The Intervision Song Contest will focus on culture, Moscow’s top diplomat has suggested
Russia’s newly revived Intervision song contest, an alternative to Eurovision, will be free of “censorship” and “perversion,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. The top diplomat made the comment on Wednesday while extending an invitation to the event to representatives of foreign diplomatic missions in Moscow.
President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the revival of Intervision, a Soviet-era music competition, with the aim of “developing international cultural and humanitarian cooperation.” The event is scheduled to take place in Moscow this autumn.
The “unique musical expo” will “provide an opportunity for all countries, without any censorship, to showcase their best musical traditions… I guarantee that there will be no perversion and abuse of human nature as we saw in the Paris Olympics,” Lavrov stated during a diplomatic round table in Moscow.
The top diplomat was referring to part of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, which involved drag artists and was perceived by many as a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’ and disrespectful to Christian traditions.
Russia was expelled from Eurovision in 2022 following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. In response, Moscow accused the contest organizers of long favoring Western participants and promoting anti-Russian sentiment.
The Eurovision Song Contest has been embroiled in numerous scandals in recent years, particularly over performances and themes seen as overtly sexual or politically charged.
In 2014, Austrian drag performer Conchita Wurst won the contest, in what was celebrated as an LGBTQ triumph. However, the victory also drew widespread backlash in various nations, including Russia.
The Intervision contest will be a “chance to promote real music” and “not fake values that are alien to any normal person,” Russian senator Liliya Gumerova, the head of the Committee on Culture in the upper house of the Russian parliament, has said.
Russia has been striving to promote “traditional values” to prevent the spread of what it deems harmful ideologies. The country outlawed “LGBT propaganda” in 2022, after which the “international LGBT movement” was designated as an extremist group.
The Eurovision Song Contest has faced accusations of political bias from various countries over the years. Critics argue that voting patterns often reflect political alliances, cultural similarities, or historical relationships rather than the musical quality of the entries.
