Intervision Song Contest

The Intervision Song Contest (ISC) was an international song contest for artists from Eastern Bloc countries. It was the communist equivalent to the Eurovision Song Contest. Its organiser was Intervision, the network of Eastern Bloc television stations. The contest would usually take place in the Forest Opera in Sopot, Poland. The ISC was organised between from 1965 to 1968 and again from 1977 to 1980. It replaced the Sopot International Song Festival (Sopot ISF) that had been held in Sopot since 1961. In 1981 the ISC/Sopot ISF was cancelled because of the rise of the independent trade union movement, Solidarity, which was judged by other Eastern bloc communist governments to be "counter-revolutionary". A revived contest took place in 2008, though subsequent editions planned to stage the contest again in both 2014 and 2015 did not materialize. History Intervision began in 1965 and ran to 1968, though a common myth states that it began in 1977.