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Abstract
The aim of this paper is to examine the construction/recycling of national identities primarily through the participation of Serbia (and Montenegro) at the Eurovision Song Contests 2004–2008. First, the performances of this country's representatives at the Eurovision Song Contest will be examined, emphasising the aspects that contribute to the popularity of the songs chosen to represent the nation and the state. All those elements reinvent a picture of the past in its lived totality, managing to reawaken the sense of the supposedly idyllic national past associated with them. In this manner of (re-)creating identity, the recycling of memory and imagined tradition, but also references to European cultural, media and political spheres, have great symbolic weight. The second part will offer a discourse analysis of media coverage of the performance of the country as a host of the Eurovision Song Contest. It is shown how the notion of ‘the new face of Serbia’ is supposed to balance different, sometimes even confronted cultural markers present in concurrent identity strategies in Serbia.
Notes
1. This paper is a part of the project Serbia in between traditionalism and modernisation: ethnological and anthropological studies of cultural processes 147020, financed by the Serbian Ministry of Science and Technological Development.
2. CitationChris Farmer, Deconstructing Eurovision, http://blog.b92.net/text/3073/Deconstructing%20Eurovision/ (accessed May 28, 2008).
3. The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (Državna zajednica Srbija i Crna Gora, SCG), was a union of Serbia and Montenegro, which existed between 2003 and 2006. The two entities, both former SFR Yugoslav republics, had initially formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992.
4. CitationRobins, “Identity.”
5. CitationSmith, “National Identity and the Idea of European Unity.”
6. CitationBolin, “Visions of Europe: Cultural Technologies of Nation-states,” 195.
7. The geographical area encompassed by the member states has spread; hence, several countries outside Europe have also become members, including the broadcasters from North African countries, such as Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco, but also Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Japan and Canada. This does not mean, however, that they have entered the Eurovision Song Contest. The only entirely non-European nation to take part in the contest is, and has always been, Israel, and, since 2008, Azerbaijan. Morocco participated once, in 1980.
8. See, for example, CitationBourdon, Unhappy Engineers of the European Soul.
9. The number of participants grew from seven at the first ESC in Lugano in 1956 to 43 in Belgrade in 2008.
10. CitationLukić-Krstanović, “Musical Spectacle in the Show Window of Politics and the Products of Fascination,” 127 (Muzički spektakl u izlogu politike i proizvodnja opčinjenosti), Kulturne paralele: zbornik radova Etnografskog instituta SANU.
11. Bolin, “Visions of Europe,” 195.
12. CitationBaker, “Wild dances and dying wolves.”
13. CitationAppadurai, Modernity at Large, 39; CitationShay, Choreographic Politics, 28–9, quoted in Baker, op. Cit., 175.
14. Appadurai, op. Cit., 36.
15. Although the inescapable globalisation processes were manifested intensely even in the most local-oriented trends and music genres, in terms of the influences on music and visual presentation.
16. This was what Joksimović and his team stated.
17. And as Maria Todorova argues, they are often perceived as backward for that very reason. CitationTodorova, Imagining the Balkans.
18. For a review and critique of the stereotyped images of the Balkans and its inhabitants see, for example, Todorova, op. cit., 145.
19. CitationČolović, Ethno. World Music on the Internet, 145.
20. There was a huge public debate after the national contest on the origin and ‘authenticity’ of the opening theme. Rumour had it that it was of Azerbaijanian origin. CitationMikić, ‘The Way We (Me, Myself and I) Were,” 175.
21. CitationFeld, “‘Notes on World Beat’ and ‘From schizophonia to schismogenesis’.”
22. CitationAubert, The Music of the Other.
23. Some Croatian officials, for example, believe that Serbia is fortunate enough to have a large expatriate society in Croatia.
24. A Reuters’ dispatch said Šerifović's victory ‘gave hope to Serbia's tiny and harassed gay community’. The wire service quoted a partygoer leaving ‘Belgrade's only gay-friendly club’ as saying, ‘A big win for Serbia, a small step for gay rights!’. Wockner, Rex. World Round Up, http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news (accessed May 23, 2007). /ARTICLE.php?AID = 14975 (accessed June 6, 2007)
25. http://illyriangazette.blogspot.com/search/label/serbia (accessed June 6, 2007).
26. http://www.pressonline.co.yu/vest.jsp?id = 9605 (accessed July 14, 2007).
27. Marija Šerifović won on Saturday, tennis player Ana Ivanović won the Berlin tournament on Sunday, and the same day a glorious welcome meeting for Marija Šerifović took place in Belgrade. On Monday, 14 May, Marija Šerifović visited the Parliament (a visit that aroused a serious parliamentary discussion on the possible political option not only Marija, but also her parents, grandparents and the rest of her family, were favouring). On the same day Tomislav Nikolić resigned from his post as that weekend different democratic options had reached an agreement on the future government that Serbia would finally get on Wednesday. RTS Channel 2, which transmitted the Parliamentary Session at which Tomislav Nikolić became the President of the National Assembly, had the highest ratings in its history. The transmission of the Eurovision Song Contest final had the best ratings in Serbia (43%), although the same evening there was also the transmission of the important parliamentary session (36.8% of spectators). Therefore, in that week Serbia constantly watched one of the national television channels, and mostly both of them.
