Europe's Diplomacy on Public Display

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Europe’s diplomacy on public display: The EU and the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue Event Analysis

Katarina Ćuković Master Student, International Administration and Conflict Management, University of Konstanz [email protected]

Contemporary Southeastern Europe 2019, 6(1), 1-9

DOI: 10.25364/02.6:2019.1.1

Contemporary Southeastern Europe is an online, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal that publishes original, scholarly, and policy-oriented research on issues relevant to societies in Southeastern Europe. For more information, please contact us at [email protected] or visit our website at www.contemporarysee.org

Europe’s Diplomacy on Public Display: The EU and the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue

Katarina Ćuković

Keywords: The Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, mediation, the European Union

Introduction The European Union’s (EU) role in the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina can be assessed in two different periods. The first period can be described as ‘increased mediation activity’, where one highlight was the signing of the ‘Brussels Agreement’ in 2013 under the supervision of the EU High Representative (HR) Catherine Ashton. By not referring to Kosovo’s status and softening disputed parties’ attitudes towards each other, the HR and the newly-created European External Action Service (EEAS) managed to prove both internally and externally that the EU is a capable and effective mediator. The following period can be labelled as ‘decreased mediation activity’, representing the translation of the Brussels Agreement into reality. During this phase, the dialogue was challenged not only by disagreements between Belgrade and Pristina, but also by disagreements from within the EU. Thus, the dialogue did not progress much, and the culmination was that the dialogue was blocked. This period after the Brussels Agreement was marked by intense cooperation between Belgrade and Pristina, due to the importance of the dialogue for their domestic and foreign politics. Therefore, when examining the success of the EU-initiated dialogue, the focus has generally been on the actors of the dialogue, while the EU as a main mediator has received less attention. The EU as a mediator plays a crucial role in shaping the dialogue discourse by offering strong incentives, such as the perspective of EU membership.1 In order to draw conclusions about the future relations between Belgrade and Pristina, it is therefore important to analyse the role of the EU as a mediator. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the capacity and limitations of the EU as main mediator. Therefore, this analysis argues that throughout the EU- facilitated dialogue, the EU managed to set up a good starting base for overcoming commitment problems among disputed parties and overcoming different preferences within the EU, but it did not ensure unity and the full support of member states for the final process of dialogue.

 Katarina Ćuković is MA student at the Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz. She holds a BA Degree from the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade. Her research focus is the EU as a mediator, mediation and public opinion. This analysis is part of a master thesis and internship program at the Centre for South East European studies at University of Graz. 1 Plänitz, Erik. 2018. Towards a Comprehensive Framework of Mediation Success: EU Mediation in the Belgrade–Pristina Dialogue. Journal of Regional Security 13(1), 65-96.

Katarina Ćuković

The process of normalisation: when? Under the supervision of German Chanceller Angela Merkel, French President Emanuel Macron and the European Union (EU) High Representative (HR) Federica Mogherini, representatives from Belgrade and Pristina in April 2019 met in Berlin to discuss possible solutions for unblocking the dialogue. Although a final agreement was not reached, certain differences in regard to the earlier EU-facilitated dialogue were apparent. For the first time since the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina started, the HR and the European External Action Service (EEAS) were not given the main role in shaping the negotiation agenda. The role of main mediators was given to the two Member States, while the HR and the EEAS were observers of the negotiations. In July 2019, a summit that was supposed to happen in Paris was cancelled, and it is now highly questionable how, when or even if the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue will be restarted. Thus, the latest events regarding the dialogue have opened up discussions on the possible limitations that the EU may have as a mediator. By choosing to directly engage in the dialogue, Berlin and Paris unintentionally revealed the existence of certain divisions within the EU. Besides obvious differences among Belgrade and Pristina, the summit in Berlin revealed differences between Berlin and Paris regarding the final process of normalisation and, finally, it brought up a division between the Member States and the EU’s apparatus in Brussels.21

Following the latest events, the question is how Member States will agree on finalising the process of normalisation when there is disagreement within the EU on two important topics closely linked to the dialogue: Kosovo’s statehood and the EU membership perspective for both Serbia and Kosovo. In order to reach an answer, first it is important to examine whether and to what extent the EU as a mediator in this dispute was able to speak with a single voice.

Who mediates: division of responsibilities? Even before the EU became the main mediator in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, the Member States did not have a united position regarding the final outcome of the process between Belgrade and Pristina. Thus, the EU27’s3 unity was not a prerequisite for ensuring the EU’s efficiency in mediation. The EU tried to overcome this shortcoming by introducing the ‘creative ambiguity approach’, which meant that it should not adopt one defined strategy, but rather should create unclear and foggy agreements between disputed parties.4 Nevertheless, the creative ambiguity approach was not only the product of domestic circumstances between Belgrade and Pristina; it was also a consequence of the internal situation within the EU.5 The Brussels Agreement was the first agreement that should have provided further normalisation of

2 Karnitschnig, Matthew. 2019. Macron’s Balkan Breakdown. POLITICO, 3. May 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). 3 The technical phase of dialogue started in 2011. At that time, the European Union had 27 Member States. 4 Reljic, Dusan. 2015. EU Facilitated Dialogue: Another exercise in constructive ambiguity. CEPS, 28 August 2015. 5 Hamilton, Aubrey. 2012. From Technical Arrangements to Political Haggling. A Policy Report by the Group of Legal and Political Studies 2.

Europe’s Diplomacy on Public Display: The EU and the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue

relations between Belgrade and Pristina. However, even the term ‘normalisation’ in the Agreement was ambiguous. Since five Member States have not recognised Kosovo’s independence, the term ‘normalisation’ failed to clarify whether it was ‘normalization with recognition’ or ‘normalization without recognition’. For certain Member States, like Germany or United Kingdom, normalisation is perceived as the process of normalising relations between two states, while for others – mostly non-recognisers – normalisation refers to normalising practical issues without referring to any statehood status.6 Although Member States did not agree from the beginning on what the concept of normalisation actually represented, the EU27 were united on a decision that the EU should become the main mediator in this dispute. Why was that the case?

Unquestionably, the EU27 had strong internal and external interests that contributed to this unity. Externally, the EU was facing several challenges which tested its position in the international arena: on-going shifts in the world economy, the emergence of brand new and multidimensional global challenges and the rise of non-Western state actors with ambitious foreign policies.7 Internally, with an increase in the EU’s external activities, the need for a more coherent foreign policy approach has also increased. These international and foreign policy developments were strong motivating factors for ensuring that the EU, despite its non-united position, would be an effective mediator. Hence, the EU used meditation as an activity that could strengthen and expand the EU’s sphere of influence.8 The Belgrade-Pristina dialogue represented an ideal opportunity for the EU to show to the world that is an important international actor.

The Lisbon Treaty formalised the need for a coherent foreign policy approach. In terms of external representation, the Treaty created an EU body, the EEAS, the main goal of which was to strengthen Member States’ commitment to further EU integration in the field of foreign policy.9 Thus, the new framework of the EU’s external representation between the EEAS, the European Commission and the Member States was created, with the goal of reinforcing the EU’s external representation. The first important task delegated to the Service was the mediation between Belgrade and Pristina. Institutionally, the EEAS is an organisational hybrid, divided between the Member States and the other EU institutions.10 In the context of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, the HR together with EEAS has the main role in framing the course of the dialogue. They agree on the mediation agenda and oversee the implementation

6 Bieber, Florian.2015. The Serbia-Kosovo Agreements: An EU Success Story?. Review of Central and East European Law 40(3-4), 285-319. 7 Frontini, Andrea and Paul Ivan. 2014. How to Make EU Foreign Policy Work Better?, in The EU's External Action Service: Potentials for a One Voice Foreign Policy, edited by Dialer, Doris / Neisser, Heinrich and Anja Optiz. (eds.). Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press, 189-201. 8 Van der Hoeven, Rolph. 2010. Policy Coherence: The Newest Fad in the International Discourse?, in European Development Cooperation, edited by Hoebink, Paul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 25-46. 9 Erkelens, Leendert and Steven Blockmans. 2012. Setting up the European External Action Service: an Institutional Act of Balance. Centre for the Law of the EU External Relations (CLEER), 33. 10 Henökl, Thomas E. 2015. How do EU Foreign Policy-Makers Decide? Institutional Orientations within the European External Action Service. West European Politics 38(3), 679-708.

