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Wonderful Song Contest 59 was the fifty-ninth edition of the Wonderful Song Contest.The contest took place in Athens after the Greek victory in the 58th edition. A total of 52 countries competed in Wonderful Song Contest 59. The 58th edition was win by and their song "Diving" by Evangelia and Kelvin Jones, which got a total of 306 points.Prequalified countries for this edition are:, , ,  ,  and. They are directly qualified to the final, while the other competing countries are split into two semifinals. ,, , , ,and have withdrew from the contest due to coronavirus problems and ,  have returned back to the contest. have won this edition with song "TBA" by TBA with TBA points. Prequalified countries for next edition are:, , , , and.

Information


On 01 October 2021 it was announced that Athens will serve as the host city of the Wonderful Song Contest 59.

Host City
Athens (/ˈæθɪnz/ ATH-ɪnz; Greek: Αθήνα, romanized: Athína [aˈθina] (listen); Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι, romanized: Athênai (pl.) [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯]) is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence starting somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennium BC.

Classical Athens was a powerful city-state. It was a center for the arts, learning and philosophy, and the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent—particularly Ancient Rome. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Greece. In 2021, Athens' urban area hosted more than three and a half million people, which is around 35% of the entire population of Greece.

Athens is a Beta global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and is one of the biggest economic centers in southeastern Europe. It has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the largest passenger port in Europe, and the second largest in the world.

The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which actually constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire city, had a population of 664,046 (in 2011) within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi). The Athens Urban Area or Greater Athens extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits, with a population of 3,090,508 (in 2011) over an area of 412 km2 (159 sq mi). According to Eurostat in 2011, the functional urban area of Athens was the 9th most populous in the European Union (the 6th most populous capital city of the EU), with a population of 3.8 million people. Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland and the warmest major city in Europe.

The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, considered a key landmark of early Western civilization. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a smaller number of Ottoman monuments, while its historical urban core features elements of continuity through its millennia of history. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery. Landmarks of the modern era, dating back to the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the so-called "architectural trilogy of Athens", consisting of the National Library of Greece, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to several museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Benaki Museum and the Byzantine and Christian Museum. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics, making it one of the few cities to have hosted the Olympics more than once. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι (Athênai, pronounced [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯] in Classical Attic) a plural. In earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη (Athḗnē). It was possibly rendered in the plural later on, like those of Θῆβαι (Thêbai) and Μυκῆναι (Μukênai). The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin, and is possibly a remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica. In antiquity, it was debated whether Athens took its name from its patron goddess Athena (Attic Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, Ionic Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē, and Doric Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā) or Athena took her name from the city. Modern scholars now generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city, because the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.

According to the ancient Athenian founding myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, competed against Poseidon, the God of the Seas, for patronage of the yet-unnamed city; they agreed that whoever gave the Athenians the better gift would become their patron and appointed Cecrops, the king of Athens, as the judge. According to the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring welled up. In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics, Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. In both versions, Athena offered the Athenians the first domesticated olive tree. Cecrops accepted this gift and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. Eight different etymologies, now commonly rejected, have been proposed since the 17th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος (áthos) or ἄνθος (ánthos) meaning "flower", to denote Athens as the "flowering city". Ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- (tháō, thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil. Athenians were called cicada-wearers (Ancient Greek: Τεττιγοφόροι) because they used to wear pins of golden cicadas. A symbol of being autochthon (earth-born), because the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus was an autochthon or of being musicians, because the cicada is a "musician" insect. In classical literature, the city was sometimes referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindar's ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι (iostéphanoi Athânai), or as τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ (tò kleinòn ásty, "the glorious city").

During the medieval period, the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα. Variant names included Setines, Satine, and Astines, all derivations involving false splitting of prepositional phrases. King Alphonse X of Castile gives the pseudo-etymology 'the one without death/ignorance'.[page needed] In Ottoman Turkish, it was called آتينا Ātīnā, and in modern Turkish, it is Atina.

After the establishment of the modern Greek state, and partly due to the conservatism of the written language, Ἀθῆναι [aˈθine] again became the official name of the city and remained so until the abandonment of Katharevousa in the 1970s, when Ἀθήνα, Athína, became the official name. Today it is often simply called η πρωτεύουσα ī protévousa ; 'the capital'.

Bidding phase
Only one main venue was announced as possible venue for the competition to be held. It has a capacity of 20,000 and several big concerts and sport events take place here.
 * The host city had to be near a major airport.
 * The venue must be available for at least six weeks before the contest and one week after the conclusion of the contest
 * The venue must not be open-air, but an air-conditioned building with a capacity of at least 10,000 and a minimum ceiling height of 15 metres (49 ft), insulated for sound and light.
 * The green room must be located as close to the arena as possible (or within it), with a capacity of 300.

Presenter
On 1 October 2021 it was announced that Evangelia will be presenter of the Wonderful Song Contest 59.

Evangelia, is a American-Greek singer which represented Greece in the thirty-third edition and thirty-fourth edition of the North Vision Song Contest with the song "Páme Páme" and "Fotiá".

Evangelia Psarakis grew up commuting between her grandmother’s small farm on the Greek island of Crete and her parents’ home in New Jersey on the American East Coast - two completely different musical worlds, both of which influenced her style. An Evangelia song blends modern urban pop music with sounds from her Greek roots, contemporary club beats and catchy melodies. By fusing American pop culture with traditional Greek elements, Evangelia honors her ancestors while also creating a legacy of her own. Her art connects to people through a message of being confidently in love with yourself, with someone else, and with what is most important to you.

Evangelia is a history and political science major and a comparative critical race and ethnic studies minor. She will be applying to the Rutgers Graduate School of Education next year to become a teacher. Evangelia is a proud member of Douglass Residential College as well as the School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program. She is a recipient of the Rutgers Academic Excellence award for being in the top ten percent of her class. Among other things, Evangelia loves music, poetry, and art, and enjoys writing and performing her own original songs at various events across campus. In the spring, Evangelia will be working on democratic transitions in Cyprus with Eric Davis from the Rutgers Political Science Department.

Provisitation list of Participants

 * Countries are in Prequalification Round next edition
 * Countries qualified to the grand final or semifinal
 * Country have won current edition
 * Country have finished on second place current edition
 * Country have finished on third place current edition
 * Country have finished on last place current editions final
 * Country have been disqualified from current editions final or semifinal
 * Country have in the final qualified to the semifinals or final

Prequalification Round
All countries, that participate in Prequalification Round have to vote in. Other country can also vote. The deadline to vote in Prequalification Round is 4th September 2021 at 15:00 CEST.
 * Recap of the Prequalification Round
 * Spotify Prequalification Round Playlist
 * Results of the Prequalification Round

All Songs
All countries had to present their songs until 27th August 2021 at 20:00 CEST, sadly in the last moment decided, that they will withdraw from current edition. Countries were as always diveded into 6 sneak peeks. In Sneak Peeks are 8 songs.
 * Official Spotify Playlist of All Songs
 * Youtube Recap - Sneak Peek #01
 * Youtube Recap - Sneak Peek #02
 * Youtube Recap - Sneak Peek #03
 * Youtube Recap - Sneak Peek #04
 * Youtube Recap - Sneak Peek #05
 * Youtube Recap - Sneak Peek #06