Croatia Presses Play: Dora 2026 Drops Its Songs and the Race Officially Begins

It’s happening. Croatia has stopped hinting and started delivering. HRT has released the 24 songs competing at Dora 2026, and with that simple act, the Croatian Eurovision season has quietly but decisively begun.

The first listens landed this morning on Svijet diskografije on HR 2, for those who like their national selections with a coffee and a notebook. A few hours later, at 15:00 CET, the songs made their inevitable jump to YouTube, where opinions were formed instantly and changed just as quickly.

This is Dora tradition. You listen once, you have a favourite. You listen again, you panic. By the third run-through, nothing is certain anymore.

February, Zagreb and the Usual Eurovision Nerves

Dora 2026 will take place in February at the HRT Studios in Zagreb, with a structure nobody needs explained at this point: two semi-finals and one final. Clean, efficient, and designed to slowly test everyone’s patience.

Twenty-four acts are now officially in the race. One of them will eventually earn the right to represent Croatia in Vienna at the 70th Eurovision Song Contest. The rest will earn streaming numbers, cult status, or a footnote in Dora discourse.

The Part Where Everything Still Feels Possible

This is the brief window where optimism thrives. Every song has potential. Every staging idea exists only in theory. Nobody has been “robbed” yet.

That comes later.

For now, Dora 2026 is exactly where it should be: songs out in the open, fans arguing politely, and Croatia once again asking itself the eternal question.

Which of these can actually survive Europe?

One of them will find out.