Broadcasting to the West: Ukraine and Cultural Diplomacy at the Eurovision

From revolution to war — how Ukraine turned Eurovision into a powerful platform for cultural diplomacy and national identity.

Since its Eurovision debut in 2003, Ukraine’s presence at the contest has come to signify far more than participation in a music competition. It has emerged as a major platform of cultural diplomacy through which Ukrainian artists project the country’s voice to Europe and the wider West, transforming performance into a powerful medium for expressing identity, urgency, and presence in an international dialogue. At key historical moments, Ukrainian entries carried the echoes of revolution, war, and national struggle, functioning as a cultural loudspeaker through which messages shaped by crisis reached broad transnational audiences.

This lecture explores how Ukraine’s Eurovision appearances draw political attention and are often interpreted through the lens of wider European crises, despite the contest’s formal commitment to political neutrality. It examines how Ukrainian performances resonate with entries from other countries and with broader public debates, bringing multiple urgent themes onto a shared stage and generating visibility, response, and forms of international dialogue. It also analyzes how digital platforms extend these performances beyond the event itself, amplifying their circulation and shaping their cultural and political reception.

Lecturer

Olga Zaitseva-Herz

Olga Zaitseva-Herz is an ethnomusicologist whose work explores Ukrainian music in relation to identity, displacement, and historical upheaval, with particular attention to the role of songs in communication, political mediation, and digital culture, including AI-generated music. She is currently a researcher at the Kule Centre for Ukrainian and Canadian Folklore at the University of Alberta (Canada) and a guest scholar at Think Space Ukraine at the University of Regensburg (Germany). Her current research examines popular songs as a form of cultural diplomacy and as a strategic tool in times of war, exploring how sound shapes narratives of identity, resistance, and global visibility.