Blog post 2: Greece at Eurovision 2025

In my previous blog post, I explained my own definition of national identity and how it applied to Greek national identity. There I talked about Greek national identity being primarily made up of language, religion, historical heritage, and ethnicity/ancestry, along with Greece’s “othering” of groups within the context of their historical relations to Greece. In this blog post, I will analyze Greece’s 2025 performance at Eurovision in Basel, Switzerland, and its correlation to Greek national identity.

Klavdia’s “Asteromata”

Greece’s 2025 Eurovision entry “Asteromata” was written in part by Greek songwriting team ARCADE and Greek pop singer Klavdia, who sang the piece at the contest. “Asteromata” is a pop ballad mix with powerful lyrics and symbolism referencing ideas about displacement.

The lyrics of the “Asteromata” are written entirely in Greek, which is one of many parts of how Greece’s performance seems to be drawing on the ethnic representation of the country in their national identity. This aspect can be further recognized as intentional ethnic representation, especially considering that English songs win more often than those in other languages (Pilkington), and Greece’s past winning entry was in English, showing how Greece may be deliberately grounding their national identity over mass appeal. This decision to perform “Asteromata” in Greek also suggests Greece’s participation in Alf Björnberg’s “return to ethnicity”, in which “ethnic countries' performance of ethnic music is read as an expression of cultural authenticity” (Björnberg). This choice aligns with my definition of Greek national identity from blog post 1, with the Greek language being one of the defining internal characteristics of Greece’s national identity. Specific lyrics from “Asteromata” (in their English translation) such as “searching for the way back, the wind is my sail” and “The swallows of fire, Even if they cross seas, The soil of their roots, They never forget” seem to be important pieces of imagery within the song and its inferred representation of displacement and separation of refugee. These words can be interpreted as being about displaced Pontic refugees and their hardships and journeys because of the history of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in its connection to modern day Greece, but it is until taking a closer look at an interview with Klavdia that this can be made official and clear.

Klavdia Papadopoulou was born in Aspropyrgos, Greece, and is of Pontic Greek descent, which is important in the context of why she, alongside songwriting team ARCADE, chose these lyrics to represent Greece. In an interview following Greece’s 2025 Eurovision performance, Klavdia said, “Our country has experienced these emotions, and my family has lived through them,” as well as “I am connected to the song because my family are refugees, and my grandmother has shared stories from the past that have influenced me” (Giannopoulos). This interview strongly supports an interpretation that the song is referencing historically displaced Pontic Greeks during the Pontic Greek genocide. The Pontic Greek genocide was the “deliberate and systematic destruction of the indigenous Greek community in the Pontus region in the Ottoman Empire during World War 1 and its aftermath” (Wikimedia Foundation). By presenting this tragic ethnic memory at Eurovision, which “in effect becomes a global stage” with so many people watching around the world (Wolfe), the performance participates in what Katrin Sieg describes as “Eurovision’s return to Europeanness” (Sieg). This mechanism that Sieg describes is when central and eastern countries frame Eurovision as a place for them to assert their Europeanness, presenting how they deserve European identity. While Greece is not central and eastern in the context of Europe after WWII, performing on the Eurovision stage still lets them assert their national identity and European belonging, like how CEE countries demonstrate European belonging in the same way. In using the lyrics and platform to talk about the tragic history of the Pontic Greek genocide, this aspect of the lyrics aligns with my definition of Greek national identity, having ethnicity and ancestry, and historical heritage as central internal aspects defining it. At the same time, this representation at this stage can create some tension. Interpreted specific Greek history is being presented to a broader European audience, putting Greece between asserting a personal and sensitive aspect of their national identity, and presenting it meaningfully to other countries which some of may not share the same experiences. This raises the question of whether their presentation is authentic to the Greek experience, or if it is influenced by the need to make tragic history relatable to audiences across Europe and even broader global communities outside of it.

The inferred meaning behind the lyrics given by Klavdia’s personal connection and the imagery described throughout can explain the choreography at key parts of the song. The most notable parts of the choreography are Klavdia moving to stand alone on the large rock, then Christina Kaliakatsou walking by her and reaching out but not being able to reach her, and lastly her gown changing to white in the final moments of the performance. Klavdia moving to stand isolated on the rock can be interpreted as symbolizing the displacement and separation experienced by Pontic Greek refugees. The choreography involving both Klavdia and Christina, particularly the incomplete reaching gesture, can be representative of the displaced “sweet mother” or “starry-eyed one” from the lyrics. The final part of the choreography, in which Klavdia transforms into having a white dress in place of her black one, can be seen as representing the transformation of situation and/or safe arrival of a refugee and ultimately ends the performance with a sense of resolution after endearment of suffering. These movements reflect Anthony D. Smith’s mechanism of Ethno-symbolism, which is the study of, and belief that, “elements of symbol, myth, memory, value, ritual and tradition to be crucial to an analysis of ethnicity, nations and nationalisms” (Smith). In this case, the choreography shows a historical memory of Pontic Greek displacement through the separation of the two women on stage. Because my definition of Greek national identity covers representation by internal factors such as ethnicity, ancestry, and historical heritage, this mechanism aligns with it and shows how the symbolism/imagery can be representative not only in the lyrics but also in the choreography, further reinforcing Greek national identity to the Eurovision audience.

