Official: Russia could boycott Eurovision over Crimea song
A Russian official has said his country could boycott next year’s Eurovision song contest after a Ukrainian singer claimed the top prize with a song that has been interpreted as criticizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The winning song, by an artist called Jamala, was called "1944" and is about the deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet authorities during World War II.
Jamala’s family was among the Crimean Tatars who were deported to Central Asia, the Kyiv Post reported. Jamala, whose parents and grandfather live in Crimea, has not been there since 2014, the Guardian reported.
“The song is reminiscent of the modern-day events — Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the pressure that Russian authorities there put on the Crimean Tatars living in the peninsula, forcing many of them to leave again - this time, for mainland Ukraine,” the Kyiv Post said.
It said Russian authorities wanted Jamala’s entry to be banned under contest rules that bar political expressions, but the organizers decided the song wasn’t political.
Ukraine will host next year’s singing contest following Jamala’s victory.
“It was not the Ukrainian singer Jamala and her song '1944' that won the Eurovision 2016, it was politics that beat art,” Frants Klintsevich, deputy chairman of the Russia's Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, told local reporters. “If nothing changes in Ukraine by next year, then I don't think we need to take part (in Eurovision in Ukraine),” he told the RIA Novosti news agency.
Jamala, real name Susana Jamaladinova, told the Guardian before the contest: “Of course it’s about 2014 as well. These two years have added so much sadness to my life. Imagine – you’re a creative person, a singer, but you can’t go home for two years. You see your grandfather on Skype, who is 90 years old and ill, but you can’t visit him. What am I supposed to do: just sing nice songs and forget about it? Of course I can’t do that.”
Ukrainian member of parliament Anton Geraschenko told the Govorit Moskva radio station that Russian singers who vocalize their support "for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine" will not be able to perform in 2017, Russia's TASS news agency reported.
He said only singers who do not support Crimea’s reunification with Russia will be able to take part, according to the news agency.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS, "It is early to rattle a sabre" when asked if Russia should boycott next year’s contest.
Australia came second in the competition between 42 countries, which was held in Stockholm in Sweden on Saturday night. Russian singer Sergey Lazarev, who was the bookmakers' favorite to win, came third with the song "You Are the Only One."