It’s been a few years in the making, but now the time has come. For fans of Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest, this should also come as a very pleasant surprise. The Slovenian broadcaster (RTV SLO) announced earlier in the year, that it would aim for a national final, but ended up scrapping it to go internally to select Raiven, as the upcoming Slovenian representative.
Raiven’s path to Eurovision
For those who are unaware, Raiven has been a heavily involved name from Slovenia, for the past few good years. Born under the name of Sara Briški Cirman, but goes by her stage name Raiven has tried to represent Slovenia since 2016. In total, she had 3 attempts at the Slovenian national final, and even finished in top 3 all 3 attemps, unfotunately she didn’t finish first on any of her attempts.
On her debut year, in 2016, she entered with the song “Črno Bel“ which landed on her 2nd place, behind ManuElla. She then returned to the national final the following year, in 2017, with the song “Zažarim“, which landed on her 3rd place, behind BQL and eventual winner Omar Naber. She didn’t return in 2018 as a participant, but instead as a host of the national final. After a one year break as a participant, she was back once again, in 2019, with her song “Kaos“, which also landed her on 2nd place, finishing behind Zalagasper.
Since then, the attempts have been very limited, despite Slovenia still opted for a national final in 2020 and 2022, but went internal in 2021 and 2023. The story about the 2021 internal selection should come as obvious, since Ana Soklič never got her chance in 2020 due to the pandemic, but with the internal selection of Joker Out for 2023, hope had suddenly arisen once again.
With Joker Out managing to qualify to the final in Liverpool, the idea for Slovenia to once again go internal seemed obvious. However, RTV SLO had something slightly different in mind, the broadcaster announced a new national final format called “Mission Malmö“.
This national final was supposed to be held in January 2024, but was overall scrapped as early as just last week, and the broadcaster decided to go fully internally. With that, Raiven was finally announced as the Slovenian representative, and she will fly her siren song to Malmö.
Song details and release
It has even been announced, that Raiven‘s song is titled “Veronika“, and the song has been described as the symphony of the Sirens. Further details haven’t been given, other than the song is named after Veronika of Desenice, who was accused, according to history, of performing witchcraft. Despite being acquitted by the court, during the witchcraft trial, she was still murdered by drowning. She was married to Frederick II, who was Count of Celje at the time. After the murder, Frederick ordered her remains to be re-burried at a Carthusians monastary.
The tale of this love story between the two, is what has inspired the culture and the myth around Veronika in Slovenia. With lots of stories and novels being written about her as the inspiration.
Much else is not known about the song at the moment, but it is known that Raiven herself has been part of writing the song, the song will be in Slovene and that it was be released on the 20th of January 2024. Until then, we can only wait in anticipation.
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Source(s): Eurovision.TV & RTV Slovenia (In Slovene)
