Execution of Louis Capet 16th of the name on January 21, 1793

Résumé :

Austria has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since 1957, just two years after the establishment of its public broadcaster and won three times. From the outset, Austria has used the contest as a platform to showcase its cultural identity internationally. For a country where the recognition of music has been pivotal in shaping its national identity (Nußbaumer, 2007; Wagner, 2005), the Eurovision Song Contest has been a key tool for asserting and, over the years, updating Austrian heritage in the service of both national and international interests. On the eve of the 70th edition, the contest remains an ideal showcase for promoting the image (or rather images) of Austria, both at home and abroad (Salgó, 2017; Pilipets, 2018). We aim to examine the processes of heritagization or patrimonialization (Davallon, 2006, 2023) related to Eurovision in Austria, in order to understand the interplay of actors and the identitarian, political, diplomatic, and cultural stakes, surrounding Eurovision’s legacy in Austria. The aim is to observe, on the one hand, how Austrian actors, particularly public ones, have engaged with the Eurovision Song Contest to define, invest in, and disseminate a cultural heritage musical, artistic, and linguistic; and, on the other hand, to study the strategies of integration and appropriation of the Eurovision Song Contest as an element of Austrian heritage and what it challenges.