Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005

Eurovision Song Contest 2005
Country	Ukraine
National selection
Selection process	National Final
Selection date(s)	27 February 2005
Selected entrant	Greenjolly
Selected song	"Razom nas bahato"
Finals performance
Final result	19th, 30 points
Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2004 • 2005 • 2006►

Ukraine was represented in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 by GreenJolly with the song "Razom nas bahato".

The members of GreenJolly are Roman Kostyuk, Roman Kalyn, and Andriy Pisetskyi. The band was created in 1997 and frequently played in Ivano-Frankivsk and other Ukrainian cities, and took part in various festivals. In 1998, they came second at "The Future of Ukraine' festival and second prize at 'The Melody' festival. In 1999, they won another second prize at ‘The Pearls of a Season’ festival. Roman Kostyuk works as a sound producer on Zakhidnyi Polyus radio station and Roman Kalyn is an announcer at the local television channel Tretya Studia, where he hosts two shows.

National final

For the first time ever Ukraine held a national final. 527 songs were received by NTU. A jury narrowed this down to 75. Five songs were shown each week from November 1, 2004 on and viewers picked the best one each week for fifteen weeks. The fifteen winners went forward to a public national final on February 27, 2005, although singers of entries that had been published prior to November 2004, including the heavy favourite Ani Lorak, were asked to submit a new song for the final. In addition, four wildcards were added to the line-up for the final and one of these, the hip-hop entry "Razom nas bahato" (Together We Are Many) by the band GreenJolly, was controversially voted the winner, beating Ani Lorak into second place. The controversial decision to add the entrants into the final was initiated by Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister on Humanitarian Policy Mykola Tomenko. While he tried to justify his decision in the contest aftermath arguing that it needed to reflect the dramatic changes in the society due to the recent Orange Revolution, the perceived government intervention into a musical contest attracted much criticism. Indeed, for many weeks the song, which almost certainly owes its victory to its familiarity as an unofficial anthem of the Orange Revolution, appeared to be in danger of falling foul of two criteria for eligibility as an entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. Firstly, it was openly derivative of an older revolutionary song, and therefore was arguably not an original composition, and secondly, the lyrics could be classed as political propaganda, especially since they mentioned President Viktor Yushchenko by name. However, after substantial revisions were made, the song was deemed a legitimate entry by the EBU. The song is written by Oleg Lanjak and composed by Roman Kalin.

At Eurovision

As the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 and host of the 2005 Contest, Ukraine automatically qualified for a place in the final.Ukraine performed 16th in the night, following Macedonia and preceding Germany. "Razom nas bahato" scored only 30 points (including maximal 12 points from Poland), placing 19th. The Ukrainian 12 points are awarded to Moldova. The spokesperson who revealed Ukraine's votes for other countries was NTU and national final host Maria Orlova. As Ukraine failed to reach the top 11 in the final, the country was forced to compete in the semi-final of the 2006 Contest.

References

• The Age - Ukraine Eurovision entry is on song. Retrieved 25 March 2008