Russia Eurovision fury
Kremlin threatens boycott after ‘political’ Ukrainian song wins
EUROVISION has long faced accusations of politicallymotivated judging – but this year’s results have caused an all-out diplomatic war.
Russia has reacted furiously to Ukrainian singer Jamala’s victory on Saturday, with Moscow claiming the performer’s song was pointedly anti-Kremlin.
Ukraine received 534 points for Jamala’s performance of the song 1944, seeing off close competition from Australia – as well as beating Russia’s Sergey Lazarev, the favourite to win, into third place.
Her ballad was about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by Soviet authorities during World War Two, and was widely seen as a swipe at Moscow over its annexation of the peninsula in 2014.
Jamala, who is a Tatar, said her great-grandmother was one of the Crimean Tatar victims of Stalin, who deported the group en masse to Central Asia after accusing them of sympathizing with Nazi Germany. Many of the 200,000 deported died on the way or in exile.
The song opens with the English lyrics: ‘When strangers are coming, they come to your house, they kill you all and say “We’re not guilty”.’
The track was allowed because officials said the lyrics alluded to history rather than politics.
After her win, an emotional Jamala said: ‘I was sure that if you sing, if you talk about truth, it can really touch people and I was right.’
Following the result on Saturday, Russian senator Frantz Klintsevich called for his country to boycott next year’s contest in Ukraine.
Mr Klintsevich, deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defence and Security, said: ‘If nothing changes in Ukraine by next year, then I don’t think we need to take part [in Eurovision there].’
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter feud since Moscow annexed Crimea in February 2014.
But it appears political tensions have spilled over onto the Eurovision stage – especially as Mr Lazarev controversially lost out thanks to the new jury-based scoring system, despite claiming the most points from viewers in the public vote.
Russia’s state-run television channels presented Mr Lazarev as the ‘champion’ in an interview after he came third, hinting that the official results did not matter.
At the same time, the hashtag ‘Lazarev is our winner’ quickly began trending on Russian Twitter.
Kremlin-controlled media then began attempting to smear the contest, with tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda running an online article entitled ‘How the European jury stole victory from Lazarev’. The outlet called for the results to be reviewed because of the ‘political’ content of Jamala’s song and warned gay spectators that they face a rough reception in Ukraine next year.
It added: ‘It became obvious that this is an entirely political story– as we won first place in the public vote that was meant to counterbalance the juries.’
In March, Russian officials attempted to have Jamala’s song banned but were rebuffed by Eurovision organisers.
They had argued the song was a politicised attempt to make Russia look bad for its policies in the Crimea and the subsequent conflict.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the results table, British hopefuls Joe and Jake came a disappointing 24th out of 26 with their song You’re Not Alone, although their performance still won praise from fans.