'Stalin forced my parents to DIVORCE': Eurovision winner reveals how Soviet dictator tortured her great-grandmother, killing baby daughter and leaving legacy of family trauma

  • First Muslim star to win Eurovision contest reveals trauma of family history
  • Tatar great-grandmother was deported with her five children to Kyrgyzstan
  • Loaded on to trains 'like cattle' and tiny baby daughter died on way
  • Guards 'tossed her body off the train like she was garbage', Jamala says
  • Family tried to return to Crimea but Tatar's banned from buying property 
  • Her parents divorced to fool authorities so her mother could buy a house
  • But 'rift' meant Jamala parted from mother aged nine months to 4 years old
  • She and her sister lived with father, then family reunited when sale done

Eurovision victor Jamala has revealed the agonising price of her family's return to Crimea after being banished from the Black Sea peninsula by Soviet dictator Stalin - her parents were forced to divorce.

They had to separate - despite being in love - to fool the Soviet authorities which barred her father Alim Jamaladynov, an ethnic Tatar, from buying property in his Crimean homeland.

The couple were forced to live 185 miles apart for four years, but the painful separation eventually allowed her ethnic Armenian mother Galina to buy a home for the family, and realise their long-held dream of returning to their Crimean homeland as the USSR collapsed.

It was just the latest chapter in a family history riven with trauma and anguish. 

Jamala's great-grandmother was forcibly deported from the Black Sea to the city of Osh in Soviet Kyrgyzstan during the Second World War with her five children. Her baby daughter died on the way.

Split: Jamala, pictured second right with her mother Galina, father Alim Ayarovych Jamaladinov, and sister Evelina, was forced to spend years away from her mother so they could return to their Crimean homeland

Split: Jamala, pictured second right with her mother Galina, father Alim Ayarovych Jamaladinov, and sister Evelina, was forced to spend years away from her mother so they could return to their Crimean homeland

Heartbreak: Jamala was just nine mothers old when her father took her to what was then Soviet Ukraine, some 185 miles from where her mother lived.
Ukraine's Jamala celebrates with the trophy after winning the Eurovision Song Contest final with the song '1944' in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday, May 15, 2016

Heartbreak: Jamala was just nine mothers old when her father took her to what was then Soviet Ukraine, some 185 miles from where her mother lived. Right, Jamala pictured winning Eurovision on Saturday night

Anguish: Jamala described the pain of separation as a young girl. 'It was 1983 and it was forbidden to talk with strangers about the deportation of Crimean Tatars or about out desire to go back home,' she said. 'So it was Melitopol first, closer to Crimea. We lived there for four years, my sister Evelina and I, my father, grandfather and grandmother. 'And my mother was sent to the Crimea as a spy'

Anguish: Jamala described the pain of separation as a young girl. 'It was 1983 and it was forbidden to talk with strangers about the deportation of Crimean Tatars or about out desire to go back home,' she said. 'So it was Melitopol first, closer to Crimea. We lived there for four years, my sister Evelina and I, my father, grandfather and grandmother. 'And my mother was sent to the Crimea as a spy'

School years: Jamala, pictured right as a schoolgirl, said, 'My father, sister and I moved to Melitopol (on the Ukrainian mainland), while mum was renting a room in Malorechenskoye (Crimea) and worked in a music school'

School years: Jamala, pictured right as a schoolgirl, said, 'My father, sister and I moved to Melitopol (on the Ukrainian mainland), while mum was renting a room in Malorechenskoye (Crimea) and worked in a music school'

Ecstatic: The singer's moving lament, 1944, about the agony faced by her great-grandmother, won the Eurovision in Stockholm on Saturday

Ecstatic: The singer's moving lament, 1944, about the agony faced by her great-grandmother, won the Eurovision in Stockholm on Saturday

The singer's moving lament, 1944, about the agony faced by her great-grandmother, won the Eurovision in Stockholm on Saturday.

Jamala, real name Susanna Jamaladdinova, 32, said: 'It was May 18th (1944) when my great-grandma with her five little children were deported from Crimea. She had four sons – Ayder, Siyar, Ayar, Smet and a daughter Ayshe. At 4 o'clock in the morning all of them together with others Tatars were 'loaded' onto a cattle-train. They were locked there without water and food.

