Intervision: Popular Music and Politics in Eastern Europe

During the Cold War, Eastern European national television broadcasters organised the Intervision Song Contest (ISC) as a socialist alternative to Western Europes Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). However, unlike the ESC, the ISC has hardly been the subject of academic research. Just as the ESC is often interpreted as reflecting European politics, this project examines the cultural, economic and political reasons for the development and decline of the ISC and considers what the contest can tell us about relations among Eastern Europeans during the Cold War and between Eastern and Western Europeans during and after that period. This project is producing the first transnational history of the ISC. It is furthermore innovative in that it examines how popular music produced in Eastern Europe was appropriated by Eastern European states in their cultural diplomacy. Academic studies on popular music and cultural diplomacy in the Cold War have tended to focus on American popular music and its impact on Europe. With its focus on how Eastern European popular music was used to articulate national concerns and identities within the East Bloc, the project uses the ISC to interrogate the cultural, economic and political hierarchies, stereotypes and tensions between Eastern European states. An aim of this project is to challenge Western European preconceptions of Eastern Europe - which are still expressed in media reports on the participation of East European states in the ESC - as culturally backward, closed and homogenous. The project examines whether Eastern Europe states were, despite the political censorship imposed by their ruling communist parties, more open to Western European cultural influences during the Cold War than is usually perceived in historiography. The ISC was, for example, more open to cooperation with Western European national television broadcasters such as Austrias ORF - than the ESC was with Eastern European ones. Indeed, this project approaches the ISC as part of a pan-European network that connected popular music industries on both sides of the Iron Curtain and contributed to the forming of a common European popular culture by producing stars who were popular in both Eastern and Western Europe. This project is based on an original collection of documents and recordings from the archives of the Austrian, Czech, German and Polish national television broadcasters and the European Broadcasting Union, the European organisation for national radio and television broadcasters. The project is led by Dr. Dean Vuletic who, as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow, previously researched the history of the ESC. The results of the project will include an academic monograph, two academic articles, an international workshop and a seminar course, and the research will also be disseminated through conference presentations, internet blogs and media interviews.

During the Cold War, Eastern European national television broadcasters organised the Intervision Song Contest, first in Czechoslovakia from 1965 to 1968 and subsequently in Poland from 1977 to 1980, as an alternative to Western Europe's Eurovision Song Contest. However, unlike the Eurovision Song Contest, the Intervision Song Contest was previously hardly a subject of academic research. This project has produced the first transnational history of the Intervision Song Contest. Just as the Eurovision Song Contested is often interpreted as reflecting European politics, this project examined the cultural, economic and political reasons for the development and decline of the Intervision Song Contest and how it reflected and shaped relations among Eastern Europeans during the Cold War and between Eastern and Western Europeans during and after that period. With its focus on how Eastern European popular music was used in the cultural diplomacies of Eastern European states to articulate national concerns and identities within the Eastern Bloc, the project used the Intervision Song Contest to interrogate the cultural, economic and political hierarchies, stereotypes and tensions between Eastern European states. Another aim of this project was to challenge Western European preconceptions of Eastern Europe - which are still evident in contemporary media reports on the participation of Central and East European states in the ESC - as culturally backward, closed and homogenous. The project highlighted how Eastern Europe states were, despite the political censorship imposed by their ruling communist parties, more open to Western European cultural influences during the Cold War than is often assumed. The Intervision Song Contest was, for example, more open to cooperation with Western European national television broadcasters - such as Austria's ORF - and record companies than the Eurovision Song Contest was with Eastern European ones. Indeed, this project concluded that the Intervision Song Contest was part of a pan-European network that connected popular music industries on both sides of the Iron Curtain and contributed to the forming of a common European popular culture by producing stars who were popular in both Eastern and Western Europe. This project was based on an original collection of documents and recordings from the archives of the Austrian, Czechoslovak, East German, Polish and Soviet national broadcasting organisations and the European Broadcasting Union. The project was led by Dr. Dean Vuletic, a historian of contemporary Europe who, as the author of the book "Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest" (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), regularly comments on the Eurovision Song Contest in the international media. The results of the project include an academic monograph, a book chapter, two journal articles and an international workshop, and they have also been disseminated through conference presentations, guest lectures, magazine articles and media interviews.