Eurovision Reminds Me of a Country That No Longer Exists

My two sisters and I squirmed on the living room couch in anticipation of hours of performances vying for the title of Europe’s best song. The Eurovision Song Contest was the only night besides New Year’s Eve that our parents let us stay up late. Mom regularly sent us to bed after the 7:15 p.m. Tom & Jerry cartoon, and we grumbled as we climbed the wooden stairs to our room, still aglow from the Mediterranean sun.

But tonight was a rare chance to extend our bedtime into darkness. We wore high-rise jeans, bottoms rolled up around ankles. On my T-shirt, a giant imprint of a red lipstick mark took up most of the white space. My twin sported a Big Bird T-shirt. It would be years before I’d learn the feathery yellow character was part of a popular TV show—we did not have Sesame Street on our three channels.

It was 1989, and a band called Riva represented our country, Yugoslavia. Riva hailed from a small coastal city a few hours north of Dubrovnik, our city. Located in Yugoslavia’s Croatia republic, Dubrovnik has become known to Americans as the setting of King’s Landing in Game of Thrones. For me, it was home—I grew up racing down stone steps to the Adriatic Sea, picking ripe pomegranates from Mom’s garden, and watching Dad transform his fish catch into dinner on his homemade grill.

Participating countries choose their Eurovision contestants, who then enter the annual international song competition, typically held in May. The rules have changed over the years, but the organizer, the European Broadcasting Union, emphasizes the event is strictly cultural and must not involve political statements. Still, nations have withdrawn or been banned for everything ranging from controversial lyrics and financial difficulties to armed conflict. The last two years have seen calls to ban Israel for its destruction in Gaza—I was glad to see that more than 70 former contestants recently signed a letter to this effect. Meanwhile, Russia has been banned from participating for invading Ukraine.

As a kid, I did not think about any of this. For weeks leading up to Eurovision, my sisters and I imitated lead singer Emilija’s dance moves, shaking our hips to “Rock Me,” hands fisted into microphones, scrunchy-clad ponytails bobbing sideways. The tune endlessly rotated on the radio as all of Yugoslavia got behind our chosen performer. We recorded it by sliding a cassette tape in our JVC player, then pressing the red “Record” button at just the right time.

Switzerland was hosting the contest because it had won the previous one, thanks to a 20-year-old singer in a white tutu named Céline Dion, whose performance in French catapulted her career. She was Canadian, but even as some of today’s contenders embrace nationalism, Eurovision has never imposed citizenship requirements on its contestants. Now, Dion opened the evening—a Eurovision tradition. Sporting a blue leather jacket and pants, a sparkling corset, and gold hoop earrings that nearly touched her shoulder pads, she belted out “Where Does My Heart Beat Now.”

“I love her glittery top,” my twin said.

“And the blue outfit,” I added.

“Cool lipstick,” our older sister chimed in, noticing how the orangish-reddish shade matched her wavy bangs.

I held my breath as Riva stepped on the stage lit by fluorescent lights alternating between pinks, purples, and greens. Emilija, a few days shy of 21, wore red gloves, red lipstick, and a red top propped by shoulder pads, stretching her thin frame. Her short brown hair formed a surfer’s wave that cascaded onto her forehead. Big triangles hung off her ears, and a shiny bow of a necklace decorated her neck. Men in white blazers—of course, more shoulder pads—pranced around her while pecking portable keyboards and electric guitars. “Rock me, baby!” my sisters and I screeched along, hips cocked, three sets of skinny legs zigzagging in every direction.

When the twenty-two participating countries started calling in to report their scores—a nail-biting experience accompanied by Eurovision’s trademark awkwardness, thanks to time delays and accents as thick as the shoulder pads on stage—we plopped back on the couch. I adored Eurovision—staying up late, knowing all my friends were watching the same show and cheering for Yugoslavia, the thrill of a live contest being broadcast right from our living room TV. Over-the-top outfits, multilingual hosts transformed by multiple gown changes, anxious audience members waving tiny flags—I cherished the whole sequin-heavy, three-hour, glittery, multicultural spectacle that was our continent’s pop music Olympics.