Katarina Ćuković

of agreements. Hence, they act as the creators of agreements and have a central role in creating important moments in the dialogue, such as the signing of the Brussels Agreement. However, the HR and the EEAS are not alone in framing the dialogue. They are fully supported by the European Commission, which in certain periods can take over the leading role in mediation, as it has the most effective and direct leverage through its enlargement policies and it can exert a direct influence on the parties to the dispute.

Although not directly involved in dialogue, the Member States have a vital role in framing mediation: they must adopt the mediation agenda and agree on the final outcome of the dialogue. The Treaty of Lisbon formalised EU external representation in the field of Foreign and Security policy, but the unanimity of the Member States is still a prerequisite for achieving defined goals. Still, the delegation given to the EEAS is framed as ‘non-exclusive’, meaning Member States can have bilateral relations with third parties at the same time as the EEAS.11 This implies that, in situations when there is no united position between the Member States and Brussels, the relations between the two sides can easily become competitive.12 The consequence is that, instead of representing the common position of the whole Union, the EEAS has often been accused of representing the interests of large Member States.13 Due to a complex structure within the EEAS, in contested periods the Member States compete for more power among themselves, while at the same time they compete against EEAS.14

To avoid disunity within the EU and bring parties to the negotiating table, the EU framed the initial phase of the dialogue as technical. The technical phase was intended to deal with the lives of citizens, without referring to any politically sensitive topics. However, this process had political implications. Each of the issues discussed had status-sensitive aspects.15 Despite this, the EU managed to act in a united manner and was able to bring both parties to the negotiating table. But this coherence did not refer to framing a further mediation strategy; rather, it was related to the determination of the EU and the Member States to overcome the status quo of dispute. In this respect, at the beginning of the dialogue, the HR and the EEAS successfully created agreements without the prior consent of certain Member States.

Yet, when the dialogue officially became political, the contested position within the EU slowly became evident. Compared to the technical phase, the nature of issues discussed did not change much. However, it was in this phase when the

11 Dijkstra, Hylke. 2017. Non-exclusive delegation to the European External Action Service, in The Principal Agent Model and the European Union, edited by Delreux, Tom and Johan Adriaensen (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham: Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, 55-81. 12 Vanhoonacker, Sophie and Karolina Pomorska. 2013. The European External Action Service and Agenda-setting in European Foreign Policy. Journal of European Public Policy 20(9), 1316-1331. 13 Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. 2014. Symbolic Power in European Diplomacy: The Struggle Between National Foreign Services and the EU's External Action Service. Review of International Studies 40(4), 657-81. 14 Adler-Nissen, Symbolic Power in European Diplomacy. 15 Stefan, Lehne. 2009. Resolving Kosovo’s Status. Policy Paper / Österreichisches Institut für Internationale Politik. Wien: Österreichisches Institut für Internationale Politik (oiip); Bieber, The Serbia-Kosovo Agreements.

Europe’s Diplomacy on Public Display: The EU and the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue

EU faced several internal and external crises: the refugee crisis, Brexit and, above all, the democratic crises in some Member States.16 In this phase, the EU as a mediator found itself restricted. The HR and the EEAS officially started phases where the creative ambiguity approach was no longer an option, but at the same time they did not ensure the support of the EU28 at every step of the phase.

The first signs of crisis between Member States and the EU’s apparatus in Brussels regarding the final process of normalisation appeared when certain Member States interpreted initiatives coming from the EU differently. For example, the Spanish government criticised the European Commission’s Strategy for the Western Balkans as it was treating Kosovo as an independent state.17 Meanwhile, the German Ambassador in Pristina pointed out that “if Serbia wants to move toward the EU, the building of the rule of law is a primary condition. But naturally so is the acceptance of Kosovo’s independence”.18 Besides these differences between recognisers and non- recognisers, the disunited approach was also seen in the EU accession process, which is another important incentive of the dialogue. After the Brexit referendum, the EU became more inward-looking and Member States moved towards more Eurosceptic and anti-enlargement positions.19 For instance, the French government made it clear that it is against widening the EU before deep reforms are implemented.20 Moreover, the EU public opinion also appears to be sceptical toward enlargement.21 In that regard, due to the EU’s internal dilemmas over widening the Union, its position as a mediator shifted from being actively involved in mediation to being an observer of events.

In summary, one can say that during the technical and political phases the EU- facilitated dialogue was not an interactive process. The EU tried to centralise its role as a mediator in order to overcome the disunited position within the EU, and thus the preferences of certain Member States were given secondary priority. This was a manageable strategy at the beginning of the dialogue, as it did not refer to the final goal of mediation. However, when the crucial phase of dialogue started, this approach was no longer an option since this phase emphasised the reaching of an overall agreement, which could not be implemented without the prior involvement of the Member States.

Tensions in the EU-Belgrade-Pristina relations At the same time, the actors of the dialogue noted that the attitude within the EU had changed, which raised criticism of the EU mediation efforts. Tension between the EU, Belgrade and Pristina sparked after a controversial final

16 Kmezić, Marko and Florian Bieber. 2017. Western Balkans and the EU Fresh Wind in the Sails of Enlargement. Policy paper / Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group. Belgrade: Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group. 17 Eszter, Zalan. 2018. Western Balkans Summit Imperilled over Kosovo. Euobserver, 4. April 2018 (accessed: 05. July 2019). 18 Bytyci, Fatos. 2018. Serbia must accept Kosovo independence to join EU: German foreign minister. Reuters, 14. February 2018 (accessed: 05. July 2019). 19 Kmezić and Bieber, Western Balkans and the EU Fresh Wind in the Sails of Enlargement. 20 Lukić, Filip. 2019. The French are Clear – Serbia Cannot Enter the EU in 2025. European Western Balkans, 9. April 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). 21 Lukić, The French are Clear.

Katarina Ćuković

solution to the process of normalisation was unofficially raised by Serbian officials and accepted by Kosovar President Thachi.22 The speculations were that partition or a ‘land swap’ deal had been proposed, although it remains unclear when and to whom this proposal was offered. This has led to great tensions in EU-Belgrade-Pristina relations.

The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, demanded that HR Mogherini should be removed from the further process of dialogue.23 Furthermore, he accused her of derailing the dialogue by emphasising:

“Mogherini has damaged the dialogue, and this has caused many problems in the region.”24

On the other side, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic did not particularly criticise the efforts of the HR and EEAS, but he pointed out:

“they [the Western countries] have no idea what to do with Kosovo, neither with Kosovo nor with anything else in the Western Balkans. They would like to suggest something, but they do not know what to propose. I say that in front of them: they cannot agree among themselves.”25

Meanwhile the EU was sending messages of peace and cooperation, however it did not make clear its stance regarding this issue:

“the work on a legally binding agreement on comprehensive normalisation that would lead to a lasting, implementable and sustainable solution for all open questions, based on mutual acceptance, in line with international and EU law and acceptable for all member states, is currently ongoing.”26

Moreover, this situation has encouraged other players outside the EU, notably the USA, to become more involved. During the entire Belgrade-Pristina dialogue the USA was an important actor, but during the Brussels Agreement phase it was mostly inactive. However, after the appointment of John Bolton, who has previous experience on the Kosovo issue in his capacity as the UN National Security Advisor and the USA’s determination to resolve the Skopje- Athens dispute, it is highly likely that Washington will take the leading role in resolving controversial issues in the Western Balkans.27

22 Nadibaidze, Anna. 2019. Assessing the Revival of EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans. EUROPP, 25. January 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). 23 N.N. Now Haradinaj responds to EU again, blames Mogherini. B92, 18. December 2018 (accessed: 05. July 2019). 24 N.N. 2019. Haradinaj says he “prevented partition of Kosovo. B92, 6. May 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). 25 N.N. 2019. Razgraničenje će jednog dana morati da bude na stolu i neki pametni ljudi moraće to da reše. B92, 10. July 2019. (Translated by the author) (accessed: 05. July 2019). 26 European Western Balkans. 2019. Kocijančič: The Final Agreement Between Serbia and Kosovo Needs to be Sustainable and Realistic. EWB, 19. February 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). 27 Ivković, Aleksandar. 2019. The Art of the Deal: Washington’s push for a final agreement between Serbia and Kosovo. European Western Balkans, 6. March 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019).

