From Iran to Ukraine. Lately, the Italian anti-fascist anthem beautiful bye it was often intoned – each time translated into the local language – when expressing opposition to an oppressive regime. But if in Tehran it is against the tyranny of her government that a young woman delivered a Persian cover, in Ukraine the piece serves to denounce the Russian invasion and embody the resistance against it.
Sing while you reload your machine gun
Thus, a video where two female soldiers of the Ukrainian army sing beautiful bye in their own language was a huge hit on social media on Wednesday. We see -and above all we hear- the two young women declaim the text with the well-known melody, at the bottom of a trench.
One of them also takes advantage of the musical interlude to reload the store with her submachine gun. The setting, the song: her interpretation has been liked because the videos of her performance have accumulated more than a million views since its launch.
It must be said that if the sequence benefited from renewed international interest on Wednesday, it was released in mid-June.
go back to the origins
Frida Ghitis, a CNN journalist who broadcast the video on her Twitter account on Wednesday, also pointed to the strong presence of women in the Ukrainian military, of which they constitute, according to her, 22% of the workforce.
And if before they were often limited to logistical or care-related tasks, now they have clearly taken their place at the forefront.
These multiple feminine interpretations of beautiful bye finally resonates as a return to the origins. Because even before expressing the feelings of the Italian anti-fascists against Mussolini – and long before experiencing a more pop and depoliticized glory through the series money theft – the song carried the voice of the mondines – as we found out from RadioFrance here – agricultural workers toiling in the rice fields and pushing this lament to report their conditions.
Source: BFM TV
