Blog Post 3

            If we look at the well-established countries throughout Europe and the world, we can create a picture in our heads and picture a few quintessential themes, features, or qualities of the given state based on the way that they promote or brand themselves. Many of these large countries such as Spain, Germany, and Italy built up a reputation throughout Europe and created a brand for their countries, and we can see this in their various performances in the Eurovision Song Contest throughout the years. Moldova is one of the outliers, it is a smaller country that was created as a result of the desire for independence and a fight for a unique identity. However, the current state of Moldova's national brand is up in the air due to the striking similarities to Romania, lack of a distinctive society and cultural or national pride in their performances in Eurovision. It is for these reasons why I believe that the national brand and identity of Moldova is nonexistent.

            If we observe past Moldovan performances, specifically their entries in the 2013 and 2014 Eurovision Song Contests, we do not see any form of their representation of a national brand. These performances were excellent and proved that Moldova can compete, but we do not see any nods to their country or culture, other than the use of the Romanian language in their 2013 performance of the song “O Mie” by Aliona Moon. (NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest)The other song in 2014 was called “Wild Soul” by Cristina Scarlat which was a ballad that was sung in English. (NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest) I believe that the main reason for Moldova's lack of a national brand and identity has to do with the fact that they are still a relatively young and new country. As I mentioned in my narrated briefing, Moldova has only been officially independent since 1992 after gaining independence from Romania. While doing my research on Moldova, I learned a lot about Moldovan society and life in their country. From what I could see, Moldovan life is not really unique to their own country. In all honesty, they look like a rip-off of Romania, which would make a lot of sense knowing their history.

            In my first blog post, I talked about national identity, and I defined it as is the portrayal of beliefs, traditions, culture, and language within one's country and throughout the world. My claim that Moldova has no national brand or identity is backed up by a few of the politicians in Moldova such as Vitalia Pavilecenco, the President of the National Liberal Party in Moldova and Ana Gutu. They have said that the truth is that Moldovans are Romanians because the societies of both countries and the history is the same (Ştefan, 2013). With this being said, I believe that Moldova would like to be more active in expressing a national brand in their performances and establishing a valid national identity, but I think if they do try then everyone would mistake them for Romania. They speak the same language, their flags are nearly the same, they have similar national symbols, colors, history and culture in general. By becoming independent, they fall into a weird area where they do not have any unique characteristics to put on display without being seen as a Romanian spin-off. Moldova does care about its national brand, they just do not know how or what to represent themselves as.

            Despite the complicated situation that they are in with regards to their national brand, Moldova does care about and enjoy being a part of the Eurovision Song Contest. They consistently put out good performances and have decent placements almost every year. From what I can see, Moldova views Eurovision as a way to establish themselves within Europe and show everyone their legitimateness as competitors and as a country. This is important to them because as a young country, they are always looking to create relationships with other countries. Moldova also wants to be a part of the European Union, so this is another way that they could potentially show that they are worthy of being considered. If I were Moldovan, I would want my country to go all out in Eurovision because of the many benefits that come with winning the contest. The amount of tourism and revenue that the state would get from hosting could help with their growth. Moldova is also not the wealthiest country either, in fact, Moldova has Europes most poor economy and hosting Eurovision would undoubtedly improve the economy to thrive. (Nag, Poorest Countries In Europe 2016)

            In conclusion, Moldova's performances and presence in Eurovision do not represent their nation's brand and identity in any way. The main reason for this is due to their lack of cultural and societal uniqueness. Their desire for independence played a significant role in this, causing Moldova to start off as a new country without its own culture and history. This is why Moldova is struggling to find its own identity and also why their national brand should be relevant to them. They need to Even though Moldova does not typically represent their country's brand or identity in their performances, they believe that Eurovision is vital to them and can allow for many possible benefits for their economy and brand if they were to win and host the event.

