she finished her song "1944" - the year of the mass
deportation of Tatars from the Crimean peninsula - Jamala and
one of the judges on the panel struggled to hold back tears as
they talked about Russia's annexation of Crimea 70 years later.
Russia also participates in Eurovision, and Jamala's presence at
this year's final in Stockholm in May could add a political edge
to a competition better known as an annual celebration of
kitsch.
Jamala's victory came on what was already an emotionally charged
weekend in Ukraine, which was commemorating more than 100
protesters who were killed over two days during the Maidan
protests in 2014 that dislodged a pro-Russian president.
In a sign of simmering anger against Russia, protesters also
smashed up two branches of Russian-owned banks in downtown Kiev.
While her choice of subject might seem unlikely, Jamala said
that telling her family's story will help prevent the mistakes
of the past being repeated.
"The main message is to remember and to know this story. When we
know, we prevent," she told Reuters in an earlier interview at a
music studio in Kiev.
FEELING FREE
During World War Two, Tatars like Jamala's relatives were
accused of being Nazi collaborators, thrown out of their homes
by Red Army soldiers and transported to Central Asia in freight
trucks without food, water or fresh air. Her great-grandmother's
daughter died on board and was tossed from the wagon "like
garbage", she said.
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Last year, Ukraine's parliament approved a resolution that said the
deportations were tantamount to genocide.
Seven decades later, the plight of Tatars was back in focus after
Russia wrested control of Crimea and backed a pro-Russian separatist
insurgency on the eastern mainland.
The majority of Tatars, a Muslim people indigenous to Crimea who
number about 300,000 in the region's population of two million,
opposed the Russian takeover and fear being treated as second-class
citizens by the Russian majority.
When the Russians came two years ago, most of Jamala's family stayed
behind, not wanting to leave the place they were allowed to return
to in the late 1980s.
In the village where her grandmother is buried and her 87-year-old
grandfather still lives, Jamala says her relatives are abused and
she is branded an American stooge or a fascist for appearing to side
against Russia.
She has not seen her family since the summer of 2014.
"It is very scary even to think that something may happen to them
because of me feeling so free here," she said. "...I understand that
my every word may harm them there."
(Editing by Dominic Evans)
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