Screenshot of a video of Intervision 2025's winning performance from Vietnam, represented by Đức Phúc with the song ‘Phù Đổng Thiên Vương’ on Kieran Edmunds's YouTube channel. Fair use.

Song contests have become deeply politicised. From Eurovision to Intervision, nearly every international music competition, like ABU TV Song Festival or Viña del Mar International Song Festival, eventually turns into a mirror of geopolitics. Judges, audiences, even performers find themselves drawn into a game of symbols, where melody and lyrics cease to exist on their own and become a way of saying something between the lines.

In September 2025, Russia announced the revival of Intervision, which seems to be setting itself up as an alternative to Eurovision, from which Russia has been banned since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022.

Officials from the host country insist, of course, that the revived contest is “apolitical.” Alexander Alimov, an official at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview with TASS that “Intervision was never intended as a counterweight to Eurovision, although there are certainly differences. Our contest carries no political undertones. We are seeking a unifying language based on such values as mutual respect, cultural sovereignty, and equality.”

At the same time, this independent project, described in Russian media as having its own distinct concept, happens — quite coincidentally — to look strikingly similar to Eurovision: in its name, selection of hosts, visual style, and overall design.

Below is the full broadcast of the Intervision final on YouTube:

And here is the full broadcast of the Eurovision final on YouTube:

The irony is that such contests were originally conceived as the opposite of politics. Eurovision was born in the 1950s with the idea of uniting Europe through culture, while Intervision emerged in the 1970s as the socialist bloc’s counterpart. Performers from Eastern Europe, the USSR and allied nations took part, aiming to show that the Iron Curtain did not block cultural exchange. Held in Sopot, Poland, the contest — despite limited broadcasting — became one of the most recognisable music stages in the Eastern bloc. In 1981, Intervision Sopot was cancelled because of the rise of the independent trade union movement, which was judged by other Eastern bloc communist governments to be “counter-revolutionary.”

Today, as the world once again divides into rival camps, that history feels newly relevant. The more strained the political climate, the less likely it is that music can remain untouched by it. Votes from juries and audiences are increasingly seen not as assessments of talent, but as declarations of allegiance.

Social media has amplified this effect. It’s hardly surprising that under news articles about Intervision, one finds comments like: “I watched it yesterday. It was wonderful. No nudity, everyone dressed decently. No rainbow flags.” The very fact that viewers judge ideology rather than performance shows how far the conversation has drifted from music itself.

The Carnegie Berlin Center pointed out an interesting moment during the show: when the hosts asked the singer from India what his song was about, he replied in English, “About love — whoever you love.”

In Russian, however, this was translated as: “Usually, when people talk about love, they mean the love between a man and a woman. But my song is about another kind of love — love for one’s parents.” This was seen as an attempt to avoid the kind of “vulgarity” that some Russian officials attributed to Eurovision.

There was a time, back in the last century, when Intervision gifted this part of the world with unforgettable songs and remarkable performers.

Below is a YouTube video from the 1968 Golden Clef Intervision Contest held in Karlovy Vary:

This is the Intervision Song Contest held in Sopot, Poland, in 1977:

The revived Intervision, now under active discussion, will inevitably inherit this context. It cannot exist outside politics, but it may offer a different perspective — not rivalry, but dialogue between cultures. After all, music remains the only language the world can still speak without translation.