In the Czech Republic, the group Vesna, which includes Czechs, Slovaks and a Russian, became the winner of the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023. The band’s entry will be performed in English, Ukrainian, Czech and Bulgarian, Ceske Noviny writes.
In the video for the song called My sister’s crown, the band depicts a fairy tale that begins with the words that once “love and brotherhood reigned in the Slavic kingdom”, but later “a shadow came and everything was forgotten.” After that, a story is told about Slavic sisters who are opposed by an evil force, depicted as a group of men.
In my country blocked
present tense
As the band members themselves explained, they decided to record this song and take part in Eurovision when they found out that the contest would not take place in Ukraine.
“We decided to make an artistic choice to pay tribute to our sister Ukraine. Therefore, the chorus of the song is sung in Ukrainian. Since Ukraine is going through a very difficult time, we wanted to express our frank support for Ukraine,” the musicians say.
But the crown, about which they sing in the song, means sovereignty not only national, but also individual. The group notes that sovereignty is a basic principle of society, because dignity and independence are based on our ability to make decisions about our own lives.
One of the members of the Vesna group, according to “Suspilne”, is Russian Alesya Ochepovskaya, who now performs with the support of Ukraine. However, social media users discovered a photo of her brother in a Russian military uniform, which he posted in 2020. Ochepovskaya herself claims that he is not a military man and does not support the war. As the publication found out, Ochepovskaya’s brother also lives in the Czech Republic, since the beginning of full-scale Russian aggression, he organized a fundraiser in support of Ukraine.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 will be held in Liverpool. In 2022, the Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra won the final of the competition with the song Stefania, and in 2023 the event was to be held in Ukraine. However, due to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) decided to transfer the right to host the competition to the UK, whose representative, Sam Ryder, took second place with the song Space man.
Representatives of Liverpool said that the competition at the M & S Bank Arena, which seats 11,000 spectators, will be held “on behalf of Ukraine.” The last time the UK hosted Eurovision was in 1998 in Birmingham.
In 2022, the competition was held in Turin, Italy. The show was watched live by about 160 million viewers worldwide. Then Russia did not take part in Eurovision – the organizers of the contest decided to disqualify the country because of the full-scale invasion of the Russian military into Ukraine. In addition to Russia, Belarus was also disqualified.
