Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005

For the first time ever, Ukraine held a national final to select their participant for the Eurovision Song Contest. 527 songs were received by NTU, and a jury narrowed down all submissions to 75.

Five songs were shown each week from 14 November 2004 onwards, which televoting selected the winner from each semi-final to advance for the final.[1]

The final was held on 27 February 2005 at the NTU TV Studios in Kyiv, hosted by Maria Orlova. The fifteen winners from the semi-finals, alongside with four wildcards competed, with the winner being chosen by televoting. One of the wildcard entries, "Razom nas bahato" by the band GreenJolly, was controversially voted by the Ukrainian public as the winner, beating Ani Lorak into second place.

There were a number of singers which had their entries published prior to November 2004, including the heavy favourite Ani Lorak, who was then asked to submit a new song for the final.

The controversial decision to add wildcards 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.