'My great grandmother Nazylhan's daughter Ayshe never made it. She died on the train while being transported, and when she told the soldiers, asking if she could bury the tiny body at the next stop, they just grabbed it and threw it off the train. It was just like garbage for them.'

The Soviet dictator ordered the collective punishment of Crimean Tatars after believing they had collaborated with the Nazi occupation between 1942 and 1943.

Reunited: Jamala, pictured above aged 14, moved back to the Crimea to be with her mother again and her parents remarried 

Reunited: Jamala, pictured above aged 14, moved back to the Crimea to be with her mother again and her parents remarried 

Beauty: The tiny Jamala was so musical she even cried in an operatic manner, according to her mother

Beauty: The tiny Jamala was so musical she even cried in an operatic manner, according to her mother

Cute: Learning to walk, adorable baby Jamala pets a dog after she is separated from her mother so the family could buy property in Crimea and return to their home village

Cute: Learning to walk, adorable baby Jamala pets a dog after she is separated from her mother so the family could buy property in Crimea and return to their home village

It meant that despite the fact that Jamala's Tatar grandfather was fighting with the Soviet army during World War II, her great-grandmother and their children were rounded up with around 230,000 other people and deported to Uzbekistan.

The singer's latent fury about her ancestor's banishment, when one of her daughters died on an inhumane cattle truck train and was tossed out of the door by a guard, was her motivation in writing the song which nevertheless has provoked outrage in Moscow with claims it is anti-Russian and politically motivated and, as such, should have been banned.

As she explained ahead of Eurovision, tears running down her cheeks:

'I needed that song to free myself, to release the memory of my great-grandmother, the memory of that girl who has no grave, the memory of thousands of Crimean Tatars', who have nothing left, not 'even photographs'.

But there was also an emotional story about the family's return to Crimea some three decades later which meant as a young child Jamala was separated from her mother for four years from the age of nine months.

'Father has always wanted to come back to the motherland of his parents, to Crimea,' explained Jamala.

Stunning: The 32-year-old opera singer turned jazz star Jamala representing Ukraine sang the winning song 1944 - which is dedicated to her great-grandmother and is reportedly about Stalin, Crimea and claims of ethnic cleansing

Stunning: The 32-year-old opera singer turned jazz star Jamala representing Ukraine sang the winning song 1944 - which is dedicated to her great-grandmother and is reportedly about Stalin, Crimea and claims of ethnic cleansing

Pain: Jamala revealed the agony of being separated once again from her parents, as she cannot now return to Crimea because of her pro-Ukraine stand

Proud: Jamala, pictured in the stunning images from her Facebook, father Alim, who gave up music to make money growing fruit and vegetables, sends her boxes of produce and weeps because of the journey they have all made together

Proud: Jamala, pictured in the stunning images from her Facebook, father Alim, who gave up music to make money growing fruit and vegetables, sends her boxes of produce and weeps because of the journey they have all made together

'In the 1980's there was an unspoken rule which banned deported Crimean Tatars from returning to Crimea and, moreover, from buying property.

'That's why my parents did something incredible - they got divorced.

'My father, sister and I moved to Melitopol (on the Ukrainian mainland), while mum was renting a room in Malorechenskoye (Crimea) and worked in a music school.'

Jamala was just nine mothers old when her father took her to what was then Soviet Ukraine, some 185 miles from where her mother.

'It was 1983 and it was forbidden to talk with strangers about the deportation of Crimean Tatars or about out desire to go back home,' she said.

'So it was Melitopol first, closer to Crimea. We lived there for four years, my sister Evelina and I, my father, grandfather and grandmother.

'And my mother was sent to the Crimea as a spy. 

'She had the task to buy a house in Papa's native village of Malorechenskoe and to register the property to herself only, to her maiden name Tumasova.

'My parents had to divorce in order to wipe the Dzhamaladinov family from my mother's passport.

'My father came to see mama in Malorechenskoe once every two weeks. They secretly met in the park on Fridays and Saturdays.'

