REBELLION IN GAVRILA PRINCIPA STREET IN BELGRADE

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The paper examines (anti) hegemony as a strategic necessity of

contemporary culture of resistance, embodied in the complex social and

political context of globalization and its consequences, with particular

reference to the strategies of contemporary culture of resistance in

contemporary Serbia. The focus is on a comparative analysis that

includes the graffiti Gavrilo Princip (2013) by an anonymous artist /

art group BUNT, found in Gavrila Principa Street in Belgrade and the

video spot for the song titled “Bunt” (2007) by the band Disciplin A

Kitchme, related to the last handmade candy shop in Belgrade with the

address in the same street. The two selected examples are created in a

different subcultural contexts of Serbia today, with different ideological

signatures and artistic connotations: while the graffiti Gavrilo Princip

could be associated with infra-political traditions of those subcultures

in which the narrative about the Serbian national struggle is diligently

nurtured, the video spot “Bunt” by Disciplin A Kitchme is located in

the anti-imperialistic and anti-consumeristic tradition of rock-n-roll

rebellion, with a particular focus on Serbian society and its political

pathologies, including the unusually strong fostering of a nationalist

political discourse. Selected art works, however, are both characterized

by the controversial status of the political, historical and cultural

Yugoslav legacy, which is re-examined by and through them. The

works analyzed – precisely due to the complexity with which they

deliberately refer to the Yugoslav heritage – are recognized as places of

subversive and polyvalent resistance to the dominant discourses within

the public speech arena of contemporary Serbian society. Thus, Gavrila

Principa Street reveals contemporary Serbian culture of resistance as

a hub/node of ideologically and culturally opposed discourses that are

mutually invoked and disputed, producing the strategically needed

“noise” indispensable in the process of interfering and transcoding of

the hegemonic social and cultural codes.

BURNING IN THE 21st CENTURY

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The text delves into the so called anti-gender ideology. Anti-gender

ideology is a global phenomenon established on a strong resistance to

changes in the domain of gender, sexuality and family. Its strategies

re-define the notion of subversion, demonstrating that subversion

nowadays can also be very conservative.Although anti-gender ideology

appears as a cultural form of resistance which regularly evokes religion,

the text claims that it works primarily as a political tool, a secular as

much as a religious instrument for defining the desirable society of the

21st century. The first part of the text demonstrates the paradoxical,

even contradictory articulations of the claims in support of anti-gender

ideology. A special emphasis is put on what becomes defined as the

non-scientific character of gender, the misuse and abuse of language

of gender, and its covert political aspirations which supposedly hide

themselves behind the neutrality of science.In the second part of the text,

the role of religion, Roman Catholic and Serbian Orthodox religions in

particular, is briefly examined. In the last section, I try to demonstrate

how gender allowed for an intersection of various oppositions to the

rearticulations of the meanings of the right, the human, freedom and

equality.

YOU ARE NOT A LOAN

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“Debt binds the 99%” is one the many slogans created by

Strike Debt, a grassroots movement of debt resisters that began in 2012

in New York City. In this article, I analyze Strike Debt’s attempt to

organize debtors and build conditions for a debt strike. I use the specific

example of Strike Debt to reflect of the possibilities and challenges of

resistance in the age of neoliberalism. I argue that debt activists were

successful in shifting the public conversation from debt as a personal

failure to debt as a structural condition, thus laying the groundwork

for the emergence of a collective indebted subject. I also underline

the importance of utopian demands in the debt movement, and in any

attempt to resist neoliberalism. 

EDITOR’S NOTE

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SEE YOU AT THE OPERA

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OVER THE CINDERS OF HISTORIC REMEMBRANCE

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MUSIC VIDEOS IN SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA AND POST-SOCIALIST SERBIA

