The Politics of Performance: Transnationalism and its Limits in Former Yugoslav Popular Music, 1999–2004

Abstract

This paper examines transnational relations between the Yugoslav successor states from the point of view of popular music, and demonstrates how transnational musical figures (such as Djordje Balašević, Momčilo Bajagić-Bajaga and Ceca Ražnatović) are interpreted as symbolic reference points in national ethnopolitical discourse in the process of identity construction. Another symbolic function is served by Serbian turbofolk artists, who in Croatia serve as a cultural resource to distance oneself from a musical genre associated by many urban Croats with the ruralization (and Herzegovinization) of Croatian city space. In addition, value judgements associated with both Serbian and Croatian newly composed folk music provide an insight into the transnational negotiation of conflicting identities in the ex-Yugoslav context. Ultimately the paper shows how the ethnonational boundaries established by nationalizing ideologies created separate cultural spaces which themselves have been transnationalized after Yugoslavia's disintegration.

Acknowledgements

Some research for this paper was enabled by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I am grateful to Ana Dević, Jasna Dragović-Soso, Denisa Kostovicova, Jelena Obradović, Obrad Savić, Claire Wilkinson, Daphne Winland and anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

1. Schlager is a central and northern European style of popular music typically featuring romantic and sentimental lyrical themes and orchestral or electric-guitar musical arrangements. Ex-Yugoslav zabavna (light-entertainment) music also includes elements of Italian canzonetta, and in stricter senses excludes so-called ‘newly composed folk music’, which is classified as folk or narodna.

2. Varešanović and Džinović are Bosnian performers; Nikolić is Serbian.

3. Sfeci was formerly a member of the rock group Boa.

4. Emblematic of Vuica's repertoire, also including versions of songs by Bijelo dugme and Momčilo Bajagić-Bajaga, is her 2004 song ‘Bosna’ (‘Bosnia’), a duet with the folk singer Halid Bešlić and unashamedly nostalgic for 1980s multi-ethnic Sarajevo.

5. See Razsa and Lindstrom (2004).

6. On ‘rock discourse’, see Frith (1996, p. 67).

7. The fact that Oliver Dragojević, an iconic Dalmatian zabavna singer, has not yet performed in Serbia has also been interpreted in the Croatian and Serbian media as a refusal to do so. If this is the case, his refusal has been less public than Giuliano's or Kovač's.

8. TV Pink's owner, Željko Mitrović, also owns the Serbian company City Records, which releases the largest amount of Croatian music under licence (Globus, 2005).

9. Is the Slovene nation here permanently defined not by its separateness, but by the act of having separated?

10. The most successful releases by mainstream Bosniak artists are often duets with Croatian female singers, such as Monteno/Danijela Martinović (2001), Leo/Severina (2000), Merlin/Ivana Banfić (2000), Merlin/Nina Badrić (2004), and Hari Mata Hari/Banfić (2003). This almost suggests that they are most commercially acceptable when symbolically ‘vouched for’ by a Croatian partner.

11. Zabranjeno pušenje split during the war in Bosnia, leading to Bosnian-based and Serbian-based versions of the band (the Serbian-based version, founded by Nele Karajlić) is also known as the No Smoking Orchestra). The band active in Croatia is the Bosnian branch.

12. For example, the veterans who protested against Balašević using the Croatian National Theatre for a concert in Osijek (Stojčić, 2002)

13. In 2002 Balašević claimed that he stopped performing ‘Računajte na nas’ (‘Count on us’) in 1983 or 1984 after he was personally required to sing it at a state celebration by the federal interior minister, Stane Dolanc (Stanić, 2002).

14. On Turina's relationship to Istrian and Croatian identities, see Kalapoš (2002, pp. 68–74).

15. Split had been the site of the largest pro-Norac demonstrations.

16. Apparently at Bajaga's insistence.

17. Similar dynamics in Belgrade have been described by Eric Gordy (1999, pp. 105–108) and Zala Volčić (2005, pp. 648–650). On spatialized identity in general, see Edensor, 2002, p. 48.

18. In Zala Volčič's interviews with young Slovenian and Macedonian intellectuals on the memory of Yugoslavia, “almost all” her informants recalled and sang this song (Volčič, forthcoming, p. 17).

19. Between 5000 and 6500 people attended Zagreb's Dom sportova. Joksimović is marketed in Serbia as a singer of pop, not folk, music; in Croatia, however, he is received as another folk singer.

20. Despite one journalist's attempt in May to call scandalous attention to Joksimović's statement to TV Pink that he would “conquer Constantinople” at Eurovision (Strukar, 2004).

21. The figure may have related to pre-war releases.

22. In the meantime, Joksimović had also become the first Serbian artist to submit a song (performed by Alka Vuica) to Croatia's Splitski festival.

23. The party had previously relied on zabavna singer Tereza Kesovija and rock singer Jura Stublić. In 2002 Ivana Banfić, Mišo Kovač and Crvena jabuka were engaged for NS-RB election meetings, while Vesna Zmijanac and Miroslav Ilić performed for Bosnian Serb parties.

24. The ex-Yugoslav diaspora provides other examples of transnationalism without reconciliation (e.g. the YugoUK Internet forum which carries pro-Milošević, anti-Croatian newsfeeds on its front page (http://www.yugouk.co.uk, accessed 29 May 2006)) but is still happy to promote Croatian performers including Magazin and Darko Rundek in its concert listings. On ex-Yugoslav popular music and identity among migrants in Vienna, see Fischer (2005, pp. 67–71).

25. These include performing at the 2003 Sinj Alka (jousting festival), and appearing in a video honouring Tudjman during the overture at Thompson's 2002 concerts (Paštar, 2003; Gospodnetić, 2002).

26. Since the song's release, Norac has been convicted of war crimes by a Croatian court.

27. The tamburica is a stringed instrument from Slavonia.

28. In Serbia ‘turbo folk’ likewise came to overlap with dance (Kronja, 2001, pp. 66–7).

29. For instance, Krželj (2002), Gall (2002b), Dežulović (2002) Vodopija (2004) and Pavičić (2005).

30. On Brena, see Dragićević-Šešić (1994, pp. 146–147).

31. Compare Brena's ‘Jugoslovenka’ (‘Yugoslav woman’). In fact, the Croatian performer most open to comparisons with Brena in this period was perhaps Maja Šuput, who made great use of Brena's characteristic male backing-vocals and her typical lyrical themes of joy and entertainment—and was criticized on these grounds from a ‘Balkanist’ perspective (Strukar & Mamić, 2003).

32. On ethnological approaches to the reproduction of national (etc.) symbols in everyday life, see Kalapoš (2002, pp. 11–12).