Europe’s Diplomacy on Public Display: The EU and the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue

The impact of the EU-facilitated dialogue on Europe’s mediation strategy The Belgrade-Pristina dialogue is the first case where the newly-created EU institution, the EEAS, and the HR were in charge of framing the mediation agenda and strategy. By giving priority to the HR and EEAS, the EU was able to:

Mediate as disunited mediator: The unity of the mediator is a strong tool in achieving the mediation’s goal. However, during this dialogue the HR and EEAS did not insist on constant cooperation between the HR, the EEAS and the member states. At the beginning of the dialogue, in order to ensure that the lack of unity among the Member States would not be an obstacle to creating agreements, cooperation between the HR, the EEAS and the Member States was not prioritised. However, by not involving all actors in certain dialogue phases the EU unintentionally caused a disunited approach regarding the final outcome of the dialogue. The non-inclusion of Member States meant that they were not aware of specific steps taken or issues discussed during the mediation.28 Thus, it happened that official statements from the Member States were inconsistent with the EU’s mediation effort on the ground. Especially when highly contested topics were discussed, the Member States and the EU easily lost coordination of information, which made it easier to hamper further EU mediation.

Not define main goals: From the beginning of the dialogue, the HR and the Commission have not insisted that Member States confirm their support for framing the dialogue. The agreements were framed in imprecise terms without prior knowledge of whether certain Member States would agree or disagree with specific instances of agreements. In this way, on the one hand, the EU was able to minimalise the risk of failing to reach an agreement in the early phase of dialogue. On the other hand, however, this was a risky approach as certain content of agreements could be rejected by the Member States. Therefore, the dialogue was framed in a status-neutral approach which implied that certain priorities were too broadly defined in order to avoid division within the Member States and bring both parties to the negotiating table.

Avoid drawing red lines. By not constantly being in touch with the Member States, the HR and EEAS did not make a clear stance on what their concrete red lines were in this dialogue. This decision had two effects. Externally, it ensured that the parties to the dispute perceived the EU as a neutral mediator. Internally, however, the EU, as a mediator, was unable to establish clear guidelines and strategies for dialogue, as it did not define what was non- negotiable.

Future developments: Following the latest events, it will be up to a few EU leaders to decide how and under which conditions this process will be finalised. The attitudes of certain Member States, such as Germany, which has a strong influence on both actors

28 N.N. Srbija. 2018. EU Member States Want Bigger Role in Belgrade - Pristina Dialogue. N1, 5. June 2018.

Katarina Ćuković

of the dialogue, will most likely be decisive. However, given the involvement of the USA in the dialogue, one should not neglect the US´s ability to exert final agreement between the parties to the dispute. As far as the EU is concerned, although after the Treaty of Lisbon a delegation of external representation was formalised, putting the HR and EEAS as the main actors of the EU’s external activities, the latest events regarding the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue show that Member States’ positions are still the driving force for finalising the process of normalization. Seen from the HR and EEAS’ perspective, they are not in a position to reinforce agreement between the parties to the dispute as long as the Member States can reject their mediation efforts if it is not in line with their domestic preferences.

Hence, the phase of the dialogue which is crucial for finalising the process of normalisation between Belgrade and Pristina will only start after the certain Member States become directly involved in the dialogue. These negotiations will be even more complex than those negotiated by now, as they will include the diverging priorities not only of the parties to the dispute but also of the Member States. In this context, if the EU wants to maintain its position as a leading mediator it must first frame the new form of dialogue, which will be more outcome-oriented. Second, the EU apparatus is entangled in its status- neutral approach, but the crucial phase of dialogue will require the EU to take a clear position on certain issues. In this context, the EU must clearly define what and how it wants to achieve. Third, the ‘carrot and stick’ approach, which has become the main tool for influencing cooperation between the parties to the dispute, should be re-examined. The dynamics of the dialogue should not be closely linked to the future prospects for EU enlargement, as the uncertainty regarding a future accession perspective can affect the EU’s ability to influence a final agreement between Belgrade and Pristina.

Bibliography Bergmann, Julian and Arne, Niemann. 2013. The European Union as an Effective Mediator in Peace Negotiations? Conceptual Framework and Plausibility Probe. Mainz Papers on International and European Politics. Mainz: Institute für Politikwissenschaft, University of Mainz. Bieber, Florian. 2015. The Serbia-Kosovo Agreements: An EU Success Story?. Review of Central and East European Law 40(3-4), 285-319. Bytyci, Fatos. 2018. Serbia must accept Kosovo independence to join EU: German foreign minister. Reuters, 14. February 2018 (accessed: 05. July 2019). Dijkstra, Hylke. 2017. Non-exclusive Delegation to the European External Action Service, in The Principal Agent Model and the European Union, edited by Delreux, Tom and Johan Adriaensen (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham: Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, 55-81. Erkelens, Leendert and Steven Blockmans. 2012. Setting up the European External Action Service: an Institutional Act of Balance. Centre for the Law of the EU External Relations (CLEER). Eszter, Zalan. 2018. Western Balkans Summit Imperilled over Kosovo. Euobserver, 4. April 2018 (accessed: 05. July 2019). Frontini, Andrea and Paul Ivan. 2014. How to Make EU Foreign Policy Work Better?, in The EU's External Action Service: Potentials for a One Voice

Europe’s Diplomacy on Public Display: The EU and the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue

Foreign Policy, edited by Dialer, Doris / Neisser, Heinrich and Anja Optiz. (eds.). Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press, 189-201. Hamilton, Aubrey. 2012. From Technical Arrangements to Political Haggling. A Policy Report by the Group of Legal and Political Studies 2. Henökl, Thomas E. 2015. How do EU Foreign Policy-Makers Decide? Institutional Orientations within the European External Action Service. West European Politics 38(3), 679-708. Ivković, Aleksandar. 2019. The Art Of The Deal: Washington’s Push for a Final Agreement Between Serbia and Kosovo. European Western Balkans, 6. March 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). Karnitschnig, Matthew. 2019. Macron’s Balkan breakdown. POLITICO, 3. May 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). Kmezić, Marko and Florian Bieber. 2017. Western Balkans and the EU Fresh Wind in the Sails of Enlargement. Policy paper / Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group. Belgrade: Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group. Lukić, Filip. 2019. The French are Clear – Serbia Cannot Enter the EU in 2025. European Western Balkans, 9. April 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). N.N. 2019. Haradinaj says he “prevented partition of Kosovo. B92, 6. May 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). N.N. 2019. Razgraničenje će jednog dana morati da bude na stolu i neki pametni ljudi moraće to da reše. B92, 10. July 2019 (translated by the author) (accessed: 05. July 2019). N.N. Now Haradinaj responds to EU again, blames Mogherini. B92, 18. December 2018 (accessed: 05. July 2019). N.N. Srbija. 2018. EU Member States Want Bigger Role in Belgrade - Pristina Dialogue. N1, 5. June 2018. N.N. Srbija. 2018. EU Member States Want Bigger Role in Belgrade - Pristina Dialogue. N1, 5. June 2018. Nadibaidze, Anna. 2019. Assessing the Revival of EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans. EUROPP, 25. January 2019 (accessed: 05. July 2019). Plänitz, Erik. 2018. Towards a Comprehensive Framework of Mediation Success: EU Mediation in the Belgrade–Pristina Dialogue. Journal of Regional Security 13(1), 65-96. Reljić, Dušan. 2015. EU Facilitated Dialogue: Another Exercise in Constructive Ambiguity. CEPS, 28 August 2015. Stefan, Lehne. 2009. Resolving Kosovo’s Status. Policy Paper / Österreichisches Institut für Internationale Politik. Wien: Österreichisches Institut für Internationale Politik (oiip). Van der Hoeven, Rolph. 2010. Policy Coherence: The Newest Fad in the International Discourse?, in European Development Cooperation, edited by Hoebink, Paul. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 25-46. Vanhoonacker, Sophie and Karolina Pomorska. 2013. The European External Action Service and Agenda-setting in European Foreign Policy. Journal of European Public Policy 20(9), 1316-1331.

