Valentin Silvestrov

Prayer for the Ukraine

Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity were the names given to the Ukrainian citizens' protests, which began in November 2013 and reached its bloody peak in February 2014, with 80 deaths. Again and again, during this period of turmoil, Valentin Silvestrov went to Majdan Square in Kiev, where he heard the prayers and songs of the peaceful demonstrators, and then the shots. Almost in the eye of the typhoon, he wrote numerous choruses - hymns, elegies, prayers, requiem movements - in this way fighting with musical means for his country, and manifesting his resistance as unshakeable faith in the roots of its culture and religion. Later, Silvestrov has grouped these choruses into four cycles, which in turn he combined into a major 'Majdan cycle of cycles that is supposed to be performed as a whole (all 15 sentences attacca), of which the present Prayer for Ukraine is only a preliminary publication.