Works Cited

Nag, O. (2016, December 08). Poorest Countries In Europe. Retrieved March 19, 2019, from https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-poorest-countries-in-europe.html

NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://tv.nrk.no/serie/eurovision-song-contest/2013/MUHU13006313/avspiller

NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://tv.nrk.no/serie/eurovision-song-contest/2014/MUHU11006214/avspiller

Word Count - 896

The Nation On Stage

           Moldova has proved that they belong and are able to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest at a high level since their debut in 2005 and even being able to qualify for the finals ten times since their first performance. Like many of the other European countries, Moldova consistently pulls off great performances with compelling visuals, songs, dancing, and other aspects of a performance. Their performances also have some diversity and represent the interests of the Moldovan people in a unique way. In this post, I will be analyzing the literary and visual devices that were used in Moldova's performances in the 2013 and 2014 Eurovision Song Contest while also evaluating the diversity of their performances.

           I will begin by looking at Moldova's performance in the Eurovision Song Contest grand final in 2013.  In this performance, Moldovan singer Aliona Moon sung “O Mie” or “A Million,” a ballad that was ranked as 11th that year. This performance was exceptional overall and many aspects of this performance caught my attention. I felt like a story was being told throughout the performance and the first indicator of this was the on-stage visuals. (NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest) As we can see at the beginning of the performance the stage, the lower half of the singers dress, as well as parts of the audience were covered in pink lights, automatically making me view this song as a love song because of the association that the color pink has with love. If we read the translated lyrics of the song we can see that this song is, in fact, a love song so the colors match the lyrics at the start of the song and an example of this is “Your beautiful smile woke me up in the mornings a million times.” (O Mie (English translation)) We then see some imagery towards the beginning through the picture of the night sky with stars as this matches with the lyrics “A million hopes were revealed in discretion, at shooting stars, and we didn’t care that I was from Venus, and you were from Mars.”

           The middle portion of this song is a transition to a different mood and emotional state because the lyrics go from kind of remembering the memories that the singer had with someone and reminiscing about the times that they spent together to the singer not wanting anything to do with the person that she is singing about. The lyrics say “My heart is too ill, I thought that we can go on, but you chose to go alone, go away! Now I’m done,” and this shows me how the mood of the song and performance has changed as the song goes on. Another sign that the mood of the song has changed is the emotion of the dancers. At the beginning of the performance, the dancers were more calm and relaxed but they became more intense as the song goes on.

           In the final part of the performance, after the second chorus, the overall tone of the performance and song remains the same overall. However, the performance gives me a more angry mood because of the visuals. We can see that thunderbolts begin to flash in the background and on the singers' dress. This transitions into flames in the background and on the singers dress. While this is all happening, the singer rises, revealing the total length of her dress. The lyrics at this stage are about betrayal and disappointment and the visuals back this up. After the flames are gone the mood of the performance dies down and the flames are replaced by smoke and the emotion of the dancers are also much calmer, signaling that the singer is over whoever or whatever this song was about.

The second performance that I will be analyzing is Moldova’s 2014 performance in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2014, Moldova performed the song “Wild Soul,” a ballad by Cristina Scarlat. (NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest) This performance was really good and it shocked many people when it did not make the grand finals. To begin my analysis, I will look at the costume that the singer is wearing and it reminds me of a female soldier or something that the Catholic Saint Joan of Arc would wear. (Jeanne d'Arc 2018) This costume choice fits the theme of the song very well, especially if we look at the lyrics when she sings the chorus, “Mercy I have no feelings of mercy, destiny left me so empty, empty in my heart and my spirit My patience, fighting with our indifference, fighting to win over everything that we are and can be.” (Cristina Scarlat – Wild Soul)

At the beginning of this performance, there is not much going on in terms of the on-stage visuals. Before the first chorus, all we see is streams of light pointing in many directions and what appears to be images of a dark forest with trees in the background. I think that these visuals fit the mood of the performance at this moment because everything is calm and going smooth. We also see dancers wearing tan costumes, however, I am unable to identify the significance of their costumes.

