Eurovision, Pontic Greeks and Collective Geopolitical Memory
Although the act of singing may not be political, Klavdia's 'Asteromata' shows how the performance of a contested identity reflects a deeply held collective geopolitical memory – in Greece and beyond
As
observed earlier this year, it simply wouldn’t be Eurovision without renewed tensions between Greece and Turkey.The hotly contested geopolitical dynamics of Eurovision are, therefore, not new. Whilst the contest claims to unite the continent through music, geopolitics in Eurovision manifests in many forms serving both to reinforce existing ties and amplify enduring divisions.
The politics of the contest ranges from the banal to the polemic. For instance, the ties between Greece and the Republic of Cyprus government often result in a symbolic exchange of the famous twelve points between their national juries. The tradition is such that, in 2023, the failure of Greece’s jury to award more than four points to Cyprus led to a wider political furore about the ignorance of the ‘Cyprus problem’ amongst both politicians and the public in Greece. However, whilst the unwavering commitment of Cyprus to award its jury votes to Greece “with love” has attracted the amusement and derision of many on social media, there is also a darker history to the contest.
In 1976, following the Greek military coup and Turkish invasion of Cyprus just two years earlier, the Greek jury dispatched Mariza Koch to perform her song ‘Panaghia Mou’ at the competition in the Netherlands. In representing the shared pain of many Greeks, her song described the consequences of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in an emotional ode to the land of the island.
Needless to say, the song drew the ire of the Turkish delegation. The Turkish national broadcaster, TRT, severed the live feed from the stage during Mariza’s performance to replace it with the performance of traditional Turkish folk songs. Moreover, the organisers grew fearful that armed Turkish snipers might be present in the audience, threatening the safety of the Greek contestant. Mariza signed a waiver to accept responsibility for her own safety during the performance, before singing the symbolic song whilst allegedly wearing a bulletproof vest.
This year, 23-year-old Klavdia Papadopoulou’s performance remained controversial, though less dramatic. Her evocative song and flawless performance of ‘Asteromata’ – meaning ‘little starry eyed girl’ – addressed the yearning felt by displaced peoples for their homeland. Klavdia, a descendant of a Pontic Greek family, used the metaphor of a mother and a missing daughter in her song to evoke the profound longing and enduring connection of Pontic Greeks forcefully exiled from their ancestral homes on the Black Sea.
The forced displacement of Pontic Greeks from areas of modern-day Turkey represents one of the clearest examples of large-scale population exchange in living memory. Following an Ottoman campaign to erase and evict the Greek minority living in modern-day Turkey, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne mandated a population swap of Greek Christians living in Turkey and Turkish Muslims living in Greece. The agreement aimed to prevent further genocide of Greek people living in Turkey, manufacturing two ethnically homogenous nation states.
However, this exchange of people also forced residents to leave their homes behind, setting in motion a continuing longing for a lost land. As a result, Greece absorbed over 1.2 million Pontic Greeks from across Asia Minor, with many settling in major cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki. However, Pontic Greeks also resettled in rural, marginal areas that mirrored the mountainous marginality of their ancestral homeland in Pontus – demonstrating a symbolic spatial connection between identity and landscape.
It is also crucial to remember that Pontic Greeks were uprooted through nationalism not just once, but many times throughout history – in different places by different empires. For instance, clashes between the Russian and Ottoman Empires in the eighteenth century also resulted in the forced relocation of Pontic Greeks who had settled in Crimea to the Azov Sea. Those same Greek communities were subjected to purges throughout the Soviet Union and the forced deportation of ethnic minorities to Central Asia from Crimea throughout the 1940s. Even in recent years, Pontic Greeks have borne the brunt of the War in Ukraine, with Russia’s brutal assault on Mariupol in 2022 decimating the Greek Orthodox community living in the city.
As a result, the feeling of being uprooted runs deep in the psyche of the Pontic Greek people. This embedded ethos has forged an enduring memorial connection with the sacred homeland across multiple generations – reproduced through familial stories, dialects, songs, dances and culinary dishes. The soulful musical style of Klavdia expressed in her song reflects the mournful yet heroic nature of traditional Pontic music, conjuring centuries of survival, repression and refugee status.
The importance of oral histories in the sustenance of collective geopolitical memories is also evident in the continued reproduction of Pontic Greek identity. In fact, ‘Asteromata’ itself was inspired by stories of Pontian displacement passed down from Klavdia’s ‘yiayia’. The poignant image of Klavdia’s grandmother gathered with other relatives to watch her performance of this deeply emotional song resonated strongly with many other Pontian Greeks, whose memory of their forced migration creates a living bridge to their ancestors. The fact that the song contest coincided closely with the 19th May, a day of remembrance for the Pontic Genocide within Greece, meant that Klavdia’s music was particularly powerful.
This collective memory of loss demonstrates the fact that the stories of Pontic Greeks are not only migratory, but deeply geopolitical. They are not simply passive, but actively enacted and extended into the present. Throughout, the Pontic Greek story has been continually reshaped by the geopolitical games of empires that have shifted borders, fuelled genocides and displaced peoples. The comparison of Pontic Greek identity to a boat at sea expressed by Klavdia in ‘Asteromata’ represents this liminal state – always between homes, always maintaining the hope of return.
This familiar story of cultural resistance, forced relocation and geopolitical strategy is replicated across the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus. Whilst the history of the Pontic Greeks is particularly powerful, similar collective geopolitical memories are imbued in the identities of different ethnic groups across the region. Moreover, it is these memories that are central in the formation of contemporary topographies of geopolitical power.
For instance, the collective trauma of Greek and Turkish Cypriots made refugees on their own island through forced displacement prevented generations of Cypriots from setting foot in their homelands and reinforced negative attitudes about the ‘Other’ community. It reminds us that the trauma of displacement is not exclusive to one group; it resonates with Turkish Cypriots who were forced to leave their homes in Paphos or Limassol due to inter-communal violence in 1963, but also with Greek Cypriots forced to leave Famagusta or Kyrenia in 1974.
Other examples might arise from the contested nature of Nagorno-Karabakh, a sacred religious homeland caught in the throes of ethnic conflict between Armenians and Azeris. Or, the forced expulsion of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia by the Soviet regime, which was lamented in the performance of the Ukrainian Eurovision contestant in 2016.
Turning back to this year’s Eurovision contest, it was perhaps no surprise that the Turkish state broadcaster complained about yet another Greek entry. They argued that ‘Asteromata’ made provocative references to the genocide of Pontic Greeks in the early twentieth century. However, this narrow interpretation ignored the wider relevance of the song – as an ode not just to Pontic Greeks, but to minority groups everywhere reconciling their geopolitical memory with an imagined future.
‘Asteromata’ eloquently shows that the pain of loss, longing and geopolitical tragedies can be felt by more than one ethnic community. The support of some Turkish people on social media – both for Klavdia’s singing prowess and for the sentiment of the song – shows that geopolitical memories are continually evolving in ways that open up new avenues for peace, cooperation and understanding.
In the days that followed her performance in Basel, Klavdia addressed another thorny geopolitical debate surrounding the participation of Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest, saying:
“I made the decision long ago - and still stand by it - not to politicise Eurovision. I hope that, one day, Eurovision will be purely a song contest, without any political involvement, where everything is fair and is celebrated for its music”.
In one sense, of course, Klavdia is right; the quality of a song and the skill of the singer transcends political allegiances. However, the performance of cultural identity often reveals profound memories of historic traumas that speak to deeply personal histories of geopolitical power across Europe and beyond.