Hana Blažíková: Singing Bach in Kyiv, in the midst of war

Since February 2022, Ukraine has been living under bombardment. Czech soprano Hana Blažíková (a familiar presence on Europe’s major stages and in the repertoires of Bach and Handel) was invited to the Kyiv Baroque Fest 2025, held from November 10 to 21 at the National Philharmonic of Ukraine. She chose to travel there alone, by train, for two days in the heart of Kyiv. Amid air-raid alerts, power outages, and overwhelming hospitality, she recounts, with emotion still vivid, how this concert altered the very meaning of the words she was singing, before an audience for whom death and consolation are no longer images, but a daily reality.

The invitation

When my agent forwarded the invitation to sing at the Kyiv Early Music Festival, I was literally transported with joy. I knew immediately that I wanted to go and that I would do everything possible to make it happen. At first, I imagined traveling with my husband, the lutenist and theorbo player Jan Krejča, but he turned out to be unavailable. I briefly considered who might accompany me, before finally deciding to put together a program with local musicians. Bringing someone with me into a war zone felt like an immense responsibility. I even told my mother only at the very last moment: I did not want to worry her further.

The Journey to Kyiv

I took two trains: the first from Warsaw to Chełm, the town on the Polish-Ukrainian border; then, from there, an overnight train to Kyiv. Just before boarding, I felt slightly nervous: I was entering completely unknown territory. The night in Chełm was black, cold, and rainy, and the atmosphere had something unreal about it, almost unsettling.

My fears, however, quickly dissipated with the arrival of my compartment companion: a young Ukrainian man, very kind. He showed great generosity, explained many things to me, and then we spoke for several hours about how his life—and that of all young Ukrainians—had been upended by the war. His account filled me with deep sadness, but it also helped me better understand the current situation and how Ukrainians feel about it.

We crossed the Ukrainian border during the night, so I saw almost nothing through the window. In the morning, I remember glimpsing vast reddish marshlands and birch forests. As we approached Kyiv, we passed through towns such as Borodianka, Irpin, Bucha… It was, for me, a profoundly surreal moment.

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