From May 9 to 13, 2023, the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) took place, in which 37 countries took part. It was supposed to take place in Ukraine because Ukraine won last year’s contest with the song KALUSH – Stefania, but it was not possible to organize it because of the war that is still going on in the territory of Ukraine. Therefore, Great Britain assumed the role of the host country.
Already traditionally for Russia, she attacked Ukraine during the finals of the competition, which she was not allowed to participate in, by the way. The enemy attack was aimed at Ternopil – the hometown of this year’s TVORCHI artists who were contestants this year. So we decided to investigate the place of politics in this international competition.
What is Eurovision and what is its idea
Eurovision – is an international song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed live and transmitted to national broadcasters via the Eurovision and Euroradio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries songs to determine a winner.
Chief Editor at Media Center Ukraine, cultural expert, Michael Shtekel said that Eurovision is a competition about values, not about geography.
“Eurovision is a contest primarily about values, not about geography. That is why there are obviously Australia and Israel, which are geographically not in Europe. This year, the competition could not be held in the winning country, Ukraine. This is the first “message” that was already broadcast by the contest itself – about the war in the center of Europe, which disrupted the usual and normal development of the region”.
The show positions itself as an apolitical action of an exclusively entertaining nature. This was also written in the contest rules:
“The ESC is a non-political event. All Participating Broadcasters, including the Host Broadcaster, shall be responsible to ensure that all necessary measures are undertaken within in their respective Delegations and teams to safeguard the interests and the integrity of the ESC and to make sure that the ESC shall in no case be politicised and/or instrumentalized and/or otherwise brought into disrepute in any way”.
However, the expert believes that no show can do without politics these days.
“In today’s world, it is extremely popular to think of art outside of politics, at least popular art. This is obviously not the case, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes always affect art and limit freedom. US and European pop stars often make political statements, sometimes calling it charity. This was done by Bono, John Lennon, and others. However, these were usually demands from the ruling establishment and from conservative circles of world politics”.
Paul David Hewson (Bono) – is an Irish singer-songwriter, activist, and philanthropist. He is the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band U2.
John Winston Ono Lennon – was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon’s work was characterised by the rebellious nature and acerbic wit of his music, writing and drawings, on film, and in interviews. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.
Every year the show chooses its own special theme, for example in 2023 the slogan was “United by music”. This year’s show was dedicated to world support for Ukraine during the war with Russia.
And while the show claims to be apolitical, there were a few performances that clearly hinted at something. We are talking about the performances of the Czech Republic and Croatia. Czech contestants sang in four languages, including Ukrainian, the text was dedicated to supporting Ukraine in this difficult time. In particular, here are the lines from the song, which directly refer to the death of men in the war:
You can take your hands back
No one wants more boys dead
We’re not your dolls
We’re not your dolls
Life’s not a money bag
Blood’s on your God’s head
You can’t steal our souls
The Czechs called Ukraine the lyrical heroine, the sister, in the song. In the third verse, members of Vesna call on the “sister” to join them in “the sea where there is no hatred”, that is, to a civilized European future without Russia. The band wrote on their Instagram:
“We decided to make an artistic choice to pay tribute to our native sister – Ukraine. Therefore, the chorus of the song is sung in Ukrainian. Since Ukraine is currently going through very difficult times, we wanted to express our sincere support”.
Croatia, in turn, impressed the audience with its extravagant performance. The contestants brought mock rockets to the stage and wore military-style clothing. The text of the song mentions a “little psychopath” and the “war” on which the main lyrical hero is going.
Onaj mali psihopat [This small psychopath]
Mali, podli psihopat, rat, rat [Evil little psychopath, war, war]
Krokodilski psihopat [Crocodile psychopath]
Mama, idem u rat [Mother, I’ll go on war]
The text repeatedly mentions a freak psychopath who is going to war and who was given a tractor as a gift. It is not known for certain whether these lines were inspired by Alexander Lukashenko’s gesture towards Putin (as is known, the president of Belarus presented the Russian leader with a “hand-assembled tractor”). However, it is difficult to ignore the coincidence.
The soloist of the group, Damir “Mrle” Martynovych, said that the song is anti-war and mocks the senselessness of bloodshed.
“The theme of war. The song is anti-war, it was created last summer when I was working on a play in Split. It’s that wartime moment when we have to create a war opera, and Mama ŠČ is one of those”.
