Eurovision ERMeCC Lunch Seminar: What does the Eurovision Song Contest tell us about Europe?

What does the Eurovision Song Contest tell us about Europe?
Dean Vuletic

As one of the world’s longest-running and most popular television shows, the Eurovision Song Contest is one of the cultural mega-events that most unites Europeans. Founded in 1956, the contest has given viewers the opportunity to hear and watch popular music performances from national cultures from across Europe — from Sweden, a popular music superpower, to the microstate of San Marino (where else do you get to see San Marino on the international stage every year?). As states have appropriated the Eurovision Song Contest as musical diplomacy, the contest has also reflected political relations in Europe, from French great power ambitions in the 1960s to Russo-Western tensions today. This year, the contest has already been marked by the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the anti-government protests in Belarus and Hungary’s snubbing of European institutions. In his talk, Dr. Dean Vuletic, the world’s foremost academic expert on the history of the Eurovision Song Contest, will address why the development of the contest has been intertwined with the history of contemporary Europe. He will also discuss what the contest tells us about the politics of Europe of today… and why, this year, Europeans may fall in love with France and Russia again.

Dean Vuletic is a historian of contemporary Europe based in the Research Center for the History of Transformations at the University of Vienna. After receiving his doctoral degree in history from Columbia University, he designed the world’s first-ever university course on the Eurovision Song Contest, which he began teaching at New York University. He is the author of Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), the only scholarly monograph on the history of the contest, which he produced under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Intra-European Fellowship. As a Lise Meitner Fellow, he has also led a research project on the history of Eastern Europe’s Cold War-era Intervision Song Contest. Dean is a leading media commentator and public speaker on the Eurovision Song Contest, and more information about his work can be found on his website www.deanvuletic.com.