Abstract
Yugoslavia attempted with a significant degree of success, to implement the so-called liberal socialism. This resulted in complex censorship regimes of popular music that operated in the empty space between official negations and actual enforcements. Overt censorship mainly concerned a handful of issues, such as the national identities of the respective constitutional peoples of Yugoslavia and the representation of the country’s leader, Tito. Hofman shifts her attention from institutional mechanisms of censorship to personal and unwritten norms and practices, in particular self-censorship and the so-called ‘editorial censorship’ that concerned with limiting the presence of certain genres in the media. She focuses on one such genre: NCFM (newly-composed folk music), which was an object of prejudices and restrictions due to its perceived low artistic quality and purely commercial character.
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Notes
- 1.
Single Jugoslavijo, Jugoton 1971. B-side of the single featured the workers’ song ‘Let’s Work Together’ (Radimo zajedno).
- 2.
Due to copyright, only the first couple of lines of the song are provided for illustrative purposes. The entire lyrics can be find on: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/od-vardara-pa-do-triglava-vardar-triglav.html
- 3.
Milutin Popović-Zahar, interview 18. 7. 2012.
- 4.
German word for ‘pulp’ or ‘trashy’.
- 5.
‘Lola’ was an amateur orchestra because it was formed by the SKOJ (Young Communist League of Yugoslavia). Zahar personally entertained Tito and Jovanka Broz on more than 100 occasions.
- 6.
It is interesting that, although long ago criticized for promoting ‘inappropriate music’, in the mid-1980s Adamič became a member of an anti-schund committee of the Radio-Television Slovenia.
- 7.
Milutin Popović-Zahar authored the lyrics of other well-known and popular patriotic songs, like Živela Jugoslavija (1980) and Hej Jugosloveni (1985).
- 8.
The new studies of censorship revolve around the live debate on the effectiveness of its redefinition as an omnipresent practice. Researchers question the possible simplifications and trivialization of its understanding, including the loss of its power in political mobilization (see Hearn 1988). On this point, the author tends to agree with Michael Hardt, who opines that the insistence on this concept and debates around it, which aim to preserve the ‘good legacy’ associated with it, effectively contribute to the vitality of its significance (Hardt 2010: 131).
- 9.
Most of the authors focused on the freedom of speech and press, as well as censorship in literature and (partly) cinema, leaving a relatively modest contribution to the debate. Thus the issue of censorship in socialist Yugoslavia remains only fragmentarily illuminated.
- 10.
Records of the Archives of Yugoslavia were used, along with significant periodicals from the socialist period, as well as personal archives of interviewees.
- 11.
According to official records, the first steps in development of the record industry had been made already in the early 1950s (in Serbia, in 1952). The first gramophone records were produced in 1959 (Archives of Yugoslavia, 475, Peti kongres Udruženja muzičkih umetnika, 5–7.11.1965).
- 12.
In 1965, ten million copies of records were manufactured throughout Yugoslavia (Archives of Yugoslavia, 475, Peti kongres Udruženja muzičkih umetnika, 5–7.11.1965).
- 13.
By 1987 there were eleven companies involved in the production and distribution of vinyl records and cassettes. They were mainly located in Zagreb (Jugoton) and Belgrade (Produkcija gramofonskih ploča Radio-televizije Beograd—PGP RTB), and released 75–80 percent of the music products marketed in Yugoslavia (see Vidić Rasmussen 2002: 178).
- 14.
In the 1980s this music was extensively used as a symbol of rebellion against the socialist establishment (at that time Yugoslav rock bands and folk singers performed in stadiums), which was seen as a sign of democratization of these societies.
- 15.
Even in the situations when official bans did happen, the public space was open for debate, both in intellectual circles and the media (Vučetić 2011: 703). In a way, this may be understood as a strategy of the system to convey an impression of public debate, in which those who went astray would be rightly judged in the end.
- 16.
In addition to this, new legal acts were issued, e.g. the Act on Prevention of Misuse of the Freedom of Press and Other Forms of Information (19 April 1973) (Paraščić 2007: 29).
- 17.
In the Yugoslav context, the phenomenon of ‘kitsch’ referred to all kinds of artworks considered as aesthetically inferior and morally dubious, as well as low in artistic quality (Ivanović 1973: 191).
- 18.
The first ‘victims’ of the Congress of Cultural Action were the popular newspapers, magazines, comics and pulp fiction—burned in public. Following the 1972 sanctions against the ‘popular press’, the law regulated other cultural domains (films, books, music) as well.
- 19.
More about šund tax and šund commities see Čvoro 2014: 45–46.
- 20.
This music was mostly present in the national television’s ‘special’ programs -e.g. ‘Folk parada’.
- 21.
The Yugoslav record industry (especially in the 1970s and 1980s) relied heavily on the production of NCFM: in 1972, 427 records were released in 5 887 028 copies, Gavarić, 155. The major record labels were PGP RTB, Beograd Disk and Diskos in Serbia, Jugoton and Suzy in Croatia, and Helidon in Slovenia.
- 22.
Among other descriptions, they were interestingly termed as ‘agricultural schlagers’ (see Ivanović 1973: 190).
- 23.
Until the rise of the biggest Yugoslav star Lepa Brena, this music, considered by the proponents of high culture as trivial, was not concerned with the political and social reality (Hofman 2012: 29).
- 24.
For more on the introduction of the ‘neoclassical’ liberal economy in Yugoslavia see Bockman 2011.
- 25.
Kafana has been the central spot for informal socializing, communication and entertainment in rural, semi-urban and urban communities, from the nineteenth century onwards (see more in Hofman 2010: 155).
- 26.
Teresa Brennan puts forward the question of ‘atmosphere’ in her book Transmission of Affect. She points out that the very transmission of affect enables an environment/atmosphere to ‘overwhelm’ the individual (2004: 1).
Bibliography
Archive Sources
Archives of Yugoslavia, Savez komunista Jugoslavije, records: 475, Peti kongres Saveza muzičkih umetnika 5–7.11.1965.
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Hofman, A. (2016). Folk Music as a Folk Enemy: Music Censorship in Socialist Yugoslavia. In: Mazierska, E. (eds) Popular Music in Eastern Europe. Pop Music, Culture and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59273-6_7
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