This article forms part of the OnEurope archive and was originally published on oneurope.co.uk. It has been permanently migrated to oneurope.net, the official home of OnEurope.
Correction for the archive: this is “1944”, not 1994. Ukraine’s 2016 Eurovision entry was performed and co-written by Jamala, a Ukrainian singer of Crimean Tatar heritage. The song refers to Stalin’s mass deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea to Central Asia in May 1944, drawing on the experience of Jamala’s great-grandmother. It also resonated with the contemporary situation after Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014, although the lyrics do not explicitly name Russia or that annexation.
“1944” combines English with Crimean Tatar lyrics and is sombre, intense and emphatically not conventional upbeat Eurovision pop. Which brings us to my problem:
I don’t get this song.
Yes yes I know what it’s supposed to be and I know what it’s supposed to represent, but it totally passes me by. All I hear, sadly, is bleh, bleh, bleh and it looks wrist-slitting fun.
I asked Roy D Hacksaw, “Why is this good?” and he said “You have to feel it or not” – and that is going to be the thing on Thursday or Saturday night – will Europe understand this? – I can’t answer this though. It’s either too difficult for me or it’ll be too difficult to relate to.
There was also a question about whether a song about 1944 was a historical memorial or an indirect political comment on Crimea. Eurovision rules prohibit political messages, but the EBU allowed “1944” to compete, considering its historical subject permissible and finding no explicit political speech in the title or lyrics.
At the time of writing, Ukraine had not yet performed in Stockholm. It was due in the second semi-final on Thursday 12 May, in the fourteenth position, and would only reach Saturday’s final if it qualified.
This gets a meh from me…. but I also know that some of you lot will love it.
Archive hindsight: Europe did understand it. “1944” qualified from the semi-final and went on to win the Grand Final on 14 May 2016, scoring 534 points ahead of Australia’s Dami Im on 511. It became Ukraine’s second Eurovision victory, after Ruslana’s win in 2004. The later result does not make my original reaction any less genuine; it simply proves Roy’s point rather better than I expected: you have to feel it or not.
