Ukraine in The Eurovision Song Contest 2005 - National Final

National Final

For the first time ever Ukraine held a national final. 527 songs were received by NTU. A jury narrowed this down to 75. Five songs were shown each week from November 1, 2004 on and viewers picked the best one each week for fifteen weeks. The fifteen winners went forward to a public national final on February 27] 2005, although singers of entries that had been published prior to November 2004, including the heavy favourite Ani Lorak, were asked to submit a new song for the final. In addition, four wildcards were added to the line-up for the final and one of these, the hip-hop entry "Razom nas bahato" (Together We Are Many) by the band GreenJolly, was controversially voted the winner, beating Ani Lorak into second place. The controversial decision to add the entrants into the final was initiated by Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister on Humanitarian Policy Mykola Tomenko. While he tried to justify his decision in the contest aftermath arguing that it needed to reflect the dramatic changes in the society due to the recent Orange Revolution, the perceived government intervention into a musical contest attracted much criticism. Indeed, for many weeks the song, which almost certainly owes its victory to its familiarity as an unofficial anthem of the Orange Revolution, appeared to be in danger of falling foul of two criteria for eligibility as an entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. Firstly, it was openly derivative of an older revolutionary song, and therefore was arguably not an original composition, and secondly, the lyrics could be classed as political propaganda, especially since they mentioned President Viktor Yushchenko by name. However, after substantial revisions were made, the song was deemed a legitimate entry by the EBU. The song is written by Oleg Lanjak and composed by Roman Kalin.