Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest

Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest is the definitive history of the Eurovision Song Contest and its political and cultural significance. Drawing on pioneering archival research, Dean Vuletic traces the contest’s evolution, covering its early origins and every annual edition from 1956 to 2025. He reveals how Eurovision has reflected and shaped the political history of postwar Europe and become the world’s biggest election. Using Eurovision as a unique lens on European societies, Vuletic explores themes ranging from democracy, revolution and war to diversity, prosperity and technology. He shows how debates concerning the contest have mirrored wider struggles over European integration, national identity and political power. Challenging popular myths and illuminating Eurovision’s global reach, this new edition demonstrates why the contest remains the most politically revealing cultural arena of modern Europe. This second edition includes: · updates to the original chapters, incorporating newly discovered archival sources and recent academic publications · an additional chapter examining developments in Eurovision’s seventh decade, including global expansion, protest movements and participant expulsions · a new conclusion reflecting on the author’s first-person, live experience of the contest

Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest is the definitive history of the Eurovision Song Contest and its political and cultural significance. Drawing on pioneering archival research, Dean Vuletic traces the contest’s evolution, covering its early origins and every annual edition from 1956 to 2025. He reveals how Eurovision has reflected and shaped the political history of postwar Europe and become the world’s biggest election. Using Eurovision as a unique lens on European societies, Vuletic explores themes ranging from democracy, revolution and war to diversity, prosperity and technology. He shows how debates concerning the contest have mirrored wider struggles over European integration, national identity and political power. Challenging popular myths and illuminating Eurovision’s global reach, this new edition demonstrates why the contest remains the most politically revealing cultural arena of modern Europe. This second edition includes: · updates to the original chapters, incorporating newly discovered archival sources and recent academic publications · an additional chapter examining developments in Eurovision’s seventh decade, including global expansion, protest movements and participant expulsions · a new conclusion reflecting on the author’s first-person, live experience of the contest

Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest examines how the Eurovision Song Contest has reflected and become intertwined with the history of postwar Europe from a political perspective. Established in 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest is the world's largest popular music event and one of the most popular television programmes in Europe, currently attracting a global audience of around 200 million people. Eurovision is often mocked as cultural kitsch because of its over-the-top performances and frivolous song lyrics. Yet there is no cultural medium that connects Europeans more than popular music, the development of which has always been tied to cultural, economic, political, social and technological change - making Eurovision the ideal tool to explain the history of Europe in the last sixty years. This book uses Eurovision as a vehicle to address topics ranging from the Cold War, liberal democracy and communism to nationalism, European integration, economic prosperity and human rights. It analyses these subjects through their cultural, political and social relationships with Eurovision entries as expressed through lyrics and music, as well as by examining public debates that have accompanied the selection of the entries and the organisation of the contest itself. Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest also considers how states have used Eurovision to define their identities in a European context, be it to assert their national distinctiveness, highlight political issues or affirm their Europeanism or Euroscepticism in the context of European integration. Based on original sources, including hitherto unpublished archival documents from international broadcasting organisations, this is a novel historical study of interest to anyone keen to know more about the postwar history of Europe and its cultural history in particular.

Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest examines how the Eurovision Song Contest has reflected and become intertwined with the history of postwar Europe from a political perspective. Established in 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest is the world's largest popular music event and one of the most popular television programmes in Europe, currently attracting a global audience of around 200 million people. Eurovision is often mocked as cultural kitsch because of its over-the-top performances and frivolous song lyrics. Yet there is no cultural medium that connects Europeans more than popular music, the development of which has always been tied to cultural, economic, political, social and technological change - making Eurovision the ideal tool to explain the history of Europe in the last sixty years. This book uses Eurovision as a vehicle to address topics ranging from the Cold War, liberal democracy and communism to nationalism, European integration, economic prosperity and human rights. It analyses these subjects through their cultural, political and social relationships with Eurovision entries as expressed through lyrics and music, as well as by examining public debates that have accompanied the selection of the entries and the organisation of the contest itself. Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest also considers how states have used Eurovision to define their identities in a European context, be it to assert their national distinctiveness, highlight political issues or affirm their Europeanism or Euroscepticism in the context of European integration. Based on original sources, including hitherto unpublished archival documents from international broadcasting organisations, this is a novel historical study of interest to anyone keen to know more about the postwar history of Europe and its cultural history in particular.