EUROVISION 2022 – Ukraine won the 66th Eurovision Song Contest , this Saturday May 14 in Turin, Italy. Kalush Orchestra brought their country to victory with the song Stefania .
Kalush Orchestra thus succeeds Måneskin , the Italian rock band which won the last edition of the competition in 2021 with its title Zitti E Buoni . The United Kingdom and its representative, Tik Tok star Sam Ryder , finished second.
The representatives of Ukraine are thus ahead of the French from Alvan & Ahez, who have come to perform their Breton anthem Fulenn. The quartet coming straight from Ille-et-Vilaine won 17 points and arrived in the penultimate place of the classification, continuing the scarcity for France which has not won the competition since 1977. It was with The bird and the child of Marie Myriam.
Kalush Orchestra is a rap group mixing traditional Ukrainian music made up of six members, Oleh Psiuk, Ihor Didenchuk, MC Kilimmen, Tymofii Muzychuk, Oleksandr Slobodianyk and Vitalii Duzhyk. To travel to Turin, the members were granted special permission to leave Ukrainian territory.
A symbolic victory
The music group is actually an extension of Kalush, the central core of the rap collective and trio made up of the first three members of the previously mentioned list. When they were created in 2019, the group called themselves “Kalush” which is the name of the city of Oleh Psiuk, the one who appears with a pink bob. Ne marynui , the trio’s first music video released on October 17, 2019, was shot in the streets of the city.
Ukraine’s victory is not insignificant. Its representatives were, for several weeks, the favorites of the bookmakers. His song, a mix of hip-hop and traditional music, is tinged with intimate lyrics that resonate strongly with current events. “I will always find the way home even if all the roads are destroyed”, as one of its members narrates.
This new coronation of Ukraine thus doubles the bet after its victory in 2016 – two years after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea by Russia – with Jamala and the title 1944 , a song recounting the deportation of the Tatars by Stalin . It is therefore in Ukraine that the competition will be held next year. A Ukraine which, in the words of Oleh Psiuk, will be “a new, integrated, developed and flourishing Ukraine”.