The road to Stockholm: politics and the shadow of Russia
The EBU check for political content
Right after winning Vidbir, Jamala and “1944” ended up at the centre of controversies. A song about the deportation of Crimean Tatars during World War Two, only two years after the invasion of Crimea, could hardly be seen as completely neutral.
Most of the controversy came from Russia, with the Russian Duma (the lower house of Parliament) publicly calling for the song to be reviewed and rejected by the EBU. Russian officials, including the local government of annexed Crimea, saw the song as a provocation and as fuelling claims of recent human rights violations against Tatars in the territory. Tatars were hostile to the Russian takeover, and Jamala herself had said in interviews that her family in Crimea was living in “occupied territory”, a rhetoric that went against Russia’s version of the events, in which Crimea freely chose self-determination away from Ukraine.
Despite these words, Jamala stated several times that the song “had no political undertones”, and was about “remembering the past and not the politics of the present”. She even said that she was ready to change the lyrics if prompted to do so by the EBU. On March 9th, however, the EBU announced that the Reference Group had reviewed the entry and that “the title and lyrics of the song [didn’t] contain political speech and [didn’t] breach Eurovision rules”.
The underdog in hiding
Having been vetted by the Eurovision powers that be, “1944” was finally on the road to Stockholm. But victory was not yet an obvious outcome as the selection season ended. Checking the odds at four points in times (a week after Vidbir, at the end of the selection season, in the middle of the promotion season, and right before Eurovision rehearsals), it was clear that Ukraine was an underdog, never solidly reaching the top five until the contest itself.
| Position | Feb 29 | March 18 | Apr 13 | Apr 30 |
| 1st | 🇵🇱 Poland | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇷🇺 Russia |
| 2nd | 🇸🇪 Sweden | 🇸🇪 Sweden | 🇫🇷 France | 🇫🇷 France |
| 3rd | 🇷🇺 Russia | 🇦🇺 Australia | 🇸🇪 Sweden | 🇸🇪 Sweden |
| 4th | 🇱🇻 Latvia | 🇭🇷 Croatia | 🇦🇺 Australia | 🇦🇺 Australia |
| 5th | 🇦🇺 Australia | 🇲🇹 Malta | 🇲🇹 Malta | 🇧🇬 Bulgaria |
| 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 9th | 8th | 6th | 8th |
The Ukrainian delegation did little in terms of European promotion for their entry in 2016, which may not have helped its odds. While they mainly focused on having Jamala tour Ukraine, they did manage to participate in one pre-party, Amsterdam’s Eurovision in Concert.
There, our team had the opportunity to meet with her, and to interview her. She already had a new performance and staging for Eurovision, including a new dress, and shared how personal “1944” was to her.
It hurts every time when I sing it, but I hope that I can show you, through this song, all my souls, all my heart, involved in this song, in this music.
Jamala, interviewed by ESCXTRA at Eurovision in Concert 2016
The finish line: victory of the runner-up
The shake-up of rehearsals
On April 30, as delegations were already travelling to Stockholm, Russia was the favourite to win the contest, with France seen as a serious contender. Two days later, rehearsals started at the Ericsson Globe (Avicii Arena nowadays). And from there, things started to move slowly into the direction of the final results.
The first day of the week concluded with Russia’s rehearsal, with extended footage leaking online. Despite an impressive staging, the odds for Russia’s victory actually started to drift at this point, although it remained the favourite. “You Are The Only One” was “the one to beat”, and was dominating the first semi-final.
The second semi-final was more contested. After the first rehearsals, though, two countries had risen up through the ranks: Ukraine and Australia, which ended up in 2nd and 3rd place in the odds for victory after a disappointing first rehearsal from France, who quickly lost its status as the closest challenger for victory. At the end of the second rehearsals, the three favourites were clearly Russia, Ukraine and Australia, with Sweden in fourth place as a potential underdog.