28. An example is the Serbian Roma Union.
29. After that, Marija Šerifović engaged in Serbian nationalist propaganda, supporting the above-mentioned politician, Tomislav Nikolić, at rallies during his unsuccessful presidential campaign, which led to a heated public debate concerning her status as EU cultural ambassador.
30. Bolin, op. cit., 203.
31. He had a double role: that of composer and presenter/host.
32. This ceremony is meant to be a tradition from now on, and the ring contains the keys to every city that has ever hosted the competition.
33. Ukraine was considered an option since it came second in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007. YLE was another option, as it hosted last year's competition in Helsinki, Finland. The ERT also offered to the EBU to host the contest in Athens, Greece again.
34. http://www.queerbeograd.org/index.php?option = com_content&task = view&id = 243&Itemid = 54 (accessed November 4, 2008).
35. CitationMacDonald, “Serbs Tune in for Eurosong,” http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id = fto051820082227260328&page = 2
36. http://www.blic.co.yu/zabava.php?id = 42941 (accessed November 4, 2008).
37. Smith, “National Identity and the Idea of European Unity.”
38. Mikić, op. cit., 176.
39. Baker, Mikić, op. cit., 176
40. Pro-European is conceptualised in terms of tolerance and multiplicity.
41. Which alternative is seen as the first and which as the second varies depending on the preferences of those who label them.
42. Discussions about this (again, binary) concept mostly focus on the question: is two too few or too many?
43. This is a verse from a poem by the famous Serbian poet Desanka Maksimović.
44. Here I invoke the rural and pastoral image offered by ESC representatives, but also by campaigns for branding Serbia. Serbian peasantry is often seen as the main social stratum in nation-building. See, for example: CitationNaumović, “Rise, Peasants, Rise, Brethren.”
45. CitationSaid, Orientalism.
46. CitationBjörnberg, “Return to Ethnicity,” 22. However, Baker's critique of this interpretation is also valid – she reminds us of the so-called northern exoticism. See Baker, op. cit.
47. Bolman argues that entries with national, racial and ethnic-minority themes most often end up in the bottom quartile. CitationBolman, “The Politics of Power, Pleasure and Prayer in the Eurovision Song Contest,” 47. This is an interesting contrast to the recent success of the voices of sexual minorities – or, more accurately, of the performers who employed transgender performative strategies.
48. This was the great concern of the Eurosong founders and organisers, with good reason, too; thus, system changes were introduced. From 2008 onwards two semi-finals have been held. The introduction of the second semi-final is supposed to prevent block-voting among countries: for example, the UK cannot vote for Ireland and Greece cannot vote for Cyprus. Only the host country and the Big Four automatically qualify for the grand final, and they are joined by 10 countries from each semi-final – to make a total of 25 entries in the final. However, this year, the Russian representative won the competition.
49. CitationYair, ‘“Unite Unite Europe,” 158.
50. CitationGatherer, “Birth of a Meme,” http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/2004/vol8/gathererdletter.html. Also, CitationClerides, Sofronis, and Thanasis Stengos. “Love thy Neighbor, Love thy Kin: Strategy and Bias in the Eurovision Song Contest.” Working Papers 2006–5, University of Guelph, Department of Economics, http://www.economics.uoguelph.ca/Research/DisPapers/2006_5.pdf (accessed May 6, 2008), CitationDoosje and Alexander, “What Have they Done for Us Lately?,” 508.
51. He said that less than a third of the total votes for the winning entry were those which seemed to have been influenced by block-voting. CitationGatherer, Derek. “Comparison of Eurovision Song Contest Simulation with Actual Results Reveals Shifting Patterns of Collusive Voting Alliances.” Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 10, no. 2 (2006), http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/9/2/1.html (accessed May 6, 2008).
52. Last year Marija Šerifović got 12 points from the then newest European country – Montenegro – thus receiving the highest scores from all the former Yugoslav republics. High points were not coming from where they were expected, but they did come from totally unexpected sources.
53. Recent cases of transnational ex-YU cooperation, like the participation of the Croatian singer Severina in the pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, who performed a song arranged by the renowned ex-Yugoslav, Serbian musician Goran Bregović, open up new space for discussion of the balance between nationhood and the memory of the common Yugoslav past.
54. It dominates part of literature concerning post-socialism in general as well. See CitationPrica, “Issue of Interpreting Transition from ‘Unreal Socialism’,” 28.
55. Radović, Srdan. “Globalization of Identity in Overdue Transition: Notions of Europe and Serbia among Belgrade Students.” Journal of SASA Etnographic Institute LV (1) (“Globalizacija identiteta u zakasneloj tranziciji: predstave o Evropi i Srbiji medu studentima u Beogradu”, Glasnik Etnografskog institute SANU LV (1)), (2007): 57.