Eurovision: Ethnic rivalry wins over kitsch in the Caucasus

Foreign Policy magazine called the Eurovision Song Contest the “giddiest, stupidest, campiest, silliest international competition of them all,” but don’t tell that to anyone in the South Caucasus. Here, many take it very seriously indeed. With the opportunity on hand to perpetuate decades of animosity and years of ethnic hate, if Eurovision was meant to bring nations together, in this region it instead achieves the exact opposite.

It all started in February with an anti-Putin disco number resulting in Georgia’s eventual boycott of the contest held in Moscow, but more controversy emerged this week when Azerbaijan noticed the presence of a statue from the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh in Armenia’s presentation video. Complaints to the competition organizers eventually saw it removed, but the dispute didn’t end there.

During the televoting for tonight’s final, for example, one user on Twitter reported that the number for Armenia had apparently been omitted from the simultaneous retransmission in Azerbaijan.

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