The golden carriage driving Ukraine’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest turned into a pumpkin even before the start of this year’s ball in Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Amid a row over contestants political views, all of the finalists in the national selection competition refused to sign the Ukrainian Public Broadcasting Company’s contract to participate in Eurovision, prompting the company to withdraw from the event completely.
Maruv, the singer who initially won the national selection competition, refused on Feb. 25 to sign the contract with the Ukrainian Public Broadcasting Company, Eurovision’s partner in Ukraine. Maruv said she had been forced to refuse to take part in Eurovision by what she said were the contract’s strict conditions.
The Ukrainian Public Broadcasting Company next approached Freedom Jazz and Kazka, the acts that came second and third, who also refused to participate, on Feb. 26 and Feb. 27, respectively. The company then decided to pull out of Eurovision this year altogether. The contest will take place on May 14–18.
What sparked the scandal was Maruv’s political position, or rather lack thereof. Maruv frequently performs in Russia — something some Ukrainian artists stopped doing in protest against Russia’s war on Ukraine, which Moscow has waged since 2014 and which has killed 13,000 people, according to UN estimates.
In response to an outcry from a section of the public, the public broadcaster added a clause to its contract, banning Ukraine’s representative from performing in Russia before Eurovision, or for three months after.
That prompted a counter-outcry from another section of the public outraged by the sudden change in the rules and perceived interference in Maruv’s freedom to perform.
The Ukrainian Public Broadcasting Company, which has in its charter the “consolidation of Ukrainian society” as one of its goals, found itself dividing the public over the issue of touring in the aggressor country Russia. Five years since the start of the war, the issue remains a contentious one.
Russia touring
“Fighting for peace is like f*cking for virginity,” Maruv told a pool of journalists after winning the semifinals of the Ukrainian Eurovision selection.
“Performing concerts is my way of bringing peace,” she later told the jury at the finals.
The 27-year-old singer’s real name is Anna Korsun. She performed in Russia as Maruv in 2018 and has scheduled concerts in Moscow and Saint Petersburg on April 6 and April 12. Korsun also performed in Russia as a member of the band The Pringlez, which in 2015 competed in New Wave, a Russian music contest.
Korsun was born in Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovska Oblast, a city of 110,000 residents 550 kilometers southeast of Kyiv. She now lives in Kyiv and pays taxes in Ukraine.
However, as a non-resident foreigner, Maruv has to pay 30 percent income tax on every legal payment she gets for her concerts in Russia. That means $300 of every $1,000 she makes goes to the Russian state budget, helping to finance the war against Ukraine.
Moreover, Maruv is signed with Warner Music Russia, a branch of the multinational Warner Music Group. The label also pays taxes to Russia’s budget for the income it generates from sales, streams and other royalties from Maruv’s music, as well as on its share of the takings from the artist’s concerts.
But it’s not like Maruv was able to choose which label to sign with: According to Oleksandra Koltsova, the management board member of Ukraine’s public broadcaster who negotiated with Maruv, the singer went through every talent show in Ukraine but was not signed by any Ukrainian channels and labels, until she was taken on by Warner Music Russia.
Eurovision contract
While her record label certainly imposes touring obligations on Maruv, the singer says she was ready to follow the clause in the public broadcaster’s contract and would have canceled her concerts in Russia.
But other clauses made her feel under pressure, she said: bans on ad-libbing during her performance, unscheduled interviews with journalists, and the requirement to follow all of the public broadcaster’s instructions during the competition. Failure to meet the conditions would result in a Hr 2 million fine ($74,000).
“The artist (Maruv) is so far removed from political realities in Ukraine and has such an individual view of how she should talk about it, that she perceived it (the contract) as an attack on her creative freedom and the threat to her stage image,” Koltsova told Hromadske TV channel in an interview.
Koltsova said that the conditions offered to Maruv were standard for all Eurovision competitors, apart from the new clause about touring in Russia. She said those same clauses were in the contracts signed by Ukrainian competitors in previous years.
However, the spokespersons of Ukraine’s Eurovision 2016 representative Jamala and 2018 representative Mélovin said there were some discrepancies between the contract described by Maruv and the contracts their artists signed.
Denis Kozlovskyi from Jamala’s team told the Kyiv Post that they did not have to clear the artist’s interviews with journalists with Ukraine’s public broadcaster. And Mélovin’s spokesperson Svitlana Pankova said they were not required to be present at all the events organized by the broadcaster. Moreover, there were no fines specified in the contract.
“We were not told what to do with our performance, which elements we couldn’t add to it, where not to go, and what not to say,” Pankova said.
The band Freedom Jazz came second at the final of the national selection competition for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Kyiv on Feb. 23, 2019. The band has also refused to represent Ukraine. (UNIAN)
Finding solutions
Maruv is far from the only Ukrainian artist to have toured in Russia since 2014. Another 2019 contender, the band Yuko, performed in Russia last year. And a front-runner in the 2016 national selection, SunSay, had performed both in Russia and in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea.
“Even though we say there are only a few cases of touring in Russia, there are concerts that are not reported by every band. People go to the Russian Federation as backing vocalists, … to corporate concerts, performing for Russian businesses at resorts,” said Koltsova.
Such touring activity is currently not regulated in Ukraine. But after the scandal over this year’s Eurovision selection competition, the government has asked parliament to review a bill submitted last year that would address the situation.
The bill would not ban artists from touring in Russia, but would require them to inform the public if they do, according to Vice Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kyrylenko. The State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine would also keep a register of such artists and inform the public.
“During their music videos, radio broadcasts of their songs, or on the posters of their concerts, there would be the message: ‘This artist tours on the territory of the aggressor state,’” Kyrylenko told Novoye Vremya radio.
The government has also demanded that the Ukrainian Public Broadcasting Company change the rules of the national Eurovision selection competition, presumably adding a requirement for artists not to have toured in Russia.
The public broadcaster said it was to blame for the failure to produce an entry for this year’s Eurovision, and called for a public debate on the matter, rather than rushed decisions.
“The public broadcaster considers it necessary to initiate a public dialogue in the format of talk shows, forums and discussions with leading experts to formulate the position of Ukrainian society on the issue,” the broadcaster said in a statement issued on Feb. 27.
