“Hey ho! Let’s go! Folklore and rock and roll”
So sang Zdob și Zdub representing Moldova in 2022’s Eurovision Song Contest. Their song, Trenuleţul, structured around a train ride between Moldova and Romania’s capitals, Chișinău and Bucharest, deals with travel, folklore, and nationhood. They mention dancing ‘hora’, a traditional dance in Romania and Moldova, and advocate the cooperation and union of the two countries.
The Eurovision Song Contest has, since 1956, had an unambiguous preoccupation with the folk, a genre that is very well represented in the competition’s history. Looking at this relationship allows us to better understand the nature and wider relevance of the music in Eurovision. The folk is a useful medium for problematising concepts like national identity and language as well as social issues. Furthermore, aspects of folklore in Eurovision are emblematic of more general issues of folklore.
Folk Music: A Question of National Identity and Language
As Eurovision is a competition that pits nation-states against each other, it is only natural that national identity is an inherent feature of representation in entries. This is certainly also inherent to folklore. In the nineteenth century climate of nationalism and romanticism in which the study of folklore emerged, nation-states sought to construct national identity through shared folklore. While Eurovision began and grew much later than this, the desire to assert national identity has arguably not waned. This holds especially true for countries that formed or gained autonomy during this time such as former Yugoslav states after its dissolution in 1991-1992 or the countries previously comprising the USSR from 1991. Such countries were keen to form individual national identity, and the Eurovision Song Contest served as a stage on which to do this. It is no surprise, therefore, that countries in the Balkans and on the Black Sea form two major hotspots of folkloric representation in Eurovision. This is alongside Scandinavia and countries with Celtic influence. It is worth noting that folk music is not always nationalist, and songs appealing to minority, external, trans-national, and even online folk traditions have all featured at Eurovision.
Language has been a divisive issue when it comes to national representation in Eurovision for a long time. This concerns whether entrants sing in English or not, with praise being heaped on acts that perform in their own language and criticism on those that adopt the dominant and homogenising English. Singing in one’s own national language was an enforced rule between 1966 and 1972, and again between 1977 and 1999. A seeming crisis reached a tipping point in 2017, with only one winner (Serbia, 2007) since the rule change in 1999 being a non-English entry. Yet, Portugal would win the competition in 2017 with Salvador Sobral’s Amar Pelos Dois, sung in Portuguese. Since an all-time low of non-English representation in 2015, Portugal’s triumph would cause a promising rise in songs featuring national languages. In 2024, 49% of songs in competition featured a language other than English. In addition to this, folk representation in Eurovision can spark discourse around folklore. Lithuania’s 2023 song featured a form of polyphonic folk singing called Sutartinės, which are recognised by the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, but within Lithuania were neither recognised by any official authority nor were widely popular. Subsequently, a national day to celebrate Sutartines has since been established, with Parliament attributing inspiration to the Eurovision song.
The folk is not only represented in the lyrics of Eurovision songs. The instruments, costumes, dance, staging, props, lighting, and practical and digital effects all serve to signal the folk to the audience, as well as actually represent folk traditions, and are a staple of countless performances over time.
Case Studies: Ukrainian Folk Success (Ukraine 2022, 2016, 2021)
Kalush Orchestra’s Stefania won Eurovision in its first edition after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It was only the third song Ukraine had entered entirely in Ukrainian, and the first song to win doing so. Although written prior, Stefania became an anthem of Ukrainian pride and power in the face of invasion. It certainly justifies its categorisation as folk hip-hip through its use of folk woodwind instruments, the sopilka and telenka, performed by Ihor Didenchuk. Didenchuk plays over fifty instruments, including many associated with folk, and is a professional folklorist, collecting folk music from around Ukraine. Also featured in the act, is the anonymous MC Kilimmen, who dances hip-hop, breakdance, and the folk dance, hopak. He is dressed in a full body suit with patterns typical of Ukrainian carpets. Kilimmen translating to ‘carpet man’.