Qualifying for the final
Russia easily qualified from the first semi-final, with very little suspense, being the second country to be announced. Although Lazarev’s performance impressed the audience and the public, the Eurovision community was also buzzing with the information that Russian jurors had streamed themselves on Periscope while watching the Jury semi-final, showcasing the dubious conditions in which their voting took place. The EBU had quickly reacted and withdrawn the juror that had filmed the events, but did not go further.
On Thursday, May 12th, came the second semi-final, with its two challengers, Australia and Ukraine. “1944” performed in the 14th position, after an ad break following Denmark’s “Soldiers of love”. That’s when the general public discovered, for the first time, the full performance of what would become the 2016 winning song.
Rewatching this performance, it’s clear that the staging did a really good job at captivating the audience in its first minute. Years later, everyone remembers the giant LED tree of the final chorus. But “1944” began with a 40-second-long static shot of Jamala facing the camera from afar, wearing a blue dress —designed by Ivan Frolov —, singing in front of a smoky blue projection, and standing under spotlights. After 40 seconds of that fixed shot full of light, viewers switched to a crane camera slowly orbiting above the stage, with Jamala dwarfed by the darkness, as threads of coloured light sprang from her on the LED floor. The stark contrast between a blue, light, fixed shot with straight lignes “on the back wall”, and a smooth, slow-moving, dark shot with warm-coloured organic threads on the floor, as the chorus hit, made the second shot even more captivating. This was a bit of a gamble, but it paid off, and it grabbed the viewers’ attention and led them to the “wham shot” of the LED tree.
At the end of the show, Ukraine obviously qualified for the final. So did Australia, the other challenger, and they were actually announced one after another by the hosts, Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede
Running up to the trophy
With all the qualifiers revealed, and all the automatic finalists performances released on Youtube (they did not, at the time, perform live during the semi-final broadcast), the picture was clear for the Saturday Grand Final. Russia was still the one to beat, with Australia and Ukraine in 2nd and 3rd position respectively. Sweden came fourth and France fifth, but Amir’s staging was already considered a disappointment by the community press, and few considered it still a contender for the win.
After their qualifications, Australia drew to perform in the first half of the final, and Ukraine in the second, just as Russia did. The running order was revealed early on the Friday evening:
- Australia was placed at the latest possible slot of the first half, #13, which was a good position
- Russia got the #18 slot, which was not, in absolute terms, the best one for a strong pop song (although Denmark won from that position in 2013) ; in relative terms, however, it was placed between Croatia and Spain, two performances that lacked the strength and the staging “wow” factors to outshine it
- Ukraine was to perform at #21, after the dark, vocally raw performance of Latvia’s Justs, and before Malta’s more “classical” pop song, which was a good position both in relative and absolute terms
Then came the voting. This was the inaugural year of the new voting system, with a slightly different way of announcing the points than what we have now. As a result, the final moments of the voting sequence made for a very symbolic TV moment of a musical battle between Ukraine and Russia to take the win.
Just like today, jury votes were announced first, with each spokesperson announcing the twelve points from their national jury. After all had made their appearances, the top five was as follows :
| Position | Country | Points | 12 points |
| 1st | 🇦🇺Australia | 320 | 8x |
| 2nd | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 211 | 11x |
| 3rd | 🇫🇷 France | 148 | 1x |
| 4th | 🇲🇹 Malta | 137 | 1x |
| 5th | 🇷🇺 Russia / 🇧🇪 Belgium | 130 | 🇷🇺 4x / 🇧🇪 2x |
Australia was the clear leader, 109p ahead of Ukraine. The rest of the top 5 was the head of the pack, with the next few songs each having a few points less than the one above, in the 120’s, then 110’s, etc.
Ukraine’s position as the jury runner-up came from a very polarised reception from the national juries. “1944” had the most “12p”, meaning it was the favourite of a plurality of juries, but it still finished way behind Australia, which had a broader appeal. “Sound of Silence” received points from 38 countries, while Ukraine only received points from 24 countries. That is even less than France, in third place, which was in the top 10 of 26 juries. This meant that, even though fewer juries gave Ukraine points, they gave it more points on average than Australia (8.8p for a Ukrainian-voting jury, against 8.4p for an Australian-voting jury).
