“Winning Eurovision would give us a lot of hope of winning the war.” This is what a Ukrainian fan, Maria Lembak, 40, said on Saturday, interviewed by AFP in the streets of Turin where she was taking part in a counter-rally against a small pro-Russian demonstration.
The Ukrainians, favorites of the competition, should indeed benefit from a large solidarity vote during the Eurovision final this Saturday evening in Turin. Festivities this year placed under the disastrous sign of the war in Ukraine, less than three months after the outbreak of its invasion on February 24 by Russia, excluded from Eurovision the next day by the European Broadcasting Union ( EBU), organizer of the event. During the two semi-finals organized this week in the Piedmontese capital, a wave of blue and yellow flags had swept.
Favorite of bookmakersUkraine competes with the Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra, whose song “Stefania” mixes hip-hop and traditional music on intimate lyrics – written before the war – which resonate strongly with current events (“I will always find the way home even if all the roads are destroyed”).
Singers of fighting age
With six on stage, the members of the group, all of fighting age, benefit from a provisional dispensation issued by the government of kyiv, but they will have to return home to take up arms at the end of the competition. One of them stayed in the country. “A member of the group joined the territorial defense of kyiv on the third day of the war”singer Oleh Psiuk told AFP. “We are very worried about him, we hope to find him safe and sound when we return.”
To win, the Kalush Orchestra will have to beat the 24 other finalists by collecting the maximum number of votes from professionals in the music world and the public in each country, who cannot vote for their own candidate. The next edition of the competition would then be held, at least in theory, in Ukraine, which would be in the words of Oleh Psiuk “a new, integrated, developed and flourishing Ukraine”.
If successful, Ukraine would double down after their victory in 2016 – two years after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea by Russia – with Jamala and the title “1944”, a song recounting the deportation of the Tatars by Stalin.
“We try to keep politics out of all this”
“There is bound to be an impact, but we try to keep politics out of all that”admitted on franceinfo Stéphane Bern, who will comment on Eurovision on France 2. “Inevitably, there are political considerations that matter. For a while, we wanted to show our solidarity with the Ukrainian people. But I think there are other ways to show our solidarity with the Ukrainian people. and I hope our rulers do.”
“Obviously, we cannot ignore the fact that Russia is excluded, continued the host. We cannot ignore the fact that we all want to show our solidarity with the Ukrainians. I find that the Ukrainian group is very courageous, moreover, to show that Ukraine continues to live, to exist on the European scene through song, and that’s what we want to support. Besides, the song is very good.”