One of life’s guilty pleasures is my annual serial drama/talent show/comedy of errors – all that is… EUROVISION.

With the exception of a few – Abba & Celine Dion – Eurovision winners never cross the Atlantic nor make any US impact.  Rap, rock, jazz, lotta ballads, lotta Euro pop.  Each country nominates an artist & supplies an original tune…Eurovision is a ‘song’ contest.

That said, can say it’s rarely about the music.

Yeah, yeah…a few catchy hooks can crown a champ – but generally it’s a performance that wins.  In 2014 Austria’s bearded lady, Conchita Wurst, ‘rose like a Phoenix’ stage-surrounded by wings forged from fire; in 2006 Finland’s Lordi costumed as ‘monster men’ screeched metal with ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’.  Year over year – kinda all over the place – never know what you’re gonna see.

This year’s event comprised 40+ contestants; my early faves: Russia, Ukraine & Iceland.

Iceland didn’t make the Finals; Russia won Fan Favourite; but ultimately, it was Ukraine’s Jamala whose performance intensified as the week-long competition progressed & polled enough votes to secure her country’s first ever victory.

Jamala’s 1944, partially sung in ethnic Crimean, inspired me to learn more about her great-grandmother’s story & Stalin’s forced resettlement of the Crimean Tatars.

The forcible deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea was ordered by Joseph Stalin as a form of collective punishment for collaborating with the Nazi occupation regime in Taurida Subdistrict during 1942–1943.  The state-organized removal is known as the Sürgünlik in Crimean Tatar.  A total of more than 230,000 people were deported, mostly to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.  This included the entire ethnic Crimean Tatar population, at the time about a fifth of the total population of the Crimean Peninsula, as well as smaller numbers of ethnic Greeks and Bulgarians.  A large number of deportees (more than 100,000 according to a 1960s survey by Crimean Tatar activists) died from starvation or disease as a direct result of deportation.

Mark your calendars (maybe watch in secret but…) join the craziness & tune-in next May – EUROVISION 2017 LIVE from Kiev!

Crimean Tatar
1944

 

When strangers are coming…
They come to your house,
They kill you all
and say,
We’re not guilty
not guilty.

 

Where is your mind?
Humanity cries.
You think you are gods.
But everyone dies.
Don’t swallow my soul.
Our souls

 

Yaşlığıma toyalmadım
Men bu yerde yaşalmadım
Yaşlığıma toyalmadım
Men bu yerde yaşalmadım

 

We could build a future
Where people are free
to live and love.
The happiest time.

 

Where is your heart?
Humanity rise.
You think you are gods
But everyone dies.
Don’t swallow my soul.
Our souls

 

Yaşlığıma toyalmadım
Men bu yerde yaşalmadım
Yaşlığıma toyalmadım
Men bu yerde yaşalmadım

Vatanıma toyalmadım