Dimensions of Europe - Dimensions of Europeanization Conceptual Analysis

Maria Todorova Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [email protected]

Contemporary Southeastern Europe 2019, 6(1), 10-19

DOI: 10.25364/02.6:2019.1.2

Dimensions of Europe - Dimensions of Europeanization

Maria Todorova

Keywords: Europeanization, Periphery, Backwardness, Corruption

Some years ago, the Romanian writer Mircea Cartarescu was approached by a German publisher at the Frankfurt book fair, who said he was interested in Eastern European writers. Cartarescu immediately responded that he did not consider himself an Eastern European writer. “Of course,” the publisher conceded, “as a Romanian you are from Southeastern Europe.”1 For Cartarescu this simple spacing had the following direct message: “Stay where you are,” the publisher was telling me in a friendly manner. “Stay in your own ghetto. Describe your tiny chunk of (South) Eastern European history. Write about your Securitate, about your Ceausescu, about your People’s House. About your dogs, your homeless children, your Gypsies. Be proud with your dissidence during the communist days. Leave it to us to write about love, death, happiness, agony, and ecstasy. Leave it to us to create the avant-garde, to innovate, to breathe cultural normality. Your only chance here is to describe your small exotic world for some small publishing house that might accept you… Just choose: either you confirm our clichés or you disappear.” Cartarescu was furious. He could not accept the triple division of Europe into Western, Central, and Eastern, let alone the Southeastern subdivision of the subdivision. “Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe. Civilization, neurosis, chaos. Prosperity, culture, and chaos. Consciousness, subconsciousness, and chaos.” Cartarescu had read Musil, in whom he saw not Kakanien, but a prince of the European spirit. He didn’t care which country Andre Breton came from. He didn’t trace Bulgakov’s Kiev on a map. “I haven’t read Catulus, Rabelais, Cantemir, and Virginia Woolf from some geographic map,” he wrote, “but from the library, where books are arranged next to each other.” And he concluded: “There are many Europes in space and in time, in dreams and in memories, in reality and in the imagination. I claim only one of them, my Europe, easily recognizable, because it has the shape of my brain. It has this shape, because [my brain] has modeled it from the outset after itself.” How do we “Europeanize” a person such as Cartarescu who is from the “periphery”? The periphery of what? And what is a periphery?

 Maria Todorova is the Gutgsell Professor of History at the Department of History University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The current article is based on talk delivered at the University of Graz, 26 June 2019 at the launch of the Field of Excellence “Dimensions of Europeanization” 1 Cartarescu, Mircea. 2004. Europa has the Form of my Brain. Interview in the Bulgarian newspaper Kultura 23 (2325), May 28. 2004, 12.

Dimensions of Europe - Dimensions of Europeanization

The notions of core and periphery were introduced in the 1950s in the vocabulary of the United Nations, specifically the Economic Commission on Latin America. They were theorized later by Immanuel Wallerstein in world- system theory that stressed the processual character of these concepts: “In world-system analysis, core-periphery is a relational concept, not a pair of terms that are reified, that is, have separate essential meanings.”2 Standing on but critically complicating dependency theory, world-system theory was mostly used to describe the international division of labor and its repercussions on the social system. Within this framework, others developed a comparative theory of the semi-periphery, which is supposed to occupy “a structural position which often has developmental (or evolutionary) significance,”3 and to which Eastern Europe is often added. While criticized for its excessive economism and neglect of social class and culture, the influence of world-systems analysis is undisputed, and the notions core and periphery have entered everyday use, so much so that a “peripheral” status is accorded to all aspects of life in economically peripheral territories. But, as Osterhammel has argued, “[p]olitical geography does not coincide with economic geography, and the global distribution of cultural cores is different from that of the concentrations of military power.”4 Others have warned that a number of cultural categories, among them center-periphery, East-West or public-private, are “indexical signs that are always relative: dependent for part of their referential meaning on the interactional context in which they are used.”5 Not only does core-periphery indicate a relation, it always indicates an asymmetrical relation and “what matters is the self-understanding of the actor: does (s)he think that her or his opinion is in the ‘catch up’ part of the yardstick, or does (s)he experience being part of an ascendant or even dominant culture?”6 Even as I concede that the category “periphery” continues to have salience “as both critical concept and media shorthand for (relative) backwardness,”7 I want to point out that it shamelessly translates economic wealth to other social and cultural spheres. And so it is with Europe.

Europe, like the Trinity, has three hypostases: the Name, the Place, and the Idea, and they all have divine claims. They also all have spaces as one of their central attributes. The name belonged first to a consort of the chief God, and she rode on his back (in his incarnation as a bull) from Asia Minor to Crete; it meant something beautiful, big-eyed, broad-faced and just huge. The place was first identified by the island Greeks, who named Europe the mainland stretching north from the Peloponnesus, the area we call today the Balkans. It was the center of their world and for a certain period of time, the center of the

2 Hopkins, Terence / Wallerstein, Immanuel and associates. 1982. World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 17. 3 Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1988. Comparing World-Systems: Toward a Theory of Semiperipheral Development. The Comparative Civilizations Review 18, 29-38, 31. 4 Osterhammel, Jürgen. 2014. The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 78. 5 Gal, Susan. 2002. A Semiotics of the Public/Private Distinction. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 13(1), 77-95, 80. 6 Stenius, Henrik. 2017. Concepts in a Nordic Periphery, in Conceptual History in the European Space, edited by Steinmetz, Willibald / Freeden, Michael and Javier Fernandez-Sebastian. New York: Berghahn, 263-80, 264. 7 Ballinger, Pamela. 2017. Whatever Happened to Eastern Europe? Revisiting Europe’s Eastern Peripheries. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 31(1), 44-67, 61.

