Eurovision, Ukraine, politics, and that which seems to be forgotten

By / October 10, 2021

One of the facts regarding the Ukrainian participation in Eurovision this year has likely been noticed by you already, Ukraine will not participate this year.
Which comes after a dispute with the expected entry MARUV – who won the popular vote here in Ukraine – over her performances in Russia.
However, most other facts still seems to remain forgotten.
Like how the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine(UA:PBC) isn’t actually honest about the Russian ties of the Eurovision Song Contest.
After all, people are aware of the record label which makes the Eurovision Song Contest possible, and MARUV should have given the rights of her song to?
Yes, it’s Warner Music Group. And, no, WMG is not a part of WarnerMedia, but instead of Access Industries, founded and owned by Leonard Blavatnik, a Soviet-born who is known for his close ties with Russian President Putin.
If UA:PBC has problems with MARUV performing in Russia, why doesn’t UA:PBC have problems with Eurovision requiring the rights of the songs to be owned by a record label owned by a Russian?

On a note of more public-based facts about Eurovision, Ukraine, and politics, we can note the supposed “fact” that Ukraine has made it political this year.
This is actually not even true, as the fact is that the anti-Israel BDS movement was the first to do so by calling the boycott of Israel hosting already shortly after Israel winning last year’s Eurovision Song Contest. This boycott is heavily supported by British celebrities.
Exact details when their campaign started I can’t give, as the website has been blocked here by the parental controls of cybersecurity company F-secure.
Proof: Eurovision, Ukraine, politics, and that which seems to be forgotten 1

And another fact is that while many Ukrainians are annoyed by the decisions of UA:PBC, the Eurovision hate campaign against Ukraine has once again made an upsurge.
After all, this is not the first year Ukraine is getting attacked by Eurovision fans.
In the previous year – 2018 – it was about Ukrainian artist ALEKSEEV entering Eurovision for Belarus. ALEKSEEV is an artist holding enormous popularity in Belarus, making it not actually that weird for him to enter for Belarus. Besides, it happens continuously that artists enter for other countries than their own.
In 2017, it was about Ukraine banning Russia’s entry for entering Crimea without the Ukrainian government’s permission, a criminal offense in Ukraine because of the invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia. Even many Russians did not deny that they supposed their country’s entry was to cause political problems.
And in 2016, it was about Jamala, who won for Ukraine with the song “1944”, a song about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars. The problem being according to people that it was political. Which it obviously was. That being said, we also had a song a year before, 2015, which was in the same way political, the Armenian entry.

However, probably one of the most important fact regarding the happenings, is the Russian response.
While looking on the Eurovision pages on the Russian VK social media platform, obviously a lot of hateful comments could be found.
However, hatred is actually not reigning, as it is very easy to find a lot more nuanced responses as top comments, like the following examples:
(Note: For objectivity, the messages are translated by the automatic Google Translate service, and not by hand.)

“I am genuinely sorry that because of political obscurantism we lost this year an interesting song, worthy of a party and a country music competition.”
By Vladimir Bazhenov in Saint Petersburg, Russia

“Fans from Ukraine, be brave.”
By Mikail Muradov in Saratov, Russia

“Strange to see comments about karma for Samoylova, who recently was go to pot at the Eurovision song contest and deservedly didn’t make the final.”
By Dmitry Kubantsev in Moscow, Russia

“Of course sorry for the Ukrainians and all the fans Marov”
By Mikhail Munilkin in Krasnoarmeysk, Moscow Oblast, Russia

And that’s not even all, as also a lot of reversed hatred can be found, with Russians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Armenians, Azeris, Georgians, and Kyrgyz people attacking Russians over the “Russian government being the reason for all this happening”. (No, I did not forget Ukrainians. VK is still “officially” banned in Ukraine.)

Still, at the end of the day, there’s no denying of the most important fact, which combines all of the above. Which is that only 1 group has won, which are those who oppose Ukraine on a regular basis. Making this a dark day for any Ukrainian, whether you liked MARUV or not…

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