Songfacts®:

• The Ukrainian rap trio Kalush formed in 2019. They comprise rapper Oleh Psiuk, multi-instrumentalist Ihor Didenchuk, and producer/dancer KylymMen. Two years later, the group launched Kalush Orchestra with multi-instrumentalists Tymofii Muzychuk and Vitalii Duzhyk as additional members. Their side project focuses on hip-hop with folk motifs and elements from Ukrainian traditional music.
  
  Kalush Orchestra submitted their song "Stefania" for Vidbir, the February 12, 2022 Ukrainian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest.
• Only artists that had not entered the Russian annexed territory of Crimea without due permission could apply for Vidbir. Singer and rapper Alina Pash won, but afterwards, the Ukrainian broadcaster UA:PBC discovered she'd breached the rule barring competitors from having traveled to Crimea. Pash stood down and Kalush Orchestra, who'd placed second in Vidbir 2022, replaced her.
• "Stefania" is an ode to Oleh Psiuk's mother. The rapper looks back nostalgically at how she used to care for him when he was a little boy. He considers the hardships she's endured and all she's done for him.
• When Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the song took on an additional meaning: love for the motherland. It became an anthem for Ukraine, used by Ukrainians in hundreds of thousands of TikToks documenting the war. "The song was composed and dedicated to my mother, but after the war the song has acquired lots of nuances because a lot of people are perceiving it as if Ukraine is my mother," said Psiuk to NME. "That's why the song has become so close to the Ukrainian people, and it is in the Ukrainian hearts."
• The Kalush Orchestra musicians play two traditional Ukrainian woodwind instruments throughout the song: the sopilka, and the telenka.
• Kalush Orchestra triumphed at the Eurovision final, which took place in Turin on May 14, 2022. At the end of the jury vote, Ukraine lay in fourth place, but won after receiving a massive portion of the public vote.
  
  "Stefania" was the first song sung entirely in Ukrainian and the first hip-hop number to win the Eurovision Song Contest.
• Ukraine had won the competition twice before: in 2003 with "Wild Dances," performed by Ruslana; and in 2016 with "1944" by Jamala. The latter song caused tensions with Russia, which interpreted the lyrics to parallel the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
• Multi-instrumentalist Ihor Didenchuk is also a member of the electro-folk band Go_A, who represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021.
• The song's music video depicts scenes showing the terrible destruction of the Russo-Ukrainian War mixed with shots of Kalush Orchestra performing in blown-out buildings. They filmed the clip in Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka, and Hostomel, all cities near Kyiv that brutally suffered the horrors of Russian occupation.
  
  There are multiple shots of female Ukrainian soldiers rescuing and guiding children through the rubble. "This is how we see Ukrainian mothers today," Oleh Psiuk said of the visual. "We were trying to deliver the message of what Ukraine looks like today."