Next week at the Ariston Theater in Sanremo it's back to the Festival della Canzone Italiana.

The most beautiful Italian songs of the year have been performed on this occasion since 1951.

But Sanremo is much more than a pop music festival: it is the annual bonfire of popular culture, where the nation reassures itself.

Sanremo is both a yardstick and a driver of cultural and social developments.

Matthias Rub

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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The five evenings will be organized and broadcast by the public broadcaster RAI, in the first television program, as well as on the radio and via the Internet.

The ratings are amazing.

Up to 14 million Italians sit in front of the television from Tuesday to Saturday.

When the winner of the competition is determined on the final evening, RAI Uno will have a market share of up to 70 percent.

The viewers are on average twenty years younger than usual at this broadcast time.

Sanremo has been bringing generations together for generations.

There is a main presenter who is also the "artistic director".

Since 2020, this has been the radio and television presenter Amedeo Sebastiani, known by his stage name Amadeus.

The "Presentatore" invites co-moderators for the individual evenings.

This year, Amadeus has chosen Gianni Morandi as permanent co-host.

The singer and actor, born in 1948, has been in the business for more than six decades and has vivid memories of good old Belpaese, when the economy was booming and Italy's future was as bright as the country and people have always been.

For the second and last evening, Amadeus has invited Chiara Ferragni, the country's most successful influencer with around 28 million followers, as co-moderator.

Ferragni, born in 1987, presents itself with her husband, the rapper Fedez, and their two small children as a poster family for the good new Italy: migrant-friendly, climate-conscious, woke.

In Sanremo, Ferragni will highlight her campaign against femicide.

On average, at least one woman is killed every week in Italy, this year it's five.

As a rule, the former partner is the perpetrator.

Popular pedagogical invitation policy?

Amadeus has signed Paola Egonu for the third evening.

The 24-year-old volleyball player is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants.

She committed to her lesbian partner in 2018 and came out bisexual a second time in 2022.

Because of continued racist insults on social networks, Egonu announced her (now withdrawn) resignation from the national team months ago.

Egonu will remind her compatriots that black people in Italy face racism not only in sports but also in everyday life.

But the protest against Amadeus' policy of inviting people to educate the public was sparked by the fact that Amadeus wants the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj to read out a two-minute message of peace from Kyiv on the final evening.

Zelenskyj had already asked for solidarity and support via video at the Golden Globes and at the Cannes and Venice film festivals.

In Italy, self-proclaimed peace politicians of various persuasions are now raising their voices against Zelensky's participation in Sanremo with similar arguments.

With the speech, the Ukrainian president will certainly not bring peace to his people, rather the opposite, said Matteo Salvini, party leader of the right-wing national Lega and notorious Putin admirer.

Beppe Grillo, founder of the left-wing ecological Five Star Movement, scolded Selenskyj in advance for his alleged "war propaganda".

A petition against the "militarization" of the song festival is in circulation, and the number of artists, intellectuals and diplomats signing is growing.

Amadeus and the RAI want to stick to Zelenskyj's invitation to February 11th.

Philosopher and former mayor of Venice Massimo Cacciari has lauded RAI for its steadfastness and accused the self-styled pacifists of Russophile hypocrisy.

"Certainly, war is cruel, we have known that for millennia," said Cacciari.