Would the same be true of the televote? Not really. The details of the public voting was not revealed during the broadcast, but let us still make a quick analysis of it before coming back to the events that unfolded at the end of the Grand Final.
Russia, unsurprisingly, won the televote, with 361 points. Ukraine, once again, was the runner-up, with 323 points, and Poland was third with 222 points, in start contrast to its 7 jury points. In this instance, Ukraine was a much stronger runner-up than in the jury vote, having received points from every other national audience, except Iceland (Russia got points from every other audience, including Iceland). This broader televote appeal helped in getting a stronger position than Australia, in fourth position with 191 televote points.
Runner-up of the jury, runner-up of the televote, Ukraine won because the winners of both votes did not score enough points in the other vote. Consistency brought Ukraine its victory.
A reveal for the ages
Back to the Final as it was broadcast now. For the first time, public and jury points were separated and announced separately live on TV. Today, after the jury votes, the hosts confirm that the televote has been counted, then announce the total televote points received by the country placing last in the jury, then the next country, etc. following the jury rankings.
But between 2016 and 2018, the countries were announced in the order of the televote ranking, meaning the country with the lowest televote points was announced first, and the televote winner, last. Within a few minutes, most countries had been revealed, and only the four favourite entries of the public remained.
The was the jury winner still in the lead, the runner-up not far behind, Russia relegated to the right-side of the scoreboard, and lonely Poland with its seven points ready to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the juries’ disdain.
Australia got its points first, remaining in the lead. Then Poland received 222 points to rise to the left-side under the ovation of the crowd. And we were left with the symbolic, musical battle between Ukraine and Russia. Second with the public, Jamala received its points first and took the lead, a few points ahead of Dami Im. Russia was the televote winner, and needed 405 points. The rest, as they say, is history.
Thunder and lightning, it’s getting exciting. The favourite according to the televote is Russia, but will their points be enough to pass Ukraine?
Måns Zelmerlöw announcing the final televote points
You have given your highest score to Russia, all of… 361 points, which… is not enough to pass Ukraine.
And we have a new winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016, it’s Ukraine!
And that was the road to victory for “1944”: a short one, in the end, only 23 points ahead of Australia. In an alternate universe, an extra country (Portugal, anyone?) could have given “Sound of Silence” 24 points and given it an edge. In another alternate universe, the EBU had not changed the voting system, and Australia would have won the contest. But in our world, Ukraine won.
In the days that followed, a video of Jamala performing “Bizim Qirim” live a year before the contest, months before the September 1st deadline, resurfaced. It only had a few hundred views, and the EBU considered that it had given no unfair advantage to Ukraine in its participation. The victory was secure, the contest was heading to Ukraine for the second time in its history.
Years later, “1944” remained an ever-important song, performed by Jamala all over Europe, even more so after the 2022 Russian invasion. It was, after all, a song that beat strong odds to bring Ukraine victory ahead of Russia…
My memories of this victory
2016 was the first contest I ever followed. As a young fan, I was not completely aware of Ukraine’s status as a potential favourite, and I thought it would be between France and Russia. With my own favourites (Spain, France, Estonia, etc.) I was usually way off the mark.
I distinctly remember the final votes: the idea that Poland would have such a good televote had never crossed my mind, and for a few seconds I entertained the incredible idea that “Colour of Your Life” could win. Then after Ukraine’s points were given, it was a clear battle, and the symbolism was not lost on the 17-year-old boy I was then. Jamala’s victory made me smile: having no particular opinion on the politicisation of the contest at the time, I felt that there was a poetic justice, and Ukraine thumbing its nose at Russia.
Did you follow the contest back in 2016? What are your memories of this experience, and of Ukraine’s path to Eurovision victory? Tell us more in the comments below or on social media, at @escxtra! And be sure to check us again next week, to read about Portugal’s first victory, in Kyiv, and how a song so foreign to Eurovision expectations swept the scoreboard like no one had or has done since.