More alignment under the same mechanism comes from the background LEDs, which display a fiery tree, rugged waters, which could be referencing black sea and its significance during the Pontic Genocide (Bedrosyan), and most significantly, the Caryatid statue (The National Herald) with birds flying up and around it. This last example of the Caryatid statue is especially significant within the performances model of Ethno-symbolism because of its relation to Greek history and its symbolism that could relate to the inferred meaning of the lyrics and choreography. In archaic Greece, “caryatids represented the women of Caryae, who were doomed to hard labour because the town sided with the Persians in 480 bc during their second invasion of Greece” (Britannica). This historical reference on the surface only promotes Greek history through Greek architecture, but on a deeper level, resonates with the strength of Pontic Greek women. During the genocides, Pontic women were faced with extreme violence and misconduct by perpetrators (Imbrenda), and their resilience and strength can be interpreted as symbolized simultaneously by the lyrics, choreography, and Caryatid with birds on the LED screen. The lyrics “sweet mother, do not weep” could depict Pontic women uplifting one another during these atrocities of war. Building off this, the choreography of Klavdia and Christina reaching out to each other can be seen as depicting women’s strength and resilience in their fight for refuge as displaced refugees. Finally, the ascending birds may symbolize the continuity of life and memory, remembering how woman survivors of war crimes and atrocities is represented by gendered strength as a part of Greek’s identity today. This aspect of “Asteromata” can be seen in the scope of Catherine Baker’s “Gender and Geopolitics in the Eurovision Song Contest”. This study explains that “Gender, clearly, would be at the centre of such an analysis” in response to the question, “what would a feminist geopolitics, not just a critical geopolitics, of Eurovision look like?” (Baker). When we apply Baker’s idea, the combination of the Caryatid, choreography between Klavdia and Christina, the lyrics, and the ascending birds can be read deeper as a performed enactment of gendered resilience and strength, making visible the strength of women who endured the atrocities of the Pontic Genocide. This shows how women’s strength and survival are presented as aspects to the historical and cultural side of Greece through their Eurovision performance.

This gendered focus on women’s strength does not perfectly align with aspects of my previous definition of Greek national identity, which emphasized historical heritage, ancestry, ethnicity, and language. Nonetheless, it enriches my understanding of what Greek national identity can encompass and broadens the idea that Greek identity is just seemingly inherited through historical symbols in architecture, showing that it is really lived and remembered from acts of solidarity and survival. “Asteromata” ends of a note of hopefulness and relief, displaying cultural memory with powerful layered representation.  

Word count: 1516

 

 

References:

Pilkington, J. (2024, April 1). The rise of English and use of national languages in Eurovision. JohntheGo.com. https://www.johnthego.com/2018/04/16/rise-english-use-national-languages-eurovision/

Ottoman empire | facts, history, & map | britannica. Britannica. (n.d.). https://www.britannica.com/place/Ottoman-Empire

Giannopoulos, B. (2025). Klavdia: “My eurovision 2025 song speaks about displacement and refugees.” Greek City Times. https://greekcitytimes.com/2025/01/19/klavdia-my-eurovision-2025-song-speaks-about-displacement-and-refugees/

Wolfe, Sven Daniel. “Eurovision and the global stage: culture clash and geopolitics.” Patch Zine 001, no.1 (May 2025).

Björnberg A (2007) Return to ethnicity: The cultural significance of musical change in the Eurovision Song Contest. In: Raykoff I, Tobin RD (eds) A Song for Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.13–24.

Smith, A. D. (2009). Ethno-symbolism and Nationalism: A cultural approach. Routledge.

Bedrosyan, R. (2014, July 2). Bedrosyan: The genocide of the Pontic greeks. The Armenian Weekly. https://armenianweekly.com/2014/07/02/bedrosyan-genocide-pontic-greeks/

The National Herald. (2025, May 15). Eurovision 2025: Greece secures spot in the Grand Final with a striking performance by Klavdia - The National Herald. The National Herald. https://www.thenationalherald.com/eurovision-2025-greece-secures-spot-in-the-grand-final-with-a-striking-performance-by-klaudia/

Caryatid | Classical greek, columnar support, sculptural form | britannica. (n.d.-b). https://www.britannica.com/technology/caryatid

Imbrenda, M. (2021). Timeline of events reported in the American War Diaries for 1921-1922. The Greek Genocide in American Naval War Diaries, 75–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.766981.7

Wikimedia Foundation. (2026, February 7). Pontic greek genocide. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_Greek_genocide#cite_note-:11-2

Baker, C. (2015). Introduction: Gender and geopolitics in the Eurovision Song Contest. Contemporary Southeastern Europe (CSE). https://contemporarysee.org/introduction-gender-and-geopolitics-in-the-eurovision-song-contest