Sunshine after tears: After many generations of trauma, Jamala's family is now living peacefully in Crimea, where her parents Galina and Alim run a hotel

Sunshine after tears: After many generations of trauma, Jamala's family is now living peacefully in Crimea, where her parents Galina and Alim run a hotel

Heritage: Jamala's father Alim is an ethnic Tatar from Crimea, pictured, while her mother is Armenian 

Heritage: Jamala's father Alim is an ethnic Tatar from Crimea, pictured, while her mother is Armenian 

Close: Jamala grew very close to her father because she spent four years being cared for by him from the age of nine months 

Close: Jamala grew very close to her father because she spent four years being cared for by him from the age of nine months 

Making up for lost time: Jamala was forcibly separated from her mother Galina from the age of nine months when she and her sister Evelina, also pictured, went to live with their father because he was barred from buying property in Crimea

Making up for lost time: Jamala was forcibly separated from her mother Galina from the age of nine months when she and her sister Evelina, also pictured, went to live with their father because he was barred from buying property in Crimea

It sounds like a film script, she said, but in the end her mother managed to buy a house.

Because she was an ethnic Armenian, she sidestepped the rules.

'But when the owner found out she had actually sold the house to a Crimean Tatar, my father, there was a huge scandal. 

'Despite all the odds, it worked out - I was raised in a wonderful place, a seven minute walk from the sea and five minute walk from the mountains.'

She said: 'We bought an old ruined house with a small piece of land.

'I remember my first day in the Crimea. The ex-owner saw my father and I and began to shout. She understood that she sold her house to Crimean Tatars. But of course nothing could be done at that stage.

'My sister and I were the only Crimean Tatar children in the music school.

'You know children are cruel. They use to repeat what their parents say behind closed doors.

'My classmates teased me - 'why did you come here, go back to your homeland'.'

Her parents - who 'had fallen in love at first sight' - later remarried and with the Soviet Union breaking up, and Crimea becoming part of newly-independent Ukraine, they were able to keep their home.

'My Crimean Tatar roots are from my father, a pure Crimean Tatar, from the village of Malorechenskoye,' she said.

'The love story of my parents is like in the movies: they met in Kyrgyzstan at a music school. Mum is a pianist, dad is a choir conductor, he had a band which sang traditional Crimean Tatar music and music of peoples of Central Asia.'

Spy: Such was the danger of being a Tatar in Crimea that Jamala's mother, Galina, pictured above with her daughter, was sent ahead to Crimea to buy a  property in her maiden name of Tumasova in the family's home village of Malorechenskoe 

Spy: Such was the danger of being a Tatar in Crimea that Jamala's mother, Galina, pictured above with her daughter, was sent ahead to Crimea to buy a property in her maiden name of Tumasova in the family's home village of Malorechenskoe 

Sacrifice: 'My parents had to divorce in order to wipe the Dzhamaladinov family from my mother's passport', Jamala revealed

Sacrifice: 'My parents had to divorce in order to wipe the Dzhamaladinov family from my mother's passport', Jamala revealed

Best friends: Jamala pictured above with her sister Evelina, who shares the same stunning looks as the Eurovision winner  

Best friends: Jamala pictured above with her sister Evelina, who shares the same stunning looks as the Eurovision winner  

In central Asia, her father listened to bootleg Beatles songs and recorded James Brown, selling the tapes.

'It was a good business. From time to time he was caught and reprimanded.'

Jamala also gave more detail on the horrific trauma suffered by her great grandmother when Stalin deported the entire population .

By cruel irony, on the very day his family - wife and five children - were being loaded onto the cattle truck trains, her husband Jamadin - after whom Jamala is named - was killed fighting for the Red Army against the Nazis.

'The repressive forces of the USSR seriously flattened my family, like a road roller.

'While my great granddad was fighting, his wife with five children was deported.

'They were transported in a bolted carriage for three weeks.

'The Crimean Tatar had heard about genocide of the Jewish people and were preparing for death, they did not even take food and water.

'My great grandmother's daughter was nine months old and she died in her arms.