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This paper outlines the historical origins and contextual specificities of the development of music videos as a specific media form accompanying the ups and downs of the popular music industry in the socialist Yugoslavia and Serbia as one of its successor states – from the socialist system of workers’ self-management to the (postwar) neo-liberal capitalist economy. The focus of this paper is on the strategies for promotion of music products (and performers) and the fusion between music and advertising industries in the period of transitional restructuring of economy in general and the music industry in particular. In the socialist 1980s, music videos in Serbia were predominantly produced by the relatively inflexible system of public television broadcasters, who only exceptionally used music videos for promoting commercial products. This situation notably changed in the early 1990s with the rapid deregulation of the media system and Serbia’s entry into the “full-fledged” market economy. For the newly launched TV broadcasters music videos soon became a popular (and inexpensive) segment of airplay. At the same time, they began to serve their “original” purpose – advertising new music releases and talents. Nevertheless, in the chaotic circumstances of Serbia’s war-time economy, UN sanctions, spiraling of inflation, mass impoverishment, unemployment and other symptoms of economic crisis, advertising per se had questionable commercial effects. This largely holds true for commercial effects of music videos. Due to the global developments in the media systems (emergence of the Internet as a prime medium for broadcasting music videos), their TV airplay is diminishing and standards of their technical production are rapidly rising, along with audiences’ expectations. This makes music videos (at the same time) more expensive and less economically viable. The logic behind the fusion of music videos and “traditional” TV commercials reflects the chaotic circumstances in the music industry, as well as the Serbian economy in general.

RUSSIAN STYLE ROOM

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This paper was composed as an attempt to uncover the influence of the Russian immigrants, known as reliable connoisseurs of antiques, on the formation of the Sekulić Collection of Icons. This collection represents one of the most significant collections of icons in Belgrade. The icons, among other pieces of art, were collected by the architect Milan Sekulić and his wife Pava over 40 years. Art collecting is a phenomenon that was significantly developed under the influence of the Russian immigrants, but this topic was never fully researched. The practice of art collecting is always a reflection of a general taste of the society. The aim to analyse the unpublished material from the Collection of Fine Arts and Music before 1950 of the Belgrade City Museum will shed some light on the influence of Russian immigrants on the formation of public and private tastes in arts and culture in Yugoslavia, between WW1 and WW2, which also affected their preparation and presentation in the Sekulić family residence. The revival of national thought caused the Byzantine art to become the appropriate expression of the Serbian ethnicity roots, thus functioning as a medium of a collective self-representation in the period between the two global wars. Serbian culture owes a significant part of this process to Russian culture. Due to this influence, Milan Sekulić decorated one of the main chambers in his residence following traditional Russian interior design and adorning it mainly with Russian icons dating from the 18th and 19th centuries that evoked the spirit of the Russian culture.

MUSIC ELEMENTS IN SONGS, BALLADS, POEMS AND DRAMAS BY LAZA KOSTIĆ

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In this essay, the author is presenting and explaining elements of music art found in Kostić’s literary work, such as poems, ballads and dramas. It argues that he depicted singing and dancing as part of the desired atmosphere symbolic of the crossover of music art into the natural phenomena and used technical music expressions in his poetic narrative. The basic goal of the paper is to determine and classify music elements in Laza Kostić’s literary discourse, i.e. the manners in which the poet has used them. The author describes the function of using musical elements as dramatizations of the poetic text and its tragedies. Using musical elements in an original way, Kostić has emphasized patriotic themes in his epic narratives, as well as romantic theme in the lyrics of songs, poems and dramas. It can be concluded that Kostić has had a great knowledge of the art of drama, and that he has used the knowledge of drama techniques throughout his literary oeuvre.

MUSIC FESTIVALS AS A REFLECTION OF CULTURAL POLICY DURING THE COLD WAR

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This paper examines the influence of political changes on the cultural life in Poland and Yugoslavia from the 1950s to the early 1960s. After a period of socialist realism (as the main art orientation), the tendency toward liberalization of culture started in both countries. In the domain of organizing musical life, such tendencies reflected in establishing of international festivals of contemporary music. The Warsaw Autumn (1956) and the Zagreb Music Biennale (1961) were places where composers from both sides of the Iron Curtain have presented their works. Analogies between these festivals are evident, given the fact that the Polish festival was founded five years earlier and served as a model for establishment of the Zagreb Music Biennale. First of all, the Warsaw Autumn and the Zagreb Music Biennale have shown similar problems in regard to the music repertoire. In addition, the similarities between these festivals are recognized based on the main objectives of both festivals organizers which implied aspiration for incorporation of Polish and Yugoslav music culture into the contemporary tendencies of Western Europe. It was a crucial strategy of the Warsaw Autumn, as well as of the Zagreb Music Biennale, whose purposes were about contributing to the liberalization of both Polish and Yugoslav culture. Therefore, this study has found that these festivals, although perceived as a departure from political ideologization of music, continued to promote modified political aims referring to presentation of Poland and Yugoslavia as liberal countries.