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Eurovision song contest and identity crisis in Moldova

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Julien Danero Iglesias
Julien Danero Iglesias*
Affiliation:
CEVIPOL – Universite libre de Bruxelles (ULB) – CP124, Avenue Jeanne, 44, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
*
*Email: jdaneroi@ulb.ac.be
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Abstract

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) was created for strengthening the development of a European soul. But generally speaking, one can say it has been used as a tool for nation-branding, and as a means for Central and Eastern countries to “return” to Europe, in particular after the fall of their Communist regimes. In the difficult social, economic, political, and historical context of the Republic of Moldova nowadays, the ESC furthermore allows the discursive construction of the nation and the building of a particular self. Accordingly, based on a method inspired by the Critical Discourse Analysis methodology applied to three local newspapers, the research demonstrates how the ESC acts as a sound box when building the Moldovan self. The Moldovan identity that emerges from the articles seems to be an identity in crisis which proves much different from the usual political constructions of the nation. This bottom-up identity put forward by journalists has indeed to be related to the twofold crisis in which Moldova is at the moment: social and economic, on the one hand, and linked to a permanent struggle between a separate Moldovan or an integrated Romanian identity, on the other.

Keywords

EurovisionMoldovanewspapersidentitynationalism
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 233 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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