When the first chorus begins, the emotion of the singer and the dancers change. The performance starts becoming more upbeat and we can see this through the dancers when their movements become more explosive, the visuals as the lights begin to flash brighter, and the emotion that you hear in the singers' voice and see in her movements. At the conclusion of the first chorus, the stage is overcome with red lights and the images of the dark woods become replaced with red as well.

The last of the significant parts of this performance occurs at the final part of the song, during the third chorus. At the beginning of the third chorus, the singer appears to cut off a big portion of her hair. Many people have viewed this action as a metaphor relating to the movie “Mulan”, where the main character, a female soldier cuts off her hair as well. When asked about this action, Cristina Scarlat has said:

Cutting my hair on stage is a metaphor. It symbolizes the decision that a human being takes when in doubt. As I start the song, I am unsure of the reason for my existence. As the lyrics say: What am I? Am I human? Each of us has two important sides inside us, which often battle with each other: the powerful fighter and the weak emotional side. By cutting my hair, I choose to be a fighter and confront all the difficulties in life, not only on a personal level but also to make the world a better place. (Moldova's Cristina is a Eurovision Mulan 2017)

In all honesty, I do not see how these performances reflect any identities of Moldova or create some diversity, other than the use of Moldova's main language, Romanian, in the 2013 performance. Although I could not find any uniqueness in these performances, their use of Romanian is unique in its own way because, in recent times, more and more performers are choosing to sing in English instead of their native language and it is nice to see Moldova paying homage to its roots.

Moldova's performances were very homogenous in my eyes and this is mainly because both songs were upbeat ballads and had similar themes. Both performances played out the same on stage where the emotion slowly escalated as the performance went on. I also noticed that both singers were pretty much stationary throughout their performances and incorporated some kind of special action at the end of the song with the singer rising in 2013 and the singer cutting off her hair in 2014. After watching both of these performances I can conclude that Moldova seems to be interested in a lot of ballads and carry out their performances in similar ways in most instances.

Works Cited

Cristina Scarlat – Wild Soul. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://genius.com/Cristina-scarlat-wild-soul-lyrics

Jeanne d'Arc. (2018, May 06). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://www.pinterest.com/VanDiemensLand/jeanne-darc/

Moldova in Eurovision Voting & Points. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/moldova

Moldova's Cristina is a Eurovision Mulan. (2017, April 09). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://eurovision.tv/story/moldova-s-cristina-is-a-eurovision-mulan

NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://tv.nrk.no/serie/eurovision-song-contest/2013/MUHU13006313/avspiller

NRK TV – Eurovision Song Contest. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://tv.nrk.no/serie/eurovision-song-contest/2014/MUHU11006214/avspiller

O mie (English translation). (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from https://lyricstranslate.com/en/o-mie-thousand.html

Word Count:

1332

The national self (and the Other)

To the Moldovan people, national identity is something that they have been fighting for in recent history. National identity or the portrayal of a countries beliefs, traditions, culture, and language is very important in Moldova, especially since gaining independence in 1991. However, because Moldova is a fairly young country and has only been officially independent for less than thirty years, they do not appear to have a uniqueness to their national identity. Many Moldovan people have split national identity due to the similarities in history, religion, language, and culture with Romania. I believe that Moldova is still currently establishing its own national identity because of their ties to Romania and the different views of the Moldovan people.

As previously stated, I believe that a countries national identity is the portrayal of beliefs, traditions, culture, and language within one's country and throughout the world. I also believe that the national identity of Moldova is currently all over the place and does not have many unique qualities even to consider that their national identity is legit. For example, Moldova has established that they are an independent state, but if we look at the Moldovan flag, we can see striking similarities to the Romanian flag. The Romanian flag has three colors which are blue, yellow, and red in that order. The Moldovan flag is the same as the Romanian flag except for the fact that the Moldovans placed their coat of arms in the center of their flag, however, the Moldovan and Romanian coat of arms are both very similar as well. The Romanian coat of arms is a golden eagle with a cross in its beak, a mace, and sword in its talons and a shield protecting its front (Europe). The Moldovan coat of arms consists of an eagle holding a cross in its beak, as well as a scepter and an olive branch in its talons and the only main difference that is noticeable is that the Moldovan coat of arms has an auroch on it instead of the five sections that represent Romania's historical provinces (Europe). I have no intentions to criticize Moldova, but these common symbols play a factor in Moldova's national identity issues.

