Swedish folk group cancels concert after being criticized for playing Russian instruments
The organizers of a concert in support of Ukraine in Uppsala, Sweden were forced to cancel a performance by the folk music group Sodra Bergens Balalaikor last week, after receiving backlash from Swedish fans for including the balalaika – a traditional Russian three-stringed instrument often associated with Russia and Russian culture.
Sodra Bergens Balalaikor is an amateur orchestra, formed in 1969, which consists of about twenty people who play Russian, Ukrainian and Swedish folk music and with traditional folk instruments, mainly balalaika.
Jonas Nyberg – one of the members of Sodra Bergen’s Balalaikor – says that he was extremely puzzled by the accusations against the group, after several critics claimed that it was the “weekend weekend” to present the balalaika at a concert in support of Ukraine, while some even went so far. to compare the instrument with a swastika.
“You may have sympathy for the fact that people are upset and angry in this situation. But the argument gets a little weird. We are not Russians, we just happen to play Russian instruments, as we have done all these years. Our Ukrainian musician friends are also puzzled, in Nyberg.
After the group’s concert in Uppsala was canceled, they also decided to voluntarily postpone a concert in Rimbo the same weekend, where they would play together with students from a local cultural school.
The move comes when a large number of Western institutions have begun to focus on Russian-linked works of art and culture since Russia began its military operation in Ukraine.
London’s National Gallery officially renamed an 1890s painting by Edgar Degas, changing it from “Russian Dancers” to “Ukrainian Dancers”. The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra of Wales removed Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s famous 1812 overture, claiming it was “inappropriate”, while a university in Milan, Italy tried to interrupt a course on the acclaimed Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, saying they were trying to avoid tensions by focus on Ukrainian writers instead. Following a public backlash, the decision was changed.
Source: sn.dk