Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest - Hardcover

Vuletic, Dean

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1474276261 ISBN 13: 9781474276269

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018

Synopsis

Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest examines how the Eurovision Song Contest has reflected and become intertwined with the history of postwar Europe from a political perspective.

Established in 1956, the Eurovision Song Contest is the world's largest popular music event and one of the most popular television programmes in Europe, currently attracting a global audience of around 200 million people. Eurovision is often mocked as cultural kitsch because of its over-the-top performances and frivolous song lyrics. Yet there is no cultural medium that connects Europeans more than popular music, the development of which has always been tied to cultural, economic, political, social and technological change – making Eurovision the ideal tool to explain the history of Europe in the last sixty years. This book uses Eurovision as a vehicle to address topics ranging from the Cold War, liberal democracy and communism to nationalism, European integration, economic prosperity and human rights. It analyses these subjects through their cultural, political and social relationships with Eurovision entries as expressed through lyrics and music, as well as by examining public debates that have accompanied the selection of the entries and the organisation of the contest itself. Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest also considers how states have used Eurovision to define their identities in a European context, be it to assert their national distinctiveness, highlight political issues or affirm their Europeanism or Euroscepticism in the context of European integration.

Based on original sources, including hitherto unpublished archival documents from international broadcasting organisations, this is a novel historical study of interest to anyone keen to know more about the postwar history of Europe and its cultural history in particular.

About this title

About the Author

Dean Vuletic is a historian of contemporary Europe. As a Lise Meitner Fellow in the Department of East European History at the University of Vienna, he leads the project “Intervision: Popular Music and Politics in Eastern Europe”. As a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow, he previously led the project “Eurovision: A History of Europe through Popular Music”. He holds a doctorate in history from Columbia University, USA. He regularly comments on the Eurovision Song Contest in the international media.

Review

“It is the recognition of such value in song―no less in Eurovision song―that makes Dean Vuletic’s rich history of the Eurovision Song Contest very important reading indeed.” – German Studies Review

“[A] survey of the ESC, and a well-researched one. Vuletic makes extensive use of archival materials of the Council of Europe, International Telecommunications Union, EBU and OIRT ... [An] important and essential book.” – Music Reference Services Quarterly

"Vuletic ascribes the Eurovision Song Contest an important role in the history of post-war Europe ... Comprehensive in its coverage, it will become a go-to book for any scholar who is interested in the song contest and its history." - H-Net

"Moves between the Eurovision stage to the political stage ... Never has it been placed in its international context as in this truly inventive new book." - EuropeNow

“Vuletic goes beneath the bubblegum to reveal surprising machinations.” – Foreign Affairs

“Truly inventive ... Vuletic’s book does more than recall some of the greatest hits of the contest, it places Eurovision as the soundtrack of the story of European integration.” - Europe Now

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1474276261
• ISBN 13: 9781474276269
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288