Winner! Jamala from Ukraine snatched the Eurovision Song Contest victory from the hot favourites Australia at the final hurdle with her heartfelt hit 1944

Winner! Jamala from Ukraine snatched the Eurovision Song Contest victory from the hot favourites Australia at the final hurdle with her heartfelt hit 1944

Victory: The 32-year-old vocalist held the trophy high as she celebrated stealing the Eurovision crown at the very last second at host country Stockholm's Ericsson Globe Arena

Victory: The 32-year-old vocalist held the trophy high as she celebrated stealing the Eurovision crown at the very last second at host country Stockholm's Ericsson Globe Arena

Ukraine knocked Australia's Dami Im into second place, with Russia's Sergey Lazarev coming third in the kitsch singing competition

Ukraine knocked Australia's Dami Im into second place, with Russia's Sergey Lazarev coming third in the kitsch singing competition

'She was not allowed to bury her, the body was just thrown out of the carriage.

'Luckily, the four boys were strong enough to survive not only deportation but also to live a long life.'

She told Rain TV: ''It's a very personal story, about my great grandmother Nazyl-khan.

'I was very little and when she told me. I couldn't remember all the details and later my grandmother and grandfather and dad would tell me more.

'The subject of deportation of Crimean Tatars was always popping up in our family, in our daily [conversations] because it deeply affected us and all of my relatives suffered from this story.

'I decided to call the song 1944, this was the year which changed life of my great grandmother Nazyl-khan forever. She never made it back to Crimea.

'It changed my life, it changed lives of thousands of Crimean Tatars who never returned to Crimea.

'When she was told me about deportations... when on 18 May 1944 she and her five children - she had 4 sons and a daughter - Ayder, Ayar (Jamala's grandfather, Siyar, Ismet and the girl was called Ayshe - was put in a railway carriage at four in the morning, locked up there with no food and water, as were thousands of Crimean Tatars and taken to Central Asia.

On the way she lost her daughter, she was a small child. 'She said that when she asked soldiers to bury her, they refused - and the baby was thrown out from the carriage as if she was some rubbish

On the way to work in oil fields, she lost her daughter who died in the stinking train.

'On the way she lost her daughter, she was a small child.

'She said that when she asked soldiers to bury her, they refused - and the baby was thrown out from the carriage as if she was some rubbish.

'She told how there were many such stories.

'And there were people who hid their dead relatives in the carriages (to bury them later) but obviously you couldn't hide for too long because they were travelling in such inhumane conditions.'

The family found out later that her great grandfather Jamadin - 'actually, that's where my name comes from, Jamadin, Jamaladin' - was killed at the front.

'He was fighting for the Soviet army,' she said.

'All the men on my grandmother's side - her brother, father - were killed at the front.

'Since his childhood my dad was obsessed with the idea of coming back to Crimea, to Malorechenskoye, which used to be called Kucuk-Uzen.

'All of my relatives were from there, both from my father's and mother's side.

'We returned to Malorechenskoye back in 1989-1990.'

Loving sisters: Jamala and her sister Evelina posted selfies together showing their enduringly close relationship

Loving sisters: Jamala and her sister Evelina posted selfies together showing their enduringly close relationship

Musical family:  Jamala's mother gave piano lessons and my father was an orchestra director but grew fruit and vegetables to make money

Musical family:  Jamala's mother gave piano lessons and my father was an orchestra director but grew fruit and vegetables to make money

When they returned they found the water well which Jamadin, a respected blacksmith, had dug.

'Every time we would sit on a chair my grandpa would tell me 'Here, at your age, I would sit on a stone and drink water from a puddle. I heard it year to year. As a normal teenager, back then, I was annoyed by it: 'Again - these old people with their stories!' But now, as I grow older and wiser, I understand that I don't want such tragedies to repeat. '

She now cannot travel back to Crimea, which the Russians seized in 2014, because of her pro-Ukrainian political stand.

'We were among the first Crimean tatars who bought a house in the Crimea,' she said.

'My mother was giving piano lessons and my father is an orchestra director.

'But he understood that he could not provide for his family if he stays with music, so he began to grow fruit and vegetables.

'We have a huge garden there. I spent a lot of time persuading them to leave.

'But they kept saying no.

'They have built up the house and grown up the garden and just could not give it all up in a second.

