This lecture looks at the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) as a soft power tool. After contextualising the ESC, I focus on Russian and Ukrainian entries and how the performances have been instrumentalized in projecting the competing images of the post-Soviet space and spheres of influences.
Literature:
Hansen, Arve, Andrei Rogatchevski, Yngvar Steinholt, and David-Emil Wickström. 2019. 4. ‘Lasha Tumbai’, or ‘Russia, Good-Bye’? – The Eurovision Song Contest as a Post-Soviet Geopolitical Battleground. In A War of Songs – Popular Music and Recent Russia-Ukraine Relations, 163-95. Stuttgart: ibidem Press.
Miazhevich, Galina. 2010. Sexual Excess in Russia’s Eurovision Performances as a Nation Branding Tool. Russian Journal of Communication 3 (3-4): 248-64, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19409419.2010.10756776.
Vuletic, Dean. 2018. Introduction: Europe’s Greatest Television Show. In Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest, 1-13. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Wolther, Irving. 2012. More than just music: the seven dimensions of the Eurovision Song Contest. Popular Music 31 (1): 165-71, http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0261143011000511.
Zoom:
https://uit.zoom.us/j/61170230456?pwd=NEhFdkF6TnNWclYrTzZaL0N0NzNJQT09