For her senior capstone project, Samantha Hauff ‘25 focused on one folkloric song that has become a Ukrainian protest anthem during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

by Sarah Murphy

Everything Samantha Hauff ‘25 has ever known about her heritage has been passed down in stories.

“Ukraine is a culture that is known as ‘folkloric,’” says Hauff.  “The culture is preserved in storytelling, and what better way to tell a story than through music.”

Hauff has powerful Ukrainian roots. She was born in the United States, but members of her family on her father’s side are Ukrainian. And though Hauff is not a musician herself, music is something that has always been central in her life.

“I have an undying admiration for how a musician can take such a niche feeling and put it into the words I would’ve never thought to say,” says Hauff. “As a writer, I appreciate that as well.”

When it came to selecting her senior capstone project, Hauff—an English major with a concentration in Communication Studies—found the perfect intersection between music and her Ukrainian heritage. She began researching protest music, knowing that her culture is rooted in folklore and has a long history of political unrest.

“Protest music is so broad because it can be balladious, it can be angry, it can be subtle or it can be brutally honest,” says Hauff. She came across the song, “Chervona Kalyna,” or the “Red Viburnum”—a leafy shrub with clusters of red berries native to Ukraine. Hauff was struck not just by the beauty and patriotism of the song, but by the fact that it inspired the band Pink Floyd to reunite after almost three decades and record their own cover of the anthem. 

“Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands of all time,” says Hauff. “I remember listening to ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ when I was a kid. At the dinner table, my parents would jokingly yell, ‘How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?!’—a quote from the song. This was right around the time I learned so many stories about the Slavic blood that rushed through me.”

While researching “Chervona Kalyna,” Hauff found a video of Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the Ukrainian band, BoomBox, singing the song in his military fatigues. 

“I felt this video in my gut. It hurt in the most beautiful way possible. This led me down a spiral of researching this video and the man in it—ultimately leading me to a Rolling Stones interview with David Gilmour about how he found this same video in the same way as me and then decided to reunite Pink Floyd.”

Hauff felt this was a piece of culture that needed to be harnessed, analyzed and repeated. 

“This song was important to me, important to Ukraine, and important to what music is all about—telling stories and harnessing feelings.”

Hauff’s research and analysis of the protest ballad was conducted during Spring 2024. “Thanks to my advisor Dr. Philip Perdue for all of his help. He is one of PC’s treasures,” says Hauff. “PC has provided me with such a specific and individualized research experience, which I am very grateful that I got to participate in.”

Though she completed her senior capstone as a junior, Hauff still plans to work directly with her advisor, Phillip Perdue, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English and Communication Studies and Director of Communication Studies in the Department of English, to continue the research. It is her goal to have the work published to a peer-reviewed journal.

“I can’t directly fix or change what is happening to my people in Ukraine, but I can start a small conversation,” says Hauff. “I can have a walk-on part in the war, not on the level which the Ukrainian soldiers are, but on a metaphorical level which is accessible to me where my feet are.”

Learn more about the English Department and Communications Studies concentration at PC by visiting the department web pages.