'Mama cannot leave Papa, and Papa can't leave grandpa.

'It is all very painful and hard. I understand that they can't go away from there.'

There have been claims that ethnic Tatars have disappeared feared dead since Vladimir Putin's invasion.

'They are not scared to die, however horrible it may sound,' she said.

'But they refuse to leave the house.'

She told how her father sends her fruit from the family garden - but has to bribe the guards at the new border with Ukraine.

'Every autumn and winter my father sends me fruit from garden,' she said.

Celebration: Jamala representing Ukraine cheered in a sea of blue and yellow flags as she became the triumph of the night

Celebration: Jamala representing Ukraine cheered in a sea of blue and yellow flags as she became the triumph of the night

Powerful: In perhaps the most political Eurovision yet, singer Jamala knocked Russia's Sergey Lazarev into third with her song 1944 - which she dedicated to her great-grandmother and is reportedly about Stalin, Crimea and claims of ethnic cleansing

Powerful: In perhaps the most political Eurovision yet, singer Jamala knocked Russia's Sergey Lazarev into third with her song 1944 - which she dedicated to her great-grandmother and is reportedly about Stalin, Crimea and claims of ethnic cleansing

WHEN I MARRY, IT WILL BE FOR LOVE 

Jamala said that when she weds, it will be to a man who she loves rather than a member of one of the ethnic groups in her family tree.

'When I was 24, I almost married an Armenian,' she said.

'Now my father will read it and will kill me.

'He wanted me to get married to a Crimean Tatar.'

She said: 'I understand this wish of our fathers to keep the nationality, not to mix bloods.

'However, nationality is not the most important thing, it is more important to be a good person.

'It is not important which nationality the man I love will be from.

'You only live once, and when you're old, you won't think about nationality, but about what sort of person is next to you.

'I want my children to be tolerant to all peoples and know their history and roots at the same time.'

'At the so-called border with the Crimea he has to give a bribe in order to send this fruit.

'He gives away one box with fruit to the guards.

'He always cries when telling me this, because he gathered those boxes with love for me.

'I reply ~ 'Papa, this is nothing, the main thing is that we got them through.'

Jamala also alleged that the new Russian rulers in Crimea closed down a tourist cafe that her family ran - where she used to work washing up dishes.

'The new power is 'renovating' the coast in an inhuman way.

'They destroy all cafes and restaurants near the coast line.

'A tractor comes and ruins all that people have invested their money into.

'They leave people penniless because all of them depended on summer tourists.

'I got my education thanks to such a place.

'We had a family cafe, just four tables.

'Mama was cooking meat dumplings, papa meat with rice. I washed the dishes, and my sister was a waitress.

'If not for this cafe, neither my sister, nor I would have been able to study in the Music Academy.'

Jamala revealed that on her maternal side there was also horrific repression and deportation.

Her mother's ancestors were 'kulaks', or well-to-do peasants.

Her great grandfather was stripped of his land in Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian exclave in what is now Azerbaijan.

He too was sent to Osh, and here heeded advice to change his Armenian name to make it sound more Russian.

'So my other relatives also suffered because of their nationality - and had to hide it, to hide their real name.'

JAMALA ACCUSED OF BEING 'HYPOCRITICAL' 

A pro-Russian news agency accused Jamala of being 'hypocritical', saying that her parents have taken Russian passports since the peninsula came under Moscow's sway.

The agency News-front.info also claimed the family's tourist cafe was closed down because it broke sanitary rules and 'the owners were not paying taxes'.

It was 'an illegal cafe', it was claimed.

'Actually, Jamala is hypocritical. Nobody from her family is going to die.

'On the contrary, they are prospering. All relatives of the 'Ukrainian patriot' now have Russian citizenship and are very happy with their lives. '

Because her family is legally acknowledge as having suffered from repression under Stalin, they qualify for discounts on water, electricity and gas bills.

'The only problem of Jamala's parents is with their Tatar neighbours. They keep asking the father: 'Why did your daughter decided to sing such a song?'

'But whatever the crazy daughter sings, nobody throws grenades or Molotov cocktails into their backyard, because normal and well balanced people live there.'

 

 

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