Podcast

Eurovision: Music, Kitsch, and Politics

"So it's these old ladies doing folk music over a techno beat. It’s exactly what it sounds like."

The Eurovision Song Contest was created in 1956 as an opportunity to bring the nations and the people together in an expressly non-political fashion—through song. Now, 60 years later, Eurovision is often used as a specific political tool. James Evans and Yuval Weber discuss the history of the song contest and how Eurovision has been used as a political tool to reignite recent conflagration between Ukraine and Russia.

Soundcloud

Interim Executive Director, Davis Center

Cris Martin is the interim executive director of the Davis Center for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Ph.D. Student, Department of History, Harvard

James Gethyn Evans is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Harvard.

Research Assistant Professor, Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service