Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
originally planned to participate in the
Eurovision Song Contest 2020
The Eurovision Song Contest 2020 was planned to be the 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It would have taken place in Rotterdam, Netherlands, following the country's victory at the with the song "Arcade" by Duncan Laurence. The con ...
with the song "" written by Uladzislaŭ Paškievič, Valeryja Hrybusava and Mikita Najdzionaŭ. The song was performed by the band
VAL. The Belarusian entry for the 2020 contest in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
, Netherlands was selected through the national final ''Nationalny Otbor'', which was organised by the Belarusian broadcaster
(BTRC). The national final consisted of twelve competing acts participating in a televised production where "" performed by VAL was selected as the winner following the combination of votes from a jury panel and public televoting.
Belarus was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 12 May 2020. However, the contest was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
.
Background
Prior to the 2020 Contest, Belarus had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest sixteen times since its first entry in 2004. The nation's best placing in the contest was sixth, which it achieved in
2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
with the song "
Work Your Magic" performed by
Dmitry Koldun
Dmitry Aleksandrovich Koldun ( be, Дзмітры Аляксандравіч Калдун, Dzmitry Kaldun; russian: link=no, Дми́трий Алекса́ндрович Колду́н; born 11 June 1985) is a Belarusian pop singer.
Koldun ros ...
. Following the
introduction of semi-finals for the , Belarus had managed to qualify to the final six times. In
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
, Belarus qualified to the final and placed twenty-fourth with the song "
Like It
"Like It" is a song performed by Belarusian singer Zena. It represented in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The song was performed during the first semi-final on 14 May 2019, and qualified for the final, where it finished in 24th place with 31 ...
" performed by
Zena.
The Belarusian national broadcaster,
(BTRC), broadcasts the event within Belarus and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. The broadcaster has used both internal selections and national finals to select the Belarusian entry for Eurovision in the past. Since 2012, BTRC has organised a national final in order to choose Belarus' entry, a selection procedure that continued for their 2020 entry.
Before Eurovision
''Nationalny Otbor''
The Belarusian national final, , took place on 28 February 2020. Twelve songs participated in the competition and the winner was selected through a jury and public televote. The show was broadcast on
Belarus 1
Belarus 1 ( be, Беларусь 1) is a state-owned television channel in Belarus.
It is the oldest television channel in the country. The channel is on air from 6:00 am to 2:00 am on the next day, in contrast with most public channels in Europ ...
,
Belarus 24
Belarus 24 ( be, Беларусь-24) is the state television and radio channel of Belarus. It was launched on 1 February 2005. It broadcasts primarily in Russian language programmes of other Belarusian state TV channels Belarus 1, Belarus 2, ...
and Radius FM as well as online via the broadcaster's official website ''tvr.by''.
Competing entries
Artists and composers were able to submit their applications and entries to the broadcaster between 9 January 2020 and 17 January 2020.
At the closing of the deadline, 95 entries were received by the broadcaster, of which 65 were valid. A jury panel selected 49 entries for auditions that were held on 27 January 2020 at the BTRC "600 Metrov" studio, where an alternate jury panel was tasked with selecting up to twelve entries to proceed to the televised national final. The auditions were webcast online at the official BTRC website. The jury for the auditions consisted of Tatyana Yakusheva (head of music of the radio station "
Radio Belarus
Radio Belarus ( Belarusian: ''Радыё "Беларусь"'') was the official international broadcasting station of Belarus. The station has ceased broadcasting on shortwave and mediumwave as of 1 April 2016.
History
Radio Belarus has broadc ...
"), Georgiy Koldun (singer and television host),
Zena (singer,
represented Belarus at Eurovision in 2019), Elena Atrashkevich (head of the Belarusian Union of Composers),
Naviband
Naviband (stylysed as NAVIBAND, until late 2016 also called NAVI) is a Belarusian band from Minsk. The band was founded a duo between vocalist and guitarist Arciom Lukjanienka and vocalist and keyboardist Ksienija Žuk, later also featured guitar ...
(band which
represented Belarus at Eurovision in 2017), Yuriy Seleznyov (singer and composer), Yana Stankevich (producer) and Vladislava Artyukovskaya (artistic director of the Youth Variety Theater). Twelve finalists were selected and announced on 27 January 2020.
Final
The televised final took place on 28 February 2020 at the "Belarusfilm" studio in
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...
, hosted by
Evgeny Perlin
, native_name_lang =
, image = Evgeny Perlin at JESC 2018.jpg
, alt =
, caption =
, birth_name =
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Karma, Gomel Region, Belarus
, nationality ...
and
2017 Belarusian Junior Eurovision contestant Helena Meraai
Belarus participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2017 which took place in Tbilisi, Georgia on 26 November 2017. The Belarusian entry for the 2017 contest in Tbilisi, Georgia was selected through a national final organised by the Belarusi ...
. Prior to the competition, a draw for the running order took place on 28 January 2020. A 50/50 combination of votes from nine jury members made up of music professionals and a public telephone vote selected the song "" performed by
VАL as the winner. The jury consisted of Stig Karlsen (executive producer of the Norwegian TV channel
NRK
NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting Aksjeselskap, AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and ...
),
Dmitry Koldun
Dmitry Aleksandrovich Koldun ( be, Дзмітры Аляксандравіч Калдун, Dzmitry Kaldun; russian: link=no, Дми́трий Алекса́ндрович Колду́н; born 11 June 1985) is a Belarusian pop singer.
Koldun ros ...
(singer,
represented Belarus at Eurovision in 2007), William Lee Adams (founder and editor Eurovision blog
Wiwibloggs
Wiwibloggs is a fansite and YouTube channel focusing on the Eurovision Song Contest, launched in 2009. It has a seasonal audience, peaking at 250,000 page views per day during the week of Eurovision in May 2016, based on Google Analytics data.
...
), Olga Vorobyova (singer and composer, artistic director of the ensemble Camerata),
Zena (singer,
represented Belarus at Eurovision in 2019),
Alexandros Panayi
Alexandros Panayi ( el, Αλέξανδρος Παναγή, also known as Alex Panayi, born 24 June 1970), is a Greek-Cypriot singer, composer, lyricist, producer, vocal coach, and vocal arranger. He is best known for having represented Cyprus ...
(Cypriot singer-songwriter,
represented Cyprus at Eurovision in 1995 and
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
), Tali Eshkoli (producer of the Israeli TV channel
Kan), Yuriy Seleznyov (singer and composer) and Joana Levieva-Sawyer (producer and journalist, Bulgarian head of delegation for Eurovision).
At Eurovision
According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "
Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who ar ...
(EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 28 January 2020, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Belarus was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 12 May 2020, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.
However, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, the contest was cancelled.
Prior to the Eurovision Song Celebration YouTube broadcast in place of the semi-finals, it was revealed that Belarus was set to perform in position 2, before the entry from
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and after the entry from
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
.
References
{{Eurovision Song Contest 2020
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020
Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...