Jamala won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 with a song about a deportation that had happened more than seventy years earlier. People still search for the meaning of “1944” because the song sounds beautiful on a first listen and unsettling once the story behind it becomes clear. As of November 2026, this page explains that story in plain terms, traces Jamala’s path to Stockholm, and points new listeners to the recordings that show her range best.
Quick facts
| Name | Susana Alimivna Jamaladinova, known as Jamala |
| Born | 27 August 1983, Osh, then in the Kirghiz SSR |
| Known for | Winning Eurovision 2016 for Ukraine with “1944” |
| Main works | “1944”, “You Are Made of Love”, “Smile”, “Kryla” |
A singer shaped by family and training
Jamala was born in exile. Her family had been displaced from Crimea, and she grew up in a musical home: her mother worked as a music school teacher, and her father had trained as a conductor. Music was not a hobby in that house. It was the daily routine.
The family returned to Crimea in 1989. Jamala made her first professional recording at nine, singing Crimean Tatar folk songs and children’s songs. She later studied at music college in Simferopol and at the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy in Kyiv, where she trained in opera.
That training still shows in “1944”. The voice moves from a near whisper to a full cry, and the control never slips, even at the loudest point. A pop singer without that background could have shouted the song. Jamala shapes it instead, and the restraint makes the climax land harder.
Before Eurovision, Jamala had already won the New Wave international contest in Jurmala in 2009. Her first single, “You Are Made of Love”, came out in 2010, and her album Podykh followed in October 2015. The Eurovision win did not create her career. It gave a singer with a long record a much larger stage.
The history inside “1944”
The title refers to the year Soviet authorities deported the Crimean Tatars from Crimea, beginning on 18 May 1944. More than 200,000 people were detained and deported over three days, mostly to Central Asia. The stated reason was alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany. That charge was applied to a whole people, and the deportation broke up families for generations.
Jamala wrote the lyrics in 2014. The song is not a history lesson set to music. It stays close to one family’s experience and lets the wider history sit behind it. That choice is part of why the song lasts. A listener who knows nothing about 1944 can still follow the grief in it, and a listener who knows the history hears the specific loss behind every line.
The family story at the centre of the song
At the centre of the song is Jamala’s great-grandmother, Nazylkhan. When the deportation began, Nazylkhan’s husband was away, and she travelled with five small children. One child was lost on the journey. The song carries that image without turning it into spectacle.
Jamala herself was born in exile, in present-day Kyrgyzstan, because her family had been displaced. The song therefore works on two levels at once: a grandmother’s story, and a granddaughter’s own starting point. When she sings about strangers coming into a home, the words are both remembered and inherited.
Editor’s take: many Eurovision winners are built around a hook. “1944” is built around a wound that had been carried quietly for decades, and the song’s power comes from refusing to dress that wound up. The quiet opening does more work than any big chorus could.
The sound and the words
Most of the song is in English, but the chorus switches to Crimean Tatar. The change in language marks a change in feeling. The English verses tell the story to the world. The Crimean Tatar lines sound like a voice speaking to its own people, in its own tongue.
A duduk opens the song. The Armenian woodwind instrument, played here by Aram Kostanyan, gives the track its hollow, wind-like tone before any words arrive. The vocal lines borrow turns from mugham, a tradition of improvised singing, and the arrangement stays sparse enough for the voice to stay in front.
The English verses move through strangers entering a home, a denial of guilt, and a challenge to those who claim godlike power. Then the song refuses to be erased. It asks not to have its soul swallowed, and it ends by imagining a time when people can live and love freely. The arc is short, and each part earns the next.
Compared with Ruslana, Ukraine’s first Eurovision winner, the contrast is stark. Ruslana won in 2004 with “Wild Dances”, a burst of folk-pop energy built for a stage. Jamala won twelve years later with a song that starts almost still. Both worked. The difference shows how wide the contest can be, and how little Eurovision success depends on volume alone.
From Vidbir to Stockholm
“1944” won Ukraine’s national selection, Vidbir, in February 2016. That win sent Jamala to Stockholm, where the grand final took place on 14 May 2016 at the Globe Arena, with 26 countries taking part.
Jamala won with 534 points. Australia finished second with 511 points. The staging matched the song’s seriousness: a dark, red-toned backdrop, a single figure in the light, and no dancers or props to distract from the voice.
Before the contest, the song drew criticism from some politicians and commentators in Russia, who argued that it was political. The European Broadcasting Union examined the entry and allowed it to compete. The debate did not fade after the win, and it still forms part of how the song is discussed.
What the win changed
After the victory, Jamala was awarded the title of People’s Artist of Ukraine by then-President Petro Poroshenko. An official music video for “1944” was released on 21 September 2016, several months after the contest.
Critics kept returning to the song in later years. The Guardian’s ranking of Eurovision winners and The Independent’s ranking of winning songs both place “1944” among the strongest winners in the contest’s history. The praise is usually for the same thing: a difficult subject handled with control, rather than with noise.
Jamala stayed close to Eurovision after the win. From 2017 to 2025, she served as a coach on Holos Krainy, the Voice of Ukraine. The role suited her: a singer who had won the contest could judge new voices without pretending the job was easy.
The win also gave Crimean Tatar culture a public moment on a European stage. The language had never been heard in a winning Eurovision song before, and the song introduced a history that many viewers had never been taught. That is a lot for three minutes to carry, and the song carries it without breaking.
Where to start
New listeners do best starting with “1944” itself, in the Eurovision final performance rather than a studio cut, because the staging and the pause before the chorus are part of the song. Next comes “You Are Made of Love”, an early single that shows a lighter, jazz-shaped side of Jamala before the Eurovision years. “Kryla” rounds out the set, with a later sound that is calmer and more settled; it is less famous, and that is the point, since it shows what the singer did once the contest was behind her.
Frequently asked questions
What is the song “1944” about?
“1944” is about the Soviet deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea, which began on 18 May 1944. Jamala built the lyrics around her great-grandmother Nazylkhan, who was deported with five small children and lost one child on the journey. The song is a memorial to that family, and to the wider community that was displaced.
Did Jamala win Eurovision with “1944”?
Jamala won the Eurovision Song Contest on 14 May 2016 in Stockholm, scoring 534 points for Ukraine. Australia finished second with 511 points. The song had won Ukraine’s national selection, Vidbir, earlier that year.
What language is the chorus of “1944” in?
The chorus is in Crimean Tatar, while most of the verses are in English. The switch in language is deliberate, and it marks the point where the song turns from telling the story to the world toward speaking in the language of the people the story belongs to.
What did Jamala do after winning Eurovision?
Jamala was named a People’s Artist of Ukraine after the win, released later work such as “Kryla”, and served as a coach on Holos Krainy from 2017 to 2025. She remains one of Ukraine’s best-known singers, and “1944” remains the recording she is most often asked about.
Sources
- Wikipedia — Jamala
- The Guardian — All 69 Eurovision Song Contest winners, ranked
- The Independent — Eurovision winning songs ranked
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