When Riva took the lead, we catapulted from the couch.

“Idemo, Rivaaaaaaaa! we cheered, hands cupped over mouths in disbelief. “Idemo, Jugoslavija!”

My Mom is Serbian, Dad is Croatian, my sisters and I were born in Serbia, and my family lived in Croatia. The two republics were among six that made up Yugoslavia. Whether it was tennis’s Davis Cup, basketball’s European championships, or Eurovision, we cheered for Yugoslavia. We had Yugoslav passports and considered ourselves Yugoslavs above all.

It was hours past our usual bedtime when we won, scoring 137 points, 7 ahead of Great Britain. Riva’s members leapt from their seats and hugged, a coffee table littered with Marlboro packs, porcelain espresso saucers, and glass Coca Cola bottles between them. I crisscrossed the living room in sprints, all shrieks and high-fives. For the first time since it joined Eurovision nearly 25 years earlier, Yugoslavia finished first. Pride oozed out of me, my tween body swelling with giddiness at the thought that we’d host next year’s contest.

I didn’t know that after that night, Yugoslavia would only participate in Eurovision three more times—and by the third time, it would be a skeleton, consisting of only Serbia and Montenegro. Soon after, Yugoslavia would cease to exist altogether, perishing from maps, passports, and Eurovision. Croatia and Serbia would become separate countries, like the other former republics.

By then, my family would no longer be living in Croatia or Yugoslavia or Europe. We would leave on the verge of war and immigrate to Canada, where I would hear a lot more Céline Dion. In the decades to come, my family would keep scattering, adding more borders and distance between us. Our parents will stay in Canada and travel back to Croatia yearly. My sisters and I will divide between Canada and the United States. Family reunions will involve flights, immigration lines, international borders.

But with or without Yugoslavia, the show must go on. This year’s Eurovision just finished, and just like the year when Yugoslavia won, it was in Switzerland. Since its start in 1956 with only seven competitors, nations as far flung as Australia have competed because they are members of the European Broadcasting Union. Austria won this year’s grand final, which was mired in controversy again as Pro-Palestinian protestors interrupted Israel’s performance.

It’s been more than three decades since Yugoslavia perished—it now appears in the pieces that used to comprise it as Croatia, Serbia, and the other former republics compete against each other. I cheer for Croatia, but Yugoslavia lives in my parents’ 50-year marriage, in my mixed roots, in my immigrant identity. It hides between the lines of my passport pages, where Serbia is listed for my birth country, Croatia for citizenship. It emerges from my throat during Eurovision, the Olympics, and the World Cup, when I root for Croatia, and if that’s not an option, other former Yugoslav republics.

Yugoslavia’s demise is a subject for historians, but I often think about its failed national premise of unity—something a show called Eurovision strives for. Now that I live in a United States that is jailing people based on political views, trampling over fundamental human rights, and espousing authoritarianism, I cannot help but be reminded of Yugoslavia. My family left because of steeping ethno-nationalism and growing political tensions between the two groups that made up our background. Now, I watch those same conflicts overtake my adopted home country. 

My American friends used to stare with bewilderment when I squealed wide-eyed about all-things-Eurovision, but most are aware of it now. The pyrotechnic-loving show has grown into a global phenomenon and is the world’s most watched non-sports event, behind only the Olympics and the World Cup. Each spring, as nations announce their Eurovision representatives, I browse YouTube clips from my desk, six hours behind and an ocean away from where I grew up. Last year, Croatia’s Baby Lasagna came in second with “Rim Tim Tagi Dim,” whipping our little nation into a frenzy with the highest standing since it became independent in 1991 and joined Eurovision two years later. The year before, our band trotted out rockets and underwear-clad men who crooned about a mom buying a tractor. The New York Times called it an “insane, highly theatrical antiwar track,” and HuffPost described it as “Monty Python meets ‘Dr. Strangelove.’”

