KYIV, UKRAINE – The song which won the Ukrainian national final this year, “1944” got massive criticism from many Europeans and media regarding it’s story. The song tells the personal story of Jamala’s family and Tatar deportation from the Stalin regime. Many claimed that it was clearly anti-Russian song aiming to provoke in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest against Putin’s invasion to Crimea.
The dispute ended up at the EBU where the Reference Group decided and announced via Twitter that the song is not considered political therefore is eligible to participate. After all we have seen many “political” songs in Eurovision despite few efforts to disqualify some entries. A fair decision for a country which after all suffered an unprecedented civil war recently and a song about their history surely created sentiments in favour of Jamala. In the end Ukrainian’s voted for it!
