DOSH-journal

Abdulla DUDUEV

“The most popular Chechen singer today”, “Chechen Edith Piaf”, “an artist who is equally listened to on both sides of the war” - these are just some of the epithets from the many publications about Liza Umarova in the Russian and foreign press and television stories dedicated to her.

Liza Umarova’s songs have been so popular in Chechnya and far beyond its borders for a year and a half now that they would break all records in the charts if they were really held. Just don't get these songs on the charts. Why? But because the current hit parade is, unfortunately, a low-grade, cheap pandemonium, when even lyrical songs about the Motherland are remade into Lezginka for entertaining parties. And some performers, even mistaking listeners for complete idiots, assign titles and titles to themselves, as if this will increase their tavern level. In the repertoire of such self-proclaimed “stars” there is sometimes not a single song performed in the rock or jazz style in which they supposedly sing. But that, as they say, is another story; that’s not what we’re talking about now.

Many fans of Umarova have only heard the singer. She rarely speaks in public, few people have seen her.

This gave rise to many different rumors. Idle tongues wondered about who, in fact, sings these songs, so imbued with citizenship and patriotism. Sometimes I heard that the legendary “Grozny is a Hero City!”, “Rise Up, Russia!”, and “Blind Accordion Player” are performed by a Russian woman, in whom some Chechen businessmen invested, as they say now, a lot of money. But everything is much simpler, and our readers don’t need to prove it for a long time: they already know Liza Umarova. Recently, many had a chance to see the singer both in Chechnya and Ingushetia, where she held an event dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the start of the war, during which she gave concerts in Grozny and Nazran.

We can say that during this event, Lisa simultaneously held a presentation of her recently released second disc. Along with well-known songs, new songs were performed at the concerts. “Ripe Cherry” is about the tree that miraculously survived and bears fruit in the courtyard of the singer’s destroyed Grozny house, “Mama” is a song dedicated to maternal memory that will bring tears to the eyes of the most persistent listener, “Lezginka of the boy” who danced under the bombs, and others . The audience was satisfied: during the intermission they went up to the stage, rushing to express words of grateful admiration for the intelligible, touching poetic and musical form in which Lisa was able to express what was so painful and so disturbing to many thousands of people, and not only those who were burned a long war that brought so many losses, destruction, hardships and trials. And some admirers of Liza Umarova suggested making a song “Grozny is a hero city!” the official anthem of the Chechen capital.

The secret of Liza Umarova’s success is also that her songs are inspired not by the desire to please someone, but, first of all, by the impulse of the soul, which has known the hardships and suffering of war, but has managed to comprehend what is happening. Only people whose hearts live with true love for the fatherland can not break under the weight of such trials. It is so far from loud populist patriotism, which is easy to speculate on when there is nothing in your own soul except self-interest and vanity!

Liza Umarova’s songs, without imposing anything on anyone, remind us of what true patriotism is. They do not call for war, on the contrary, they sound a passionate call for awareness of what happened to all of us... And therefore, for peace.