You Know I Can Never Lose, This Has Never Been About You: The Politics of Conflict in Eurovision in Russia, Estonia and Ukraine 2014-2023

Abstract

Estonia, Ukraine, and Russia have intensified their use of political messaging in Eurovision since the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, through lyrical protest, ethnic performance, and artist identities. This thesis examines ten Eurovision entries from 2014-2023 and the instances of non-participation by Ukraine (2015, 2019) and Russia (2017, 2022 onwards) to determine how these countries have chosen to display political messaging in their entries. My analysis examined lyrics, artist identities and linguistic elements to demonstrate political messaging tactics and their varying degrees of specificity depending on the intended audience. The results thus demonstrated that Eurovision has become a common stage for political messaging of each country's ideology for Estonia, Ukraine and Russia in the context of the current Russian-Ukrainian war, although the tactics used to do so varied from country to country.