It was weird, it was ridiculous, it was so Eurovision. Contestants have stood on stilts, danced on poles and discs, and hatched from a giant denim egg. They have donned feathers and mesh and boas and leather and spandex and masks and heels and boots for kilometers. They have morphed into astronauts, puppets, pirates, sexy Roman soldiers, flight attendants, and vampires.

This year, Croatia’s Marko Bošnjak encouraged the audience to have a bite of “Poison Cake” as he performed his revenge tune in a fluffy black cape. There was smoke and fire, green and purple strobe lights, and back-up dancers flipping their waist-length hair because Eurovision will be Eurovision. Marko did not make it past the semi-final, but he was Croatia’s first openly gay Eurovision performer. I consider this a feat for a country where Freedom House found “societal discrimination discourages LGBT+ people from participating in politics.” I’m glad things are at least changing on the stage. It’s one of the things I love about Eurovision—it is more queer, more joyous, and more open than the sum of its parts. Last year’s winner, Nemo, was the first openly non-binary person to claim Eurovision’s title.

Eurovision is hardly some perfect utopia, but it embodies ideals that our individual countries may not. Behind those boundary-pushing acts and the crystal-encrusted microphone trophy, I want to believe it can be a force for good, a shred of humanity in an increasingly inhumane world. I hope it can be a platform for a future that respects all people, because I know people, borders, and countries can disappear. Switzerland—this year’s host and Eurovision’s birthplace 69 years ago—leaned into themes of diversity and unity; it announced that its three hosts were bringing together the country’s values of openness, integration, and community. The slogan “United by Music” was splattered across ads, along with calls for a “home where love and music unite us all.”

As a kid, Eurovision was a fun family night, a rare chance to stay up late. Today, it’s nostalgia, a longing for my motherland before war splintered it. I now have a daughter a year younger than that kid in Yugoslavia celebrating our first and last Eurovision title. I have a graduate degree in International Affairs, so I know better than to think anything—much less an event involving 37 countries—is politics-free. I know better than to believe that countries can’t be erased, or that a song contest can save a place like Gaza from daily destruction. When I streamed Eurovision, I knew I still lived in a world where fascism thrives, where we tear families and countries apart, where governments are hell bent on ruining lives while erecting new borders. But for a few hours, I relished the over-the-top costumes and the cultural quirks, the bizarre beauty of a cross-continental pop contest in a world ablaze. One minute, I was cursing at the screen about leaders who have learned nothing from the past, including my broken country. The next, I was lip synching to “Poison Cake” and cheering for Marko, my tongue rolling the hard R in his name, giving away my home even as I reside 4,000 miles away from it.

Deep down the Eurovision rabbit hole, I looked up Riva the other day, curious about where the band that brought us Eurovision glory ended up. Emilija, now in her mid-50s, has long brown hair, works as a solo artist, and runs a music school in Croatia. Instead of red gloves, she showed off red cat-eye glasses. I found out that around the same time Yugoslavia split, Riva broke up, each individual member pursuing their own path. This saddened me, as if learning it was reliving another ending. As if one band’s survival could have changed anything, rendered my country alive again.

I scrolled down her Instagram feed, not sure what I was searching for. She has about 1,000 followers, occasionally posts a selfie. Half a dozen posts later, I paused at the first one to garner over 100 likes and any comments. Above a sea of hashtags that included “#eurosong,” young Emilija looked through the screen, head-tilted, short brown hair and red lips, their darkened outline giving away a bygone decade. The caption underneath, “Neka dobra vremena…”—the good old days.

I paused and felt a shared longing—for her, a career highlight; for me, a yearning for a country still intact. Eurovision is a snapshot of my childhood before my family’s cross-Atlantic move, before my life became diasporic, before my motherland evaporated. As I watch the show each spring, I cling on to these befores, and the naivety of an 11-year-old girl who only saw countries coming together on a stage aglow with glitter and hope.