Our Wild Ones: Aesthetics and Politics in the Music of Independent Ukraine

As Maria Sonevytsky asserts in Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine, music is not only of aesthetic value for the culture, it also carries a political message, either stated or hidden, conscious or imposed. What’s so different about Ukrainian music is the Wildness that it mediates while strategically applying its exoticism to make a political statement. Within this Wild Music, those listening come to see an imaginary of the Ukrainian sovereignty and thus come to be connected through “acoustic citizenship” which goes far beyond the country’s borders. Read the full text in Ukrainian.