Ukrainian singer Jamala wins Eurovision competition

Jamala of Ukraine on Sunday won the immensely popular Eurovision Song Contest with a somber, controversial tune that evokes Moscow's deportation of members of her Crimean ethnic group during World War II.

She sang "1944," a song about the deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union on orders of Josef Stalin. Her performance also was considered a strong rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2014 military push into Ukraine, according to European media reports. Russia annexed Crimea.
Russian state media this week called the song anti-Russian; Moscow said it violated Eurovision rules.
Contest officials ruled the song didn't breach rules preventing "lyrics, speeches or gestures of a political or similar nature."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tweeted his congratulations to Jamala.

 Петро Порошенко ✔ ‎@poroshenko
ТАК!!! Неймовірний виступ та перемога! Вся Україна сердечно дякує тобі, Джамало!
Ukraine missed the competition last year because of its financial crisis, according to British media.

Jamala, whose full name is Susana Jamaladynova, told Ukraine Today in February that she wrote the song because she was inspired by a story her great-grandmother told her about the deportation of her family and others in Crimea.
"I would prefer that all these terrible things did not happen to my great-grandmother, and I would even prefer if this song did not exist," the tearful competitor told reporters after the competition.

 Stalin accused the Tatars of collaborating with the Germans during World War II, according to Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Jamala said that the composition is about all people who are victims of past tragedies. She prepared for the contest by listening to the soundtrack from the Holocaust movie "Schindler's List." Jamala said she hopes her song will have the same power as the movie's music.

News Courtesy: www.cnn.com