Another example that shows us that Moldova is still in the process of establishing their own national identity is their language and religion. The official language in Moldova is Romanian but with slight changes in some of the words and the alphabet in some instances and the official religion in Moldova is Christianity which is also the main religion in Romania. The two countries even believe in the same denomination which is the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Moldovans also share the same traditions and history as the Romanians, and from a global perspective, it is hard to distinguish the differences between the two Eastern European countries. The Romanians and Moldovans identify themselves differently from each other because of the vast similarities in both of their societies. This national identity issue is very confusing for many of the Moldovan people because not everyone accepts their Moldovan identity. Some people would identify as Moldovan while others would identify as Romanian (Ştefan, 2013).

Even the Moldovan people argue about what they identify with. If you were to go and visit Moldova, then you would see many forms of graffiti on the streets that portray the different views that the Moldovan people have about their national identities. A few examples of the graffiti in Moldova are messages that say “Moldova is Romania” or “I am Moldovan and speak the Moldovan language.” These messages can be very problematic for the Moldovan people while establishing their national identities because it divides society into two groups, those that believe that they are Moldovan and those that still want to identify as Romanian even after Moldova's independence. Another example of the opposing views of the Moldovan citizens is what language is supposed to be considered as their main language. Oazu Nantoi, a former Moldovan politician and political analyst, stated that in the Moldovan constitution, the official language is Moldovan. However, in schools, everyone learns the traditional Romanian language and no government officials have considered changing this. When asked about who they believe the Moldovan people are, Vitalia Pavilecenco, the President of the National Liberal Party in Moldova and Ana Gutu have said that the truth is that Moldovans are Romanians because the societies of both countries and the history is the same (Ştefan, 2013). As of right now, Moldova does not have a unique and solid national identity, but I believe that they will establish their own identity in the future as they grow as a country.

I believe that Moldova does have an other and the other is Romania. We can see that the relationship between Moldova and Romania is a love-hate relationship. The views of the Romanians and Moldovans are very mixed, and this is because of the long history that they have and the fact that Moldova wanted to separate from Romania. In Triandafyllidou’s view, Romania is an external other and can be considered as a neighboring nation that is not currently contesting territory (1998). Romania is kind of like a rival for Moldova because they share the same myths, similar symbols, and they have the same ancestry. Romania also threatens Moldovas uniqueness and authenticity at the moment, mainly because Moldova is still a very new country and still needs time to grow and develop. Once we can distinguish Moldovan culture from Romanian culture, we can consider Moldova to have their own national identity.

Word Count: 924

Works Consulted

Europe. (2017, April 07). Retrieved January 29, 2019, from https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/md.htm

Europe. (2017, April 07). Retrieved January 29, 2019, from https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/romania/roflags.htm

The World Factbook: Moldova. (2018, February 01). Retrieved January 29, 2019, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/md.html

The World Factbook: Romania. (2018, February 01). Retrieved January 29, 2019, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ro.html

Triandafyllidou, A. (1998). National identity and the `other.’. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 21(4), 593. https://doi-org.proxy.seattleu.edu/10.1080/014198798329784

Ştefan, V. (Director). (2013, January 16). The struggle for national identity in the Republic of Moldova [Video file]. Retrieved January 29, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf0KThN4_YI

Three Minute Briefing

Bine Ati Venit (Welcome)

Welcome to my blog and thank you for taking the time to read through my posts! The primary focus of my blog is the country of Moldova and their recent participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. In all honesty, my knowledge of Moldova and the Eurovision Song Contest is minuscule. However, I will be learning a lot of new information while I work on this blog and I can't wait to share it with you guys. Thank you for your time, and I hope you enjoy my blog. 



Word Count: 88