‘No sympathy vote for Ukraine in Eurovision’
POLITICAL HISTORIAN ON SONG CONTEST
A POLITICAL historian from Hull has argued Piers Morgan is totally wrong when he claims Eurovision is a “rigged farce” and Ukraine only won the 2022 contest due to a “sympathy vote”.
Dr Catherine Baker, an academic in 20th century history at the University of Hull explained the real reason why neighbouring countries have historically tended to vote for one another in the competition.
She also claimed Ukraine’s song by Kalush Orchestra was strong enough to win the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest on its own merit.
Saturday night’s grand final in Turin saw jaws drop as the UK’S Sam Ryder topped the leader board with the song “Space Man” as each country announced its jury votes – with even France giving us the all-important douze (12) points.
The UK’S result was the best in 20 years, experts said.
But as results from the televotes dripped in, Ukraine, which was already in the top ten, was launched to the top as presenters revealed the country had received more than 400 points from the general public.
And while the UK wasn’t quite able to reclaim its place, our entry still finished second despite a recent track record of dismal results.
In an article written for the academic site The Conversation ahead of the Eurovision final, Dr Baker said if Kalush Orchestra did indeed win Eurovision 2022, it would be “down to the strength of their song’s concept and performance, not primarily voting alliances or sympathy”.
She said: “Ukrainian acts have been among the Eurovision favourites for years.”
Ukraine has already won Eurovision twice in the 21st century – last time in 2016 with a song alluding to the annexation of Crimea – and came second in last year’s public vote.
It comes as Piers Morgan slammed Saturday’s results as a “rigged farce”, labelling the win as a “sympathy vote”.
The Talktv presenter added that the result of the singing contest “shouldn’t be determined by which countries are suffering most at the time”, reported The Mirror.
Dr Baker said voting dynamics in this year’s competition would have been largely altered due to both Russia and Belarus not taking part (the European Broadcasting Union, which organises the contest, ruled that no Russian act could take part this year as part of the sanctions following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine).
Voting patterns, she added, have already been shifting since 2014 since Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and have always been subject to change.
The historian also pointed out that voting alliances between neighbouring countries were more likely due to “shared musical tastes”, such as acts belonging to the same music markets, cultural commonalities and acts singing in the same, or similar, languages. She gave the example of former Yugoslavian states’ tendencies to vote for one another, where Croatian viewers surprisingly gave Serbia-montenegro 12 points in 2004 – despite the brutal war in the 1990s.
“Ukrainian and Russian juries have not exchanged any points since the annexation of Crimea, though their public votes did continue giving each other’s songs some points,” said Dr Baker.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already confirmed Ukraine will be able to host next year’s song contest, true to Eurovision tradition.
He said: “Our courage impresses the world, our music conquers Europe! Next year, Ukraine will host Eurovision for the third time in its history.
“And as I believe: Not the last. We will do our utmost to one day host the participants and visitors of Eurovision in Ukrainian Mariupol. Free, peaceful, and rebuilt!”