Maria Todorova

ancient world. In the course of several centuries it extended its space westwards, encompassing the whole western Eurasian peninsula, and then it started contracting its space, to be finally expropriated by its westernmost part. It was in this period, especially after the Great Schism of the 11th century and then with the coming of the Ottomans, that the name was finally divorced from its Middle Eastern origins. Christianity is supposed to be the definitive and intrinsic characteristic of European culture and nowadays is erected as the central pillar of Fortress Europa. But as the latest magisterial Eerdmans Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology reminds us, its center of gravity lay not in Rome nor Constantinople, but in the Middle East, and it was part of the trilogy of West Asian religions with nothing specifically European about it.8 In fact, with its trinitarian doctrine it made tritheism official and launched a rather hypocritical war on the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Islam, as some detractors have said. Once contracted to Western Europe (what some authors call Visigothic Europe), this part became known as the European Union after the Second World War, and some 20 years ago began its slow eastward expansion. While not quite godlike, it certainly has regal airs, although its crown nowadays seems a little rusty. Finally, the idea of Europe or, rather, an ideal of Europe, undoubtedly has its divine pretensions as a value system; it has succeeded in creating itself by defining what it is not, to paraphrase the late Edward Said’s characterization of culture (another category that is questioned in the project), it is constantly practicing a differentiation of itself from what it believes to be not itself. This ideal type is widely disseminated, although not entirely uncontested. The understanding of Europe, notoriously, does not create a consensus and cannot be mandated. A recent study on the teaching of Europe’s history at the school level shows that for educators “Europe is mainly understood as a geographical concept [and its history] as the history of some large western European countries plus Russia.” Scandinavians, Celts, and East Europeans of all ilk lament that their histories remain invisible. Students, by contrast, do not treat Europe as mere geography but are equally distributed among those who see it as the birthplace of democracy, enlightenment, and progress; or, contrastingly, a club of rich white countries guilty of economic and ecological exploitation; as a solution to European contradiction; or a danger to sovereign nations. Perceptions of the European past include Christian tradition, weak cultural diversity, and permanent conflict, whereas perceptions of the European present are tantamount to peace, modernism, citizenship, and cultural diversity. All these perceptions are, of course, the ones students have picked up and internalized somewhere—at school, at home, and in the public space. If historians shyly bring in Europe’s dubious pasts, or more vehemently lambast Eurocentrism, and post-colonialists attempt to “de-center” it, for practical purposes the idea is proving very powerful and convenient even for the skeptics (and I confess that although I belong to the skeptics I still share in the desire to keep up the ideal, however fraught or imagined).

Like Europe, the concept of Europeanization can also be approached as a triad but it is less saintly than the trinity; it looks more like the three-headed Cerberus, the hound guarding the gates of the Underworld or maybe the many- headed Hydra (any analogy is unintended). Its first, traditional, neutral and

8 Goody, Jack. 2006. The Theft of History. Cambridge / New York: Cambridge University Press, 289.

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most innocent sense (or essence, or head) was that of the 18th-19th century, used to describe the modernizing efforts of different polities: Petrine Russia, the Ottoman Tanzimat, Meiji Japan, etc.). When I wrote my first book (many decades ago) on the Tanzimat reforms, I used it without any compunctions. In the Ottoman Empire the reforms were referred to as Avrupalilaşma = Europeanization, as a matter of fact without any pejorative connotation; i.e. it was an emic category. It referred to the borrowing of institutions as tools from a toolkit, mostly to meet geopolitical needs in the constant great-power competition. These were not only economic and military tools, but also cultural ones (in education, in the legal sphere, in fashion, and in the arts). 9 I am evoking this history because even at the time the accusation both from within (by conservatives opposed to the reforms) and by outsiders (impatient with their pace and quality) was that this was simply imitation, imitating institutions considered “organic” for the West, which were transformed and deformed when travelling to the East where they were planted on unfavorable soil. This brings in, of course, the debates on authenticity. Processes such as industrialization, liberalization, democratization, republicanism etc. were equally and gradually travelling and taking root in the West itself, but we tend to forget that this gradual procession was a fairly recent historical process; instead we often deal only with the final result which we pronounce authentic. I do not think the modernizing reforms of the 18-20th centuries were imitation, and I could argue it for the Ottoman Empire and Russia as well. Someone else would be able to do it best for Japan and so on, but it highlights this important notion of naked and uncreative imitation, which today is again hurled at the societies of Eastern Europe, and this is an aspect that ought to be seriously researched

In a recent article, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes speak of today’s East European predicament as “an illiberal mutant… implementing a clever policy of piecemeal imitation.”10 According to them, 1989 legitimized the politics of imitation understood as the shortest pathway to freedom and posterity. But, interestingly, they are unclear about the mechanisms of this imitation. On the one hand, they write about a voluntary chosen imitation, on the other hand they insist on an imposed imitation imperative which “comes to feel like a loss of sovereignty.”11 Unlike the much-touted phrase of Francois Furet that “not a single new idea has come out of Eastern Europe in 1989” (with which Habermas apparently seemed to concur),12 there were numerous visions and strategies. (And as far as the novelty of ideas is concerned, we historians are very skeptical about the rehashing of old ideas that are passed for new.) The acceptance (or, as I will address it, the imposition) of one vision and strategy and the motivation behind that imposition need further analysis. When I say imposed, I mean not only from the outside, as a condition for accessions, but also from the inside, by the internal neo-liberal elites that came to power. And here again, we need to be careful, since these elites continue to call themselves the guardians of liberal democracy. There is, however, a dramatic distinction

9 Todorova, Maria. 1983. Angliya, Rossiya i Tanzimat. Moscow: Nauka, Glavnoe izdatel'stvo vostochnoi literatury. 10 Krastev, Ivan and Stephen Holmes. 2018. Explaining Eastern Europe: Imitation and Its Discontents. Journal of Democracy 29(3), 117-28. 11 Krastev and Holmes. Explaining Eastern Europe, 118. 12 Krastev and Holmes. Explaining Eastern Europe, 120.

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between liberalism and neoliberalism. Classical liberalism (as a few recent books remind us)13 had little to do with the individualistic ideology and laissez- faire capitalism linked to John Locke and which became predominant in the Anglo-American world. Instead, classic liberalism had its roots on the continent, particularly the French Revolution. It was infused with a strong social component, a moral message for the common good, and strove to maximize democratic participation. Neo-liberalism has been entirely focused on the economy and the unrestricted free market. There were no referenda in Eastern Europe on the ways forward; the first free elections simply toppled the old elites. The Jeffrey Sachs and Balcerowicz types of reforms that came to be the imitation in practice for the whole region were in fact not an imitation of any existing western practices or institution. Shock-therapy (and I am passing no judgment) was a new remedy experienced by and experimented on Eastern Europe. In any case, the notion of “imitation” as a way to Europeanization needs to be seriously interrogated.

There was an additional dimension to this type of Europeanization and it had to do with achieving a stable society. It meant trying to emulate the nation- building of the western societies who were seen as stable because of their ethnic homogeneity and homogenizing politics (especially the French). Let us not forget that Bismarck dismissed the Grossdeutsche version of his empire because of the excessive ethnic diversity of the Habsburgs. The irony is that after World War II Eastern Europe reached a relative ethnic homogeneity; whereas Western Europe, with the consequences of decolonization browned considerably, and despite the usual use of “xenophobic Eastern Europeans” as scapegoats, it is Western Europe which is most alarmist about Islam and emigration. The largest Muslim presence in Europe (outside the overwhelmingly Muslim Bosnia and Albania) is in Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Cyprus (between 10 and 20%). Yet, the real anti-Muslim hysteria does not come from them but from France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK where they are less than 10%. Interestingly enough it is true that the biggest xenophobes are countries where Muslims are less than 1% (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, the Baltics) but then, these are not the Balkans but the civilized Central Europeans who deserved first to “return” to Europe.

After the Second World War, with the processes of de-colonialization and Europeanization acquired a negative - and I would say harmful - connotation. This was also accompanied by the demise of developmentalism (mostly in Africa) and modernization theory by the 1960s, when the proper term was “westernization” adding the influence of the premier great power, the USA. Emulating Europe was seen as ethnocentric and thus, the second head of the beast becomes Eurocentrism. Quite apart from the real record of Europe, there is the harm of applying a universalist terminology to the world which is based entirely on Europe. I am not to repeat here what many critics have said, but I will mention Jack Goody’s magisterial “The Theft of History” in which he

13 E.g. Edelstein, Dan. 2018. On the Spirit of Rights. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Miller, James. 2018. Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Rosenblatt, Helena. 2018. The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press; see: Bell, David A. 2019. The Many Lives of Liberalism. The New York Review of Books 66(1), 17. January (accessed: 16. October 2019).

