Back to the Future: Imagining a New Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest

Abstract

A Washington Post journalist once wrote: ‘Russia and the European Union are neighbours geographically. But geopolitically they live in different centuries … Europe sees the answer to its problems … in transcending the nation-state and power. For Russians, the solution is in restoring them’ (Kagan, 2008). In spite of the seeming incongruity between the economic and cultural politics of the European Union (EU) and those of Russia, it seems that for both geopolitical entities the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) has become a venue to test the changing cultural, political, and economic values that both Europe and Russia began to experience after the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989. Looking at Russia’s eager participation in the ESC, this chapter examines the creative, administrative, funding, and media systems behind Russia’s ESC output. It views Russia’s growing interest in the ESC as an indicator of the country’s negotiation of its position as a separate geopolitical entity vis-à-vis the EU.