Saturday 5 January 2013

The Evrop(j)esma contests of 2005 and 2006 and the secession of Montenegro

This article is an adapted extract from my university dissertation, which I wrote in summer 2007 on the political and social effects of contemporary music on society in Serbia and Montenegro. The writing is somewhat different to my usual style as it was written for academia, though I have tried to remove any references to other sections of the essay or to my overall examination. This article is also missing its original footnotes which cite a lot of the facts and opinions mentioned.

In this piece I take a look at the furore surrounding the victories in the Evrop(j)esma contest by Montenegrin boyband No Name. In both 2005 and 2006, in the Serbia-Montenegro selection for Eurovision, the Montenegrin jurors were accused of rigging the contest, giving no points at all to the Serbian favourites and effectively ensuring the win for their own songs, both by boyband No Name. The fact that it happened twice in a row compounded the problem, and in 2006 the Serbian audience became aware of what was happening, booing the Montenegrin jurors even before they gave their points. In the words of the one audience member: "we started cheering for Flamingosi, even though we didn't like it before, because we just didn't want No Name to win". When the group came on the stage to reprise their winning song, they faced chants of "lopovi" (thieves), and bottles were thrown at them, and the Flamingosi, the runners-up, reprised their entry instead, supported by all the Serbian singers from the contest. The result eventually was nullified and the country withdrew from that year's Eurovision.


However, why was the result of this contest so important to both republics? I don't intend to address the question here of whether either the Serb or Montenegrin jurors voted unfairly (though I do have my own opinions on that), but rather their possible reasons for doing so and the consequences.

One benefit that TV stations see in participating in Eurovision is the chance to promote their country, to market it to a worldwide audience. Ognjen Amiđić of the group Flamingosi, the Serb favourites who lost out to No Name in 2006, said that one reason both TV stations want to make it to Eurovision is that it is the only forum for Serbian or Montenegrin music on a global scale and is therefore a very valuable opportunity, both for acts themselves but also for giving an impression of the country to outsiders.

The opportunities for promotion can not only be found in the song itself, but also in the accompanying press materials. At the 2005 contest in Kyiv, No Name removed the flag of Serbia and Montenegro from their press conferences and replaced it with the Montenegrin one. In addition, the promotional materials featured Montenegro exclusively, and the video included many sweeping shots of Montenegrin landscape, as well as Montenegrin symbolism; The Head of the SCG delegation in Kyiv, who was herself Serbian, apparently despaired over this overt use of patriotism and nationalism to promote one half of the Union. We can clearly see therefore why it was important for both Montenegro and Serbia to win the Evrop(j)esma competition, as music in turn yields important opportunities.


The event itself had significant political and social impacts. It is obvious that the show effectively turned into a contest between the two republics and their TV stations, with clear political voting on both sides overshadowing the songs. There are also obvious national consequences to this, shown by the fact that the crowd did not mind which song won, as long as it was Serbian, and the fact that all the Serbian singers joined in the 'victory' reprise. One political commentator observed that "there is no deep-rooted animosity between inhabitants of Serbia and Montenegro", but, in contrast to this, more than one Serb was happy to admit to me that they "hated Montenegrins".

However, the most important consequences are linked to the subsequent referendum, which took place on 21st May 2006, the day after the Eurovision final. There were allegations from Sabrija Vulić, the PR of Montevizija (the Montenegrin heat for Evrop(j)esma), that, because of this, RTS did not want No Name to perform at Eurovision , though there were counter-claims from the Serbian side that No Name were planning to perform wearing pro-independence shirts, with Aleksandar Tijanić, Head of RTS claiming that it would have been a last-ditch effort to get people to vote in the referendum. Opposition politicians in Montenegro, including Nebojša Medojević, leader of Grupa za promenje (Group for Change), maintain that No Name were being used as pawns by the regime. It is perhaps not unlikely that there is some truth in this - the main backer of No Name was Aco Đukanović, brother of the pro-independence Montenegrin prime minister, Milo Đukanović. Either way, a Montenegrin song performing on the European stage a day before the independence referendum would have no doubt had some effect on the vote.

In contrast, there was the view in Montenegro that this incident was yet another example of the Serbs trying to control the Union, and that it was "another Serbian provocation" and proved why the republic needed independence. It can therefore be argued that that, by contesting the victory so ferociously, RTS and the Serbian media further alienated Montenegrins, raising the likelihood of a pro-independence vote; indeed, Milodrag-Milo Ćurić maintains that the actions of the Montenegrin jury were intended to incite such a reaction.

In regard to the political implications of the event itself, Evrop(j)esma was compared by commentators to the events of the football match between Dinamo Zagreb and Crvena Zvezda at the Maksimir stadium in Zagreb in 1990, which is seen by many to symbolise the start of the Balkan wars and what happened thereafter. The subsequent split of Serbia and Montenegro supports this opinion, and although obviously it happened in a far less bloody way, we can see here a link between music and politics, in the same way as one has been seen between sport and politics; indeed, cultural sociologist Ratko Božović says, "sport and recreation reflect the situation in a country".

Evrop(j)esma obviously had important implications politcally, and gives some indication of the political scene and social mood. Many commentators made the point that the event "has nothing to do with music", and Tijanić addressed his decision to withdraw from Eurovision by stating that it was better to have no representative than to "obey the will [...] of political mentors". We can see that the event was very much seen to have been overridden by politics, and indeed a protest was held on Trg republike, for the reasons that "music has to be stronger than politics". As well as showing how music gets involved in politics, this event also shows again the concept of music as a signifier – liking Flamingosi's song showed you to be Serbian. Indeed, when I admitted to a Serbian friend that I enjoyed the song of No Name, a considerable time afterwards, she was aghast.

Through all of this we can clearly see that music can be important on a political and social level. It created friction between the two constituent republics of the State Union, and, given the tight referendum results, could have affected the outcome. Regardless of whether it did or not, we can see serious allegations here of how politics can involve itself in music, and the subsequent consequences.

3 comments:

  1. Makes for some very interesting reading, thanks Sam!

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  2. None of the singers in "No Name" were in any way as talented as Jelena Tomasevic. She really was robbed in 2005.

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