Texts

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.

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.

DIESEL POWER

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First products of the hip-hop culture reached the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia in the first half of the 1980s, about the same time they arrived in Western Europe. Still, hip-hop, taken as a rounded lifestyle, did not establish itself as a separate subculture within a thin layer of urban middle-class youth until the early 1990s, with help of satellite television, foreign magazines and bootleg tapes. Some fifteen years after, hip-hip became one of the most widespread youth cultures in Serbia. The objective of this paper is to research the evolution of this process, showing how more and more youth from different social strata have adopted hip-hop while simultaneously adding new local meanings to the imported culture. The article argues for the thesis that the spreading of hip-hop was allowed through acceptance of a diverse local heritage of turbo-folk, funk influences in the pop-music and the urban Roma culture. The rappers’ imitation of the dressing styles, slang and diesel subculture attitudes from the early 1990s, which promoted criminal lifestyles, is given as an example.

YUGOSPOTTING IN THE REGIONAL HIP-HOP

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Through the concept of ‘Yugospotting’ this article explores how some established post-YU rappers, armed with the rap language and the strong generational knowledge, have constructed common identities in the new supranational social context before their shared rap audiences. What kind of transnational post-Yugoslav rap scene has been constructed by employing inherited ex-Yugo-knowledge and rappers ’hiphopographies’? Could this (mis)sampling of Yugoness and Balkanness be a significant identification base for the future rap generations of the “region”?

REFLECTIONS OF THE SOCIALIST TELEVISION – A STUDY: FROM MEDIA SYSTEMS TO MEDIA CULTURES

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In reference to the ever actual topic of the socialist television, its influence and the programs it has created, using the form of research dialogue, this paper aims to give a review of the recently published book by Sabina Mihelj and Simon Huxtable – From Media Systems to Media Cultures, (2018). Focusing on the beginnings of television as a new media, which developed in parallel with the Cold War tensions, as well as its impact at the time of the communist rule and immediately after the communist rule in the countries of the Eastern Block, this comparative media study covers the interaction of the geopolitical relations in this part of the world on the one hand, and on the other hand, offers a modernized view of the same media that has shaped the modernity of everyday civil life and the socialist culture and art. The book allows for re-contextualization of the opinions about the media and culture of the Cold War era (those that were rooted and most frequently adopted and repeated), and also offers a revision against the social, political and media framework that existed in the countries behind the Iron Curtain, both in the second half of the 20th century and in this particular moment.

YUGOSLAVS AND YUGOSLAVISM AT THE END OF THE 1960s AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 1970s

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At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, one of the questions that used to divide the Yugoslav public and additionally inspire national disputes was the question of defining the terms “Yugoslav” and “Yugoslavism”. The leadership of the Communist Alliance of Yugoslavia and the state, considered Yugoslavism does not mean existence of the Yugoslav nation, and they did not allow any national or ethnic reading of the term. In Croatia and Slovenia particularly, any mention of Yugoslavism would receive a negative, unitarian connotation. The only Yugoslavism that was allowed was in support of the political course of the socialist self-management. However, the negation of the nationalistic Yugoslavism, which arrived from the top people in power, could not deter many former fighters, members of the Army, young people, spouses and children from mixed marriages, population of the multi-ethnic communities and some communists from declaring as Yugoslavs. Although the top Party members made some attempts to prevent this, the Communist Alliance of Yugoslavia had to allow the citizens their right to declare as Yugoslavs in the 1971 Census, even though they did not fail to insist that it did not count as nationality.

MARKING THE FIGHTER’S DAY IN TITOVO UŽICE IN 1961

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In the first post-WW2 years in the communist Yugoslavia, gradual abolishment of religious holidays started, diminishing the religious domain to the home and household members, and the church to its churchyard. Yugoslav legislation established new, federal republic and other holidays. Due to paper limitations, the manner of celebrating secular holidays will be reviewed on the example of the Fighter’s Day, which was announced federal holiday on April 26, 1956. Marking of the twentieth anniversary of the insurrection of the peoples of Yugoslavia will be viewed through three narratives: the first narrative (“a view from the outside”) consists of the data on celebrations of this holiday from the archives and press, while the second and the third narrative (“views from within”) consists of the data from interviews which the text author conducted in 2009 and 2010 with the producer and a participant of the celebration. Based on these data, the primordial event and its formal/structural characteristics and function of the subject holiday will be analysed.

THE HOUSES OF YUGOSLAV CULTURE

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This paper deals with the Houses of Culture in former Yugoslavia, which are anticipated as a reflection of concepts and goals of (new) Yugoslav culture, in the complex socio-political context of the Yugoslav socialist community. It builds on the assumption that a specific type of institution – House of Culture – was taken for a basic unit for developing infrastructural network for culture, and refined into specific, almost autochthone modalities. These modalities represent specific contributions within autochton type, considering its programme concept, its multiple socio-political functions and its aspirations to reflect particularities of the Yugoslav cultural project. Such a broadly set framework of Yugoslav culture opened up an equally wide interpretative field for architecture, through which the belonging to European (avant-garde) cultural space was emphasized. These works of architecture, whether just competition entries or actual buildings, have condensed the newly established social values through creative programme and visual researches of social realities and their reflections on the body of architecture. Various approaches of different authors, found between the two ends of the spectrum, the experiment and the social realm, have left behind some authentic layered works and designs, which are paradigmatic for understanding the relations of social realms, culture and architecture.

EMERGENCE OF TRAVEL AGENCIES IN YUGOSLAVIA AS DRIVERS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRAVEL CULTURE

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Although the idea of the creation of the first travel agency in Yugoslavia existed in the middle of the 19th century, it took more than sixty years to establish the first travel agency, Putnik, in Belgrade in 1923. Founding of a tourist agency initiated numerous trips, both domestic and foreign, to the places of former Yugoslavia. The most popular destinations in Yugoslavia in the first half of the 20th century were in southern Serbia, Slovenia and the Adriatic. During 1930, business operations of Putnik were marked by cruises and thematic exhibitions in Paris, London, Nice, as well as the opening of a large number of branches in different cities, in the country and abroad. Until the beginning of World War I, important events for the development of tourist travels in Yugoslavia occurred: printing of posters, brochures, promotions of destinations, opening of the Belgrade Fair, making of the first tourist film in colour. After World War II, which had a very negative effect on tourism in the whole world, including Yugoslavia, a period of the country’s restoration followed and a golden age of tourism in Yugoslavia started, which by the number of tourists, their overnight stays and tourism revenues have never been exceeded. The appearance of agency activity in Yugoslavia contributed to the creation of a travel culture that has had multiple benefits for both travellers and hosts, but also for the society as a whole.