The final voting of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 turned into a big drama – and not only in Stockholm, where the competition took place on May 14.
The final moments of the vote were a duel between the participants from Ukraine and Russia, who got the highest points in the TV audience voting and hence got their results announced last.
Although Russian Sergey Lazarev became the leader of the televoting with 361 points and 130 points from the jury, he couldn’t beat Ukraine’s Jamala, who came second in televotes with 323 points but received 211 points from the international jury.
As a result, Jamala’s song “1944” won the first place with 534 points total, while the favorite of the jury voting Australian singer Dami Im with her song “Sound of Silence” came second with 511 points. Russia ended the competition in the third place with 491 points for “You Are The Only One.”
Such a tense final provoked a lot of emotional reactions all over the world – and more than anywhere, in Russia.
While celebrities and social media users all over the world were congratulating Ukraine, Russian press and Twitter accused the Eurovision organizers of a rigged vote count and blamed Jamala’s win on politics.
The new voting system that was brought in this year finds the winner using not only the audience televoting, as it used to be, but also the points awarded by a professional jury of each country.
Russians furious about loss
Although Lazarev himself congratulated Jamala in a video commentary posted to his Instagram on May 15, Russian segment of Twitter burst out with negative comments about the Ukrainian’s victory.
Many users wrote that Lazarev was the real winner of the Eurovision song contest since he came first in the televote. This was the opinion that prevailed in the studio of Russia One TV channel during the live talk show that took place immediately after the Eurovision broadcast, where the guests, among them politicians, celebrities and other media personalities, praised Lazarev as the winner.
The show’s topic was “The Conquest of Europe.”
Some Russians thought that Jamala should have been disqualified because of the political context of her song.
While “1944” is officially a reflection of the tragic deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea, ordered by the Soviet authorities in 1944 that touched Jamala’s own family, the song is also reminiscent of the recent tensions with Russia, including its war in eastern Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and oppression of the Crimean Tatars that followed it.
“At least Crimea is ours!”, “Hate that howling Tatar”, “Ukraine is a poor trash. They will ask Russia for money to organize the next Eurovision,” Russian Twitter users wrote following Jamala’s victory.
Russian media also found Ukraine’s victory on Eurovision unfair. Russian newspapers and TV shows said that the international jury was politically charged and biased against Russia.
The media frenzy started way ahead of the Eurovision final. On May 10, Russian state news agency Zvezda wrote that the U.S. State Department bribed the organizers so that the Ukrainian singer wins.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitriy Rogozin wrote on Twitter that Russia should send Leningrad, a Russian band known for their obscene lyrics, to participate in Eurovision 2017.
“He won’t win, but he definitely will tell all of them to bugger off,” wrote Rogozin.
The suggestion surprised Sergey Shnurov, the front man of Leningrad.
“It’s a deputy prime minister of a nuclear country writing it,” he commented on Instagram.
The professional jury that Russians blame is a jury of five music professionals in each country who give out their votes for the participants. Russian singer Anastasia Stotskaya, who was a member of Russia’s Eurovision jury, was the only judge among all the juries to be disqualified. A few days before the contest she violated its rules by streaming the entire final rehearsal in Periscope and revealing to which country she would give the highest points.
“Watching Russian TV blaming Ukraine’s #Eurovision win on ‘information war against Russia’ is a better show than the music itself,” Max Seddon, Moscow-based correspondent of Financial Times, wrote on Twitter.
West surprised
The reaction to Jamala’s victory in the West was far more positive.
The contest was broadcasted in 50 countries, including the U.S., Australia and China.
American pop star Justin Timberlake, who gave a guest performance at the Eurovision, congratulated Jamala on her victory on his official Facebook page.
J. K.Rowling, the famous British author of Harry Potter novels, also supported Ukraine in the competition on Twitter, writing “Go Ukraine!”
“Loving the attitude from Georgia. 12 points for Ukraine, nothing for Russia and they sent a vampire to deliver the news. GO UKRAINE!” wrote Rowling, referring to a vampire-like look of the TV presenter from Georgia who announced the jury vote in his country.
Western media also admitted the fact that Jamala’s song was politically charged and didn’t hide that the Crimean Tatar singer’s victory was a surprise.
“Ukraine’s Jamala struck a surprise gold in the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday,” read the story in the world’s largest international multimedia news agency Reuters.
During the pre-final days, Jamala received the Marcel Bezençon Award, named after the creator of Eurovision, in the Best Artist nomination. She also got the an award for the best line for the lyrics “You think you are gods, but everyone dies.”
A Crimean Tatar politician, the leader of the representative body of Crimean Tatars Mejlis, Refat Chubarov wrote on his Facebook that Jamala’s Eurovision victory is the first step to returning the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula to Ukraine.