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demonstrated the take-over of history by the west: “the past is conceptualized and presented according to what happened on the provincial scale of Europe, often western Europe, and then imposed upon the rest of the world.”14 There is much to be said for this and yet, one can retain an ambivalent attitude, especially in the US where Eurocentrism is one of the central targets of political correctness. There is also the natural reaction (not necessarily conservative or racist as in John Headley’s “The Europeanization of the World” against negating the historically premier powerful position of Europe for the last half millennium (which, in the end, is a fairly short stretch of time).15

Here is the place to revisit our conceptual apparatus which came under attack with the critique of modernization and diffusion theory. Heretofore ideas and institutions were usually described in a specific language: they “penetrate,” they “exert influence,” they are being “diffused,” “transmitted,” “transformed,” and “deformed.” The countries that were the object of this diffusion were, accordingly, imitative and derivative. With the advent of transfer studies, this vocabulary became somewhat more subtle: knowledge was “circulated,” “appropriated,” ideas were “translated,” “transplanted;” adapted in a communicative action, stressing the processual character of the transfer, cultural mixing, and hybridization. Transfer studies, sometimes too strongly contrasted to comparative studies, were supposed to overcome the assumption inbuilt in comparison about static units of analysis and, instead, study processes in transformation. An additional advantage was that while comparison tended to focus on synchrony, inquiry into transfer favored a diachronic perspective. Even though “transfer” introduced a greater flexibility and dynamism in the analysis, transfer studies came with their inbuilt problems, the most important being the fixed frames of reference that included the points of departure and arrival. Today the proper framework is that of entangled history, histoire croisée, with its insistence on “a multidimensional approach that acknowledges plurality and the complex configurations that result from it.”16 This does not evade the asymmetry of the relationship, not only in the sense of an unequal starting point, but also in the sense of not being affected in the same manner by the interaction. The important point, however, is that the two sides of the intercrossing remain active. Thus we should be very careful how we apply it to Southeastern Europe, where the power relation is hugely lopsided.

Here we should also evoke another dimension or sub-characteristic: Europeanization as part of European imperialism and colonialism. It is symptomatic that the Balkans have the only two colonial (or quasi-colonial) territories of Europe alongside Ireland where the mission civilisatrice was played out: Albania as an Italian colony and Bosnia as an Austrian one (the

14 Goody. The Theft of History, 1. 15 Headley, John. 2007. The Europeanization of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 16 To mention just a few titles on these historiographical developments, see Espagne, Michel. 1999. Les transfers culturels franco-allemand. Paris: PUF; Espagne, Michel and Michael Werner. (eds.). 1988. Transfers: Les relations interculturelles dans l’espace franco-allemand (XVIIIe et XIXe siècle). Paris: Editions recherches sur les civilisations; Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard und Jürgen Kocka. (eds.). 1996. Geschichte und Vergleich. Ansätze und Ergebnisse international vergleichender Geschichtsschreibung. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag; Middel, Matthias. 2000. Kulturtransfer und Vergleich. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts Verlag.

Maria Todorova

work of Bojan Aleksov and Clemens Ruthner). It is a sublime irony that Eastern Europe (including the Balkans) is sharing and carrying the “white man’s burden” of the western part of Europe vis-à-vis the world, even as their western counterparts do not recognize them as authentic. But it has to be admitted that they are not only victims in this; they themselves also display an astounding amount of racial prejudice vis-à-vis their browner fellow-humans. Colonialism and post-colonialism is a category which needs to be explored in depth here since it has begun to be indiscriminately applied to Eastern Europe and especially to the Balkans. I have been on record as opposing this historically and will not go in length arguing my case, but essentially it comes down to my conviction that neither the Ottoman, nor the Habsburg, nor Romanov empires as they were placed in Eastern Europe can be treated as late colonial empires (there are exceptions in their last decades but vis-à-vis other territories in Africa or Central Asia). Neither do I think can the Soviet Union be treated as such in its relationship with Eastern Europe. But it has become cool and more academic to substitute the “Turkish yoke” or “Soviet yoke” with Ottoman and Soviet colonialism and pronounce the Balkans as the author of the first global model of decolonization.17 Why specifically “decolonization” is used over a quantity of other analogues has mostly to do with its metaphorical and emancipatory power, evoking the saintly specters of Mahatma Ghandi and Frantz Fannon. The emancipatory mantle of “decolonization” all too often serves as a cover for the perpetual lament of self-victimization. One hears the congruent overtones between old-fashioned nationalism and ultra-fashionable post-colonialism when it comes to lament the colonial status of the Balkans vis- à-vis the Ottomans or of Eastern Europe vis-à-vis the Soviets. Ironically, the Habsburgs served as a useful tool promoting the myth of Central Europe, so their civilizing mission was inversely promoted by the Central European marginals in their quest of accession to the European Union. And yet, what is interesting is that the argument about coloniality is revived today rhetorically in some quarters of Eastern Europe not only about the USSR but also vis-à-vis the European Union. At a recent symposium in New York marking 30 years after 1989, I first heard the slogan “Brussels is the new Moscow” (ascribed to the Czechs). In highlighting the new common East European experience of marginality, some East European intellectuals (beginning in literary theory) call for opening up of categories that were hitherto used almost exclusively to conceptualize the non-European experience. In this vision, the application of post-colonial studies serves largely emancipatory goals; it empowers East European intellectuals by propelling them into a paradigm which by now pretends to be speaking a universal language.

Membership in the European Union comes with identity side effects. As a prominent Bulgarian intellectual and member of the neo-liberal elite (the economist Rumen Avramov) remarked: “Backwardness becomes more transparent to the extent that it is not the same to be a relatively poor country outside and the poorest one inside an affluent community.”18 Identity issues aside, there is no doubt that there is a double standard and two-tiered

17 See Snyder, Timothy. 2015. Integration and Disintegration: Europe, Ukraine, and the World. Slavic Review 74(4), 695-707. For a response, see Todorova, Maria. 2015. On Public Intellectuals and Their Conceptual Frameworks. Slavic Review 74(4), 708-14. 18 Avramov, Roumen. 2016. Bulgaria in Europe – Societal Legacies, Models and Targets: A Personal Outlook. Euxeinos 21, 33-39, 36.

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membership in the EU, and this is broadly recognized. After the 2008 crisis and recession, European rules are applied differently. Again a quote from Avramov (and again, I should add that this is an impeccable liberal Europeanizer, not a socialist critic): “Policies rightly considered as vicious in the periphery (massive bail-outs of irresponsible debtors or imprudent creditors) are applied in the core countries.”19 This brings me to an important question raised by Krastev and Holmes, who maintain that:

“In order to reconcile the idea of ‘normal’ (meaning what is widespread at home) with what is normatively obligatory in the countries they aim to imitate, East Europeans consciously or unconsciously have begun to ‘normalize’ the model countries, arguing that what is widespread in the East is also prevalent in the West, even though Westerners hypocritically pretend that their societies are different. East Europeans often relieve their normative dissonance—say, between paying bribes to survive in the East and fighting corruption to be accepted in the West—by concluding that the West is really just as corrupt as the East, but Westerners are simply in denial and hiding the truth.”20

This to me seems to be a gesture of ultimate aggressive defensiveness, as the verity of the statement is never addressed. What if indeed westerners are in denial? What if small corruption that is allegedly intrinsic to the New Europe is visible and ugly whereas the large corruption of the Old Europe is civilized and legalized? And it is not true that this pose of “normalizing” the west is ubiquitous. What is ubiquitous is self-criticism and self-degradation.21

Europeanization through rationality and Enlightenment is a worthy ideal, but the enlightened agents themselves have not reached it. (To take an example from the Enlightenment itself, which the Balkans have missed together with the Renaissance and Reformation, Voltaire held that Jews were not Europeans but Asiatics: “all of them born with raging fanaticism in their heart, just as the Bretons and Germans are born with blond hair.” And the “Blacks are not men, except in their stature.”22 This was certainly not the case in the unenlightened Southeastern Europe . Edi Rama, the prime-minister of Albania, said in a recent interview in the Guardian: “It’s very Balkanic what’s happening in Britain. Deal, no deal. Soft border, hard border, no agreements. It’s the Balkans! It is like the Bosnian parliament! While we are trying to Europeanize, it looks like they are Balkanizing!”23 This brings us to the last and perhaps only unambiguously noble and positive hypostasis to Europeanization, its essence as an ideal. And this is perfectly fine. Except that this particular dimension of Europeanization should correspond to the whole dimension of Europe and be a perhaps distant ideal for the whole continent, not only for its SEE corner.

