Eurovision Overview
Eurovision, formally titled Eurovision Song Contest, is an international music competition which first aired in 1956. The entries of Eurovision all represent participating nations. All participating nations must be members of the European Broadcasting Union.
The entry selection process differs by country. In Ukraine, the selection is made through a national music competition: Vidbir. How well a performance does in national competitions like Vidbir can reveal what topics, musical genres, and artists are popular in a country.
The Eurovision formula has changed over the years as more nations began participating, but currently the
Political Importance of Eurovision
Eurovision’s rules technically forbid political components in musical performances. The established goals of Eurovision are to promote diversity, international cooperation, and peace; artists that include overly political messages, particularly criticism or contentious topics, may be required to alter their performance for Eurovision or will otherwise be disqualified.
Despite the official rules disallowing overt forms of political speech, the nature of cultural works is that they all respond to and construct cultural norms. Even when artists don’t include specific confrontational political messaging in their performances, their acts reveal a great deal about the values of the nation they’re representing and its relationships with other participating nations. In the world of Eurovision, every performance signals cultural values and constructs or bolsters a country’s national identity, even if the performance doesn’t contain targeted political messaging.
Even when artists are barred from including specific and overt political messaging in their performances, they can still use musical genre, costuming, staging, lyrics, and references to cultural works to communicate their message.
A very clear example of this is Jamala’s 1944, which won Eurovision in 2016. Its lyrics avoid making direct reference to Russia’s invasion and subsequent occupation of Crimea; its lyrics never contain a word for Crimea, and the only aspect of the song that identifies a specific community is the fact that the portion of lyrics in the Crimean Tatar language is sourced from a Crimean Tatar folk song. 1944 cites the lyrics of Ey güzel kirim, which expressing the narrator’s longing for their homeland after they, their family, and their community were forcibly deported by Stalin. Jamala’s performance connected to her family history, In performing 1944, Jamala brought the contemporary invasion of Crimea into context as a continuation or echo of colonial violence.
Ukraine in Eurovision: 2000’s
Ukraine first participated in Eurovision in 2003 with Hasta La Vista by Oleksandr Ponomariov, and in the next year won the contest entirely. Ukraine continued to establish its presence in Eurovision throughout the decade.
2003: Hasta La Vista by Olexandr
Ukraine’s first entry in Eurovision, this song’s lyrics were almost entirely in English with occasional Spanish. The topic of the song was a universal human topic–love–and the style conformed to popular Western European genres, helping to establish a commonality between Ukrainian and Western European musical culture.
2004: Wild Dances by Ruslana
Winning with 280 Points, this performance showcased a facet of Ukrainian cultural identity in its Hutsul-inspired costumes and lyrics/style, delivered a feminist theme, and was sung in English, standard Ukrainian, and Hutsul dialect of Ukrainian. No lyrics were in Russian. Together these elements strengthened Ukraine’s cultural identity as well as ties to Western culture.
2005: Razom Nas Bahato by GreenJolly
Razom Nas Bahato was extremely popular during the Orange Revolution, and showcased Ukraine’s hip-hop following. The lyrics originally contained shouts of support for 2004 presidential election candidate Viktor Yushchenko, which were removed for the Eurovision performance. Despite the alteration, the fact that this song was chosen to represent Ukraine at Eurovision reflects the impact of the Orange Revolution.
2006: Show Me Your Love by Tina Karol
2007: Dancing Lasha Tumbai by Verka Serduchka
Verka Serduchka’s Dancing Lasha Tumbai is another great example of the ways performers circumvent the ban on overt political content. The messaging is embedded in the caricature of Eurovision’s “kitschy” style and the English, German, and Ukrainian lyrics. The nonsense lines “lasha tumbai” were heard as “Russia, goodbye” by many listeners.
2008: Shady Lady by Ani Lorak
2009: Be my Valentine! (Anti-Crisis Girl) by Svetlana Loboda
2010: Sweet People by Alyosha
The lyrics appeal to anti-war, pro-peace, environmentally-conscious values that are the established norm of Eurovision. This adherence to norm performance helps reinforce intercultural relationships. The fact that it is entirely in English speaks to the language politics of Eurovision; frequently performances feature languages that serve as a lingua franca in multiple European countries rather than their own country’s languages in an attempt to make the performance accessible to a wider audience, and thus hopefully more likely to do well.
More Resources:
Sources
- Kalman, Julie, et al. “Ruslana, Serduchka, Jamala: National Self-Imaging in Ukraine’s Eurovision Entries.” Eurovisions: Identity and the International Politics of the Eurovision Song Contest Since 1956, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 129–50, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9427-0_7.
- “Ukraine in Eurovision Voting & Points.” Eurovisionworld, eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/ukraine. Accessed 14 Dec. 2023.