Michael Shtekel also believes that Croatia’s performance was partly political.
In my opinion, Croatia’s speech is really political, but this politics is within the limits of what is allowed. This is an anti-war song, and pacifism is, in principle, traditional for European artists. I did not see anything specific about Russia in Croatia’s speech.
He also added that there were other precedents at the competition.
Yes, of course there were. We can also recall the song “Lasha Tumbai” by Serdyuchka, which was perceived as “Rasha Goodbye”, and the Russian Yulia Samoilova, whom Ukraine did not let in due to violation of the law on visiting Crimea. Armenia, which “reminded” about the genocide in 2015, and others. There are also demands from some artists not to hold the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel in 2018. These are also political requirements.
Ukraine’s Eurovision performance, what was it about
This year, Ukraine was represented on the international stage by the band TVORCHI – Heart of Steel. This is a duo from Ternopil, consisting of sound producer Andrii Hutsuliak and vocalist Jeffrey Kenny. The band released four studio albums: The Parts (2018) and Disco Lights (2019), 13 Waves (2020), Road (2021). They perform songs in Ukrainian and English.
The following lines are present in the text of the song:
Незважаючи на біль [Despite the pain]
Я продовжую свій бій [I continue my fight]
Світ палає, а ти дій [The world is on fire, and you act]
According to the boys, they dedicated the song to every Ukrainian who survived this difficult year of war.
“The song “Heart of Steel” is about everyone who, despite all hopelessness, carries a heart of steel in his chest and does not give up. And today it is all of us. Our song has the lines: “Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Because no matter how bad it is, someone is listening.” We want our indomitability to be heard everywhere”.
Also, “Steel” has a symbolic meaning, because the song was written during the battles for “Azovstal”. Therefore, the artists transferred all their feelings about what is happening into music, thereby expressing respect for our soldiers.
Defense of “Azovstal” — combat operations that lasted from March 18 to May 20, 2022 on the territory of the Mariupol metallurgical plant “Azovstal” and in the adjacent territory and took place as part of the battles for Mariupol during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On May 13, 2023 during Ukraine’s performance at the Eurovision final, Russia shelled the hometown of the contestants. According to the boys, they found out about the shelling “10 minutes before the performance.”
“Ternopil is the name of our native city, which was bombed by Russia while we sang on the Eurovision stage about our steel hearts, indomitability and will. This is a message for all the cities of Ukraine that are shelled every day. Kharkiv, Dnipro, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Uman, Sumy, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Kherson and many others. Europe, unite against evil for the sake of peace! Glory to Ukraine”, – TVORCHI wrote on Instagram.
The first lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska said that she likes performance of Ukrainian band:
Representing your country with dignity while your hometown is under missile attack requires not only hearts of steel, but also nerves. We are grateful to TvorchiBand for the wonderful performance at the Eurovision Song Contest and all who supported 🇺🇦. Our main victory is ahead!
During the announcement of the results of the competition, they held a sign with the inscription “Ternopil” thereby expressing support for the townspeople. Similar was the case with the group KALUSH, which performed at Eurovision-22. Then they made a political statement about the soldiers of Azovstal.
“Ukraine last year, or rather the KALUSH group, also made a political statement, demanding that Russia release prisoners from Azovstal. This is a unique phenomenon, because usually pop stars demand something from democratic countries and leaders, taking advantage of the fact that governments elected by the people must respond to public opinion. Putin does not have such a problem, that is why the prisoners of Azovstal are still partly in captivity. Kalush’s demand was never fulfilled. Therefore, it would be possible to repeat it again, of course”. – the cultural expert said.
Details of shelling of Ternopil
On May 13, 2023 at approximately 10:30 p.m., Ternopil was fired upon by enemy rockets. It was at this time that the final of the Eurovision Song Contest was held.
Subsequently, the head of the Ternopil Regional Council, Mykhailo Golovko, reported on the arrival of the aircraft in the Ternopil industrial zone, and the Mayor of Ternopil, Serhiy Nadal, clarified that a non-residential building had been occupied in the city. Rescuers are working on the spot.
The Russians hit warehouses belonging to commercial enterprises and a religious organization. Two civilians received shrapnel wounds and burns.
Around 5 a.m. on May 14, Russia launched a second wave of shelling of the city, which damaged civilian buildings and cars. There was no information about the victims.
Tetiana Stemakh