19 Avramov. Bulgaria in Europe, 37. 20 Krastev and Holmes, Explaining Eastern Europe, 122. 21 A recent book announcement of a book to come from the region is titled Balkanizing Europeanization: Fight against Corruption and Regional Relations in the Western Balkans edited by Vladimir Vuckovic and Vladimir Djordjevic. 22 Appiah, Kwame A. 2019. Dialectics of Enlightenment. The New York Review of Books 66(8), 9. May 2019, 40 (accessed: 16. October 2019). 23 Walker, Shaun. 2019. Edi Rama, Albania’s unconventional PM who wants to escape the ‘curse of history’. The Guardian, 10. June 2019 (accessed: 25. October 2019).

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Bibliography Appiah, Kwame A. 2019. Dialectics of Enlightenment. The New York Review of Books 66(8), 9. May 2019, 40 (accessed: 16. October 2019). Avramov, Roumen. 2016. Bulgaria in Europe – Societal Legacies, Models and Targets: A Personal Outlook. Euxeinos 21, 33-39. Ballinger, Pamela. 2017. Whatever Happened to Eastern Europe? Revisiting Europe’s Eastern Peripheries. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures 31(1), 44-67. Bell, David A. 2019. The Many Lives of Liberalism. The New York Review of Books 66(1), 17. January (accessed: 16. October 2019). Cartarescu, Mircea. 2004. Europa has the Form of my Brain. Kultura 23 (2325). Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1988. Comparing World-Systems: Toward a Theory of Semiperipheral Development. The Comparative Civilizations Review 18, 29-38. Edelstein, Dan. 2018. On the Spirit of Rights. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Espagne, Michel. 1999. Les transfers culturels franco-allemand. Paris: PUF. and Michael Werner. (eds.). 1988. Transfers. Les relations interculturelles dans l’espace franco-allemand (XVIIIe et XIXe siècle). Paris: Editions recherches sur les civilisations. Gal, Susan. 2002. A Semiotics of the Public/Private Distinction. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 13(1), 77-95. Goody, Jack. 2006. The Theft of History. Cambridge / New York: Cambridge University Press. Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard und Jürgen Kocka. (eds.). 1996. Geschichte und Vergleich. Ansätze und Ergebnisse international vergleichender Geschichtsschreibung. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. Hopkins, Terence / Wallerstein, Immanuel and associates. 1982. World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. Headley, John. 2007. The Europeanization of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Krastev, Ivan and Stephen Holmes. 2018. Explaining Eastern Europe: Imitation and Its Discontents. Journal of Democracy 29(3), 117-28. Middell, Matthias. 2000. Kulturtransfer und Vergleich. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts Verlag. Miller, James. 2018. Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Osterhammel, Jürgen. 2014. The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rosenblatt, Helena. 2018. The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Snyder, Timothy. 2015. Integration and Disintegration: Europe, Ukraine, and the World. Slavic Review 74(4), 695-7. Stenius, Henrik. 2017. Concepts in a Nordic Periphery, in Conceptual History in the European Space, edited by Steinmetz, Willibald / Freeden, Michael and Javier Fernandez-Sebastian. New York: Berghahn, 263-80. Todorova, Maria. 2015. On public Intellectuals and Their Conceptual Frameworks. Slavic Review 74(4), 708-14. .1986. Angliya, Rossiya i Tanzimat. Moscow: Nauka, Glavnoe izdatel'stvo vostochnoi literatury.

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Walker, Shaun. 2019. Edi Rama, Albania’s unconventional PM who wants to escape the ‘curse of history’. The Guardian, 10. June 2019 (accessed: 25. October 2019).

The 3rd Congress of SYRIZA in 2020: party change put into perspective Event Analysis

Dimitrios Kosmopoulos Visiting research fellow, University of Graz [email protected]

Contemporary Southeastern Europe, 2019, 6(1), 20-27

DOI 10.25364/02.6:2019.1.3

Dimitrios Kosmopoulos

Keywords: SYRIZA, party politics, Greece

Introduction SYRIZA will organize its third Congress at the beginning of 2020. The outcome of the Congress is going to influence the future of SYRIZA as the party has to adjust to the new realities caused by recent developments such as its meteoric electoral rise since 2012 and the governmental experience between 2015 and 2019. SYRIZA is henceforth the second-biggest party in terms of electoral influence and parliamentary representation in Greece. Therefore, SYRIZA’s internal developments will affect more broadly the political competition and the Greek party system. This Congress will be a turning point in SYRIZA’s internal transformation after its loss of power in the July 2019 national elections. An electoral loss is generally considered as a catalyst for internal transformation.1 However, SYRIZA has been constantly evolving since the 2010 Greek crisis. Until 2013, SYRIZA was a coalition of different leftist parties and organizations. During this time, the first Congress of SYRIZA proceeded to unify the different organizations under a single party. The acquisition of power in 2015, the internal split in September 2015 (when the left wing quit the party), and the loss of power in July 2019 suggest a series of great internal modifications. This instability constantly affected the types of resources mobilized by SYRIZA into the political field, the profile of party elites, and the program and ideological identity of the party. Overall, SYRIZA remains a small party—in terms of organization and membership—whose social and local anchors are weak, despite its term in office between 2015 and 2019. From this point of view, the Congress is considered as an initiative to make the party more attractive to broader audiences and to extend SYRIZA’s social roots.

The Congress in context SYRIZA lost four consecutive elections in a two-month period and failed to maintain its power. On 26 May 2019, SYRIZA lost the European elections to the New Democracy political party by a large margin, 23.75% to 32.12% of the votes cast. Even though European elections tend to be perceived as second-order elections, these were

Dimitrios Kosmopoulos holds a PhD in Political Science from the Paris-Dauphine University-PSL. He was in winter semester 2019/2020 a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Southeast European Studies of the University of Graz. His doctoral research focuses on the political upheaval in Greece between 2010 and 2014, a period marked by economic crisis and the implementation of structural and economic adjustment programs. His research interests include the study of party systems and political crisis, the sociology of political parties and political elites, and European politics in a comparative perspective. 1 Mair, Peter / Müller, Wolfgang and Fritz Plasser. (eds.). 2004. Political parties and electoral change: party responses to electoral markets. London: SAGE; Harmel R and K. Janda. 1994. An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change. Journal of Theoretical Politics volume 6(3), 259-287.

Dimitrios Kosmopoulos

the first to be organized since 2015 and have been widely polarized by the two major parties. The entire electoral campaign was conducted as a prelude to the legislative campaigns, and the stakes were high for both sides. The defeat, but mostly the large margin of votes, provoked a shock within SYRIZA. In response, A. Tsipras, the party leader, announced national elections on 7 July 2019. Along with European elections, municipal and regional elections were also held. SYRIZA was defeated in all contexts. In a total of thirteen regions, Tsipras succeeded to elect only one candidate supported by the party, while New Democracy controlled the rest of the regions. At the municipal level, SYRIZA failed to deliver a significant performance as the overwhelming majority of its candidates failed to win municipal offices. Finally, the outcome of the national elections confirmed the initial trends as New Democracy gained 39.85% of the casted votes compared to 31.53% in favor of SYRIZA. Thus New Democracy elected 158 out of 300 deputies and formed the new government.