Ukraine’s winning entry in 2016, Jamala’s 1944, had comparable political context. Featuring a chorus in Crimean, the title and song refer to the year in which Crimean Tatars were forcefully deported by the Russian state. It has added meaning given Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. After winning, Jamala began travelling Crimea to collect and preserve local folk songs, only for her to be banned from Crimea. As a result, those living in Crimea began secretly sending her the music she was looking for, allowing her to record them all in collaboration with over eighty folk and orchestral musicians. Although it was eventually recovered, all the recorded music was lost as a result of Russian bombing when the Russo-Ukrainian war began in 2022. The folk songs are entirely in Crimean.
Of the three, SHUM by Go_A certainly exhibits the most direct folk influence. Shum literally translates to ‘noise’ but also refers to a forest spirit in Ukrainian mythology. SHUM is lyrically near-identical to several established Ukrainian folk songs. The opening four lines, for example, resemble A v nashoho shuma, from the village, Rozumivka. As well as in Stefania, Didenchuk performed on the soplika in SHUM, alongside Kateryna Pavlenko, a folk singer, and two contemporary musicians. Pavlenko sings in ‘white voice’, a traditional Slavic vocal genre involving producing sound from the back of the throat. Moreover, Go_A is supposedly a cryptic command to go back to one’s cultural roots, clearly advocating the folk. The staging, costuming, and dance of SHUM is also of note. Leafless, white trees and icy blue lighting evoke winter, but lead singer Pavlenko’s vivid green fur sleeves evoke the blossoming of spring. Similarly, during an instrumental break dancers appear to catch seeds. This points to seasonal transition, and the rituals associated with it, especially considering the meaning of Shum as forest spirit.
Evidently, Ukraine is a nation that regularly uses Eurovision as a stage on which to represent folkloric elements with relation to contemporary political context. Indeed, 1944 and Stefania are two of Ukraine’s three victories, with their only other, in 2004, being the first song to win featuring (although not entirely) a language other than English since 1999. Not only folk musicians, but actual folklorists, like Jamala or Didenchuk, are involved with Ukraine’s ongoing Eurovision success, pointing to both Ukraine and Eurovision’s close relationship with the subject.
Case Study: Crowning the Witch (Ireland 2024)
Bambie Thug’s Doomsday Blue, was a powerful and cinematic performance of alternative folk-horror. Central to this is Bambie’s personal identity and practice of neopagan witchcraft. This not only represented Ireland’s pagan roots but also intersected with the reclaiming of the historically marginalised archetype of a witch to align with Bambie’s stated aim of representing queer and alternative communities, turning a folkloric figure into a symbol of empowerment and subversion. Indeed, at the climax of the song, Bambie evocatively strips their dark, folkloric witch costume to reveal a bodysuit in the colours of the transgender flag.
Furthermore, Bambie intended to display the words “ceasefire” and “freedom for Palestine” in Ogham script (an early medieval Celtic alphabet) painted onto their face as a political statement regarding the Israel-Hamas war. Competition organisers intervened, forcing the removal of the text and allowing only the slogan “Crown the Witch”. This incident highlights how a specific folk element became the medium for a personal/political stance, forcing the EBU to enforce its often ambiguous “non-political” rule and demonstrating the inherent entanglement of culture and politics on the Eurovision stage. It showcased how artists utilise cultural heritage to test boundaries and make contemporary statements, even within restrictive frameworks.
Doomsday Blue was the first Irish entry since 2018 to reach the final, and certainly did so in style, finishing sixth. It demonstrated the viability for success of more alternative representations of the folk, using dramatic costumes, staging, and visuals for an inimitably compelling and powerful performance.
Conclusions: 2025 and Beyond
It should be evident that folklore in Eurovision is a means of representing many issues pertinent to folklore, Eurovision, and society in general. I have refrained from discussing the upcoming 2025 edition of Eurovision because that will be the subject of a future article following the event on the 17th of May. It is worth mentioning, however, that the folk will appear in numerous different entries, and I encourage you to consider the significance of each instance as you enjoy what will be an edition of Eurovision that will certainly be remembered as among the best. Ultimately, folklore will continue to be a prominent feature of Eurovision for a long time to come, because it is certainly an important means of preserving and celebrating the folk traditions of nations all around Europe.