Yusan Zillya

Crimean Tatar musical artefacts (Ukraine)

The Crimean Tatars belong to a Turkic-speaking ethnic group that lives on the Crimean peninsula. After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, many had to flee as they experienced massive repression, oppression and arrests by the Russian regime. The Crimean Tatar multi-instrumentalist, music researcher and composer Djemil Karikov and his daughter, the cellist Nial Khalilova, were also forced to leave their homeland of Crimea in 2014. Together with singer Nataliia Rybka-Parkhomenko, they developed the project "Yuşan-Zillya". In the Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian tradition, the plant "Yuşan" = the fragrant plantain, also known as the immortality herb, grows in Crimea and symbolises the power of not forgetting one's own culture. In this project, they unite two cultures, two languages and two peoples. Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar folk songs are juxtaposed with poems set to music by the Anatolian singer and poet Aşık Veysel.

www.albakultur.de/kurbasy.html