Song in the Balkans

Back in the 1960s, life happened in black and white, as everyone knows - so at the Eurovision Song Contest it was the music and not the visuals that played the most important role, says Ljiljana Petrovic. In 1961, she competed as Yugoslavia's very first Eurovision contestant. Petrovic finished eighth and, though she didn't win that year, she still has positive memories of the event.

"Thinking about Eurovision always brings joy and excitement back, because it was so amazing and enthusiastic. I get excited whenever I talk about it," Petrovic told Deutsche Welle.

Yugoslavia won the Eurovision Song Contest just once - in 1989, the same year the Berlin Wall fell and the Iron Curtain started to crumble. It was the pop band, Riva, from Croatia that took home the trophy. Soon after that, the Balkan Wars began and Yugoslavia broke apart.

More countries, contestants and votes

What used to be Yugoslavia is now six independent countries - and that means six potential contestants at Eurovision.

According to the official rules, viewers are not allowed to vote for their own country. But the Balkan countries are notorious for voting for each other in recent years. To an outsider, that may seem strange, as the region was just recently ravaged by war.

Miroslav Luburic from Serbia's Eurovision fan organization OGAE admitted that "block-voting" occurs in the Balkans, as it also does in Scandinavia and former Soviet countries, but he believes there is a good explanation for it.

"In Serbia, we don't consider Croatian or Bosnian singers to be 'foreign,'" explained Luburic. "They're all being played on our radio stations, making concerts all the time. It's natural that we will vote more for them than for an obscure Danish group no one ever heard of."

Long-time pop star Dino Merlin will be representing Bosnia and Herzegovina at Eurovision for the second time this year. He doesn't find it unusual that former Yugoslavians vote for each other.

"People are always going to vote for a song and for the performer that is familiar to them," he said. "We share the same language, same culture, same style, even the same taste in food - so why not in music?"

Strong folk scene sparks Eurovision interest

The voting question aside, Eurovision has always enjoyed more popularity in the Balkans than in western Europe. Kristina Kovac, who wrote Serbia's song for this year's Eurovision, attributes the interest to the region's challenging past, but also to differences in the music industry.

"I think that the music industry is much more developed and much stronger in Western European countries," she said. "It's more local and it's mixed with some kind of ethno and folk music. I suppose that's the reason why people here take Eurovision so seriously - it's a great chance to present it to Europe."

Kristina Kovac's song, "Magical," will be performed in Düsseldorf by the 21-year-old Serbian singer Nina Radojcic.

After over half a decade, the Eurovision Song Contest has become the world's most-watched music show on television, with some 120 million viewers. Ljiljana Petrovic, Yugoslavia's first contestant, says its development hasn't been all positive and, these days, it's losing its connection with music.

"Eurovision was a very elegant and dignified festival," said Petrovic. "As the time passed, it turned into a more colorful event. There were more and more special effects and less and less music. As much as that makes the show fascinating, music is getting lost - for me that's terrible."

It's all about music

This year's song from Bosnia Herzegovina, called "Love in Rewind," might just help people get back to the roots of what Eurovision was originally all about, says Dejan Kukric, the head of Bosnia and Hezegovina's Eurovision delegation.

"We are all connected; maybe not in politics, but in music we certainly are," said Kukric. "Music is one of those small things that make life better. That's why we are sending a song to Eurovision this year with a strong message: that we need to press the rewind button sometimes to bring back the old days when everything was good."

Perhaps Eurovision has even played a small role in helping the Balkans recover from a period of war and connect again.

Author: Jakov Leon
Editor: Kate Bowen