However, these defeats did not indicate an electoral disaster for SYRIZA since the party was far from collapsing. SYRIZA managed to maintain 31% of the votes cast and maintained the role of the second pillar within the emerging two-party system. From this point of view, the 2019 national elections ended an electoral cycle that began with the double national elections in May and June 2012.2 This electoral cycle signified the collapse of both the PASOK and the traditional bipartisan system. During this period, the main indicators of political competition were the very high rates of electoral volatility, the entry of new players into the political field, a polarized multi-party system with six or more parties in Parliament, and the impossibility to form single-party majorities or governments. Therefore, the consolidation of the two key players in the 2019 elections, namely New Democracy and SYRIZA, the eclipse of various flash parties, and the poor electoral performance of contenders like PASOK or Greek Communist Party indicated a centripetal dynamic within the emerging political configuration.3 It is through this lens that SYRIZA tries to further consolidate its position within the party system and focuses on its internal organization with aspirations to return to office in the future.

On the road to the Congress: intraparty struggles and challenges The Congress can be perceived as a moment and space of internal struggles and redistribution of power. Thus, the composition of the Congress’ agenda is a particularly important step as it can decide the orientation of the Congress’ activity. Internal players—with sometimes competing interests—try to consolidate or reinforce their position within the party by setting the agenda and trying to influence its outcome. Thus, the issues discussed or excluded from the dialogue illuminate the internal struggles and power dynamics.

From this perspective, we can assess a series of main findings. The first concerns the process of creating the agenda and its implications. The leader of the party, A. Tsipras, determines the agenda of the Congress. As previously indicated, the party transformation has arisen from his encouragement. The party leader

2 Voulgaris, Giannis and Ilias Nikolakopoulos. (eds.). 2014. 2012: O diplos eklogikos seismos. Athens: Themelio. 3 Tsirbas, Yiannis. 2016. The January 2015 Parliamentary Election in Greece: Government Change, Partial Punishment and Hesitant Stabilisation. South European Society and Politics volume 21(4), 407-426.

The 3rd Congress of SYRIZA in 2020: party change put into perspective

declared that the electoral result was "(…) a contract, but also a command, to transform (the party) in quick steps, to transform into a significant party, into a modern and mass, left, progressive movement with deep roots and strong links to the working people and society".4 This initiative suggests clearly that the Congress is not going to address the designation of a new leader, which is the norm after an electoral defeat. In contrast, A. Tsipras sets the agenda as an uncontested leader. Hence even discussions regarding the ways to elect leaders in the future have mainly been proposed by A. Tsipras. Without opting for an official change until now, he seems to be interested in introducing participatory models, like the open primaries, to further enhance his popularity and his legitimacy.

Furthermore, the fact that established party elites decide the agenda of the congress leaves little space for discussion of controversial topics. As we can assess from official declarations, three issues are highly promoted within pre- congress dialogue, namely the members’ enrollment, the organizational structure of the party, and the ideological identity of SYRIZA. The three issues express the party elite’s concern regarding how to regain power. In this context, criticism about the party’s term and strategic choices, like the coalition with a far-right party, seem to be minimalized. According to the party officials, belaboring on these topics could undermine the unity of SYRIZA and its capacity to efficiently confront the New Democracy government.

A second observation is about the potential struggles between competing groups. Several party officials have prioritized the reactivation of party organs and better articulation between the different party components (namely the parliamentary group, the central and the local organs). These proposals are steadily promoted by an internal group, called the group of 53 which was formed in 2014. This group is composed of party officials who were elected into parliament and/or integrated into government. Since the defection of the left wing in 2015, the group constitutes the main cluster of internal opposition. During the term in office, the group’s deputies criticized the concentration of power in A. Tsipras and the council of ministers, with party organs marginalized from the decision-making processes.

This situation begs the question as to why this internal group seeks to enhance the power of internal collective organs. The pressures over the active role of the party bureaucracy aims to consolidate these officials within the new architecture of the party. It also expresses a struggle between the historic cadres of SYRIZA with the former socialists and other politicians who joined the party since 2015. Dissidents from PASOK have approached SYRIZA since 2012. However, this was without modification of the party’s internal composition. Their presence within the parliamentary group remained small and they could not access central party organs due to internal resistance. However, the entry of dissident political elites, experts, and intellectuals progressively upset the established patterns of promotion within the party. This entire period of SYRIZA’s expansion between

4 Speech of the President of SYRIZA in front of the Central Committee of the party, 13 July 2019. Available at: https://www.syriza.gr/article/id/82168/Al.-Tsipras:-Entolh-na-metaschhmatistoyme-se- mia-megalh-parataksh-se-ena-sygchrono-kai-maziko-Aristero-proodeytiko-kinhma.html (accessed: 31 October 2019).

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2012 and 2015 was characterized by internal struggles over what kind of symbolic resources should be utilized within the party. The composition of internal organs, party candidates’ lists, and party leader counselors demonstrated the evolving image of SYRIZA into a more professionally-oriented party that promotes patterns of political career based on the expertise and the experience in public office. These trends have been enhanced since SYRIZA gained power in January 2015. Prior to these elections, the candidates coming from other political parties multiplied thanks to A. Tsipras, despite pressure from local branches who promote party candidates. Since 2015, former politicians have registered membership in SYRIZA, became part of the parliamentary group, and even gained access into governmental positions.

A. Tsipras’ call for the “enlargement” of the party is also accompanied by the enrollment of various external players who seem keen to gain broader visibility and influence within party affairs. The composition of the committee in charge of the Congress is particularly interesting from this perspective. The committee was announced at the end of November 2019, and its composition was decided by the party’s authorities. It includes more than 600 members and is composed by some prominent former socialists as well as trade-union leaders, academics, artists, and persons from various civil society institutions.5 Even if the efficiency of such a massive organ is in dispute, it reflects the leader’s aim to open internal affairs beyond party members and illustrates the upheaval that occurs within intraparty composition. The group of 53 usually receive a political promotion through party organs. In contrast, the new officials without any organic links to the party gained influential positions as a direct choice of the party leader due to their personal political capital. Thus, the struggles over the role of the party organization refer to the different patterns of political careers coexisting within the party since 2012.

The Congress and the position of SYRIZA within the political field. A big concern regarding party organization is that SYRIZA’s membership is small. There is a disconnect between electoral influence and the number of members, a fact that is frequently identified by the party’s elites. SYRIZA’s electoral boost these recent years was not accompanied by an increase of its members. Furthermore, SYRIZA maintains a loose internal structure and the rules that govern members’ enrollment at the local level are not strictly codified. In other words, supporters may participate in party activities without maintaining an organic link. Since 2010, the party expanded its audience and formed broader coalitions under the anti-austerity program and enhanced its electoral influence through investment in protest movements like the “Indignant Citizens.”6 The links between SYRIZA and social movements contributed to the rise of SYRIZA but also allowed to activists to seek political promotion through the party. However, during SYRIZA’s term in office, we observe a broader separation between the party and the social movements which were linked with SYRIZA’s anti-austerity strategy. Furthermore, the left-wing members of

5 Έντονο άρωμα ΠΑΣΟΚ στην Κεντρική Επιτροπή Ανασυγκρότησης του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ. Efsyn.gr, 28 November 2019. Available at: https://www.efsyn.gr/politiki/antipoliteysi/220881_entono-aroma- pasok-stin-kentriki-epitropi-anasygkrotisis-toy-syriza, (accessed: 08 December 2019). 6 Rori, Lamprini. 2015. De la contestation au pouvoir. Les ressorts de l’ascension électorale de SYRIZA. Savoir/Agir volume 32(2), 61-71.

The 3rd Congress of SYRIZA in 2020: party change put into perspective

SYRIZA left the party when SYRIZA adopted a new austerity program in September 2015. This split deprived SYRIZA from a critical mass of members as not only the Left Platform (namely the left wing of the party) defected, but also members of youth organizations and activists from anti-austerity or solidarity movements broke from SYRIZA.7 These developments affected both the size and quality of SYRIZA’s membership as the grassroots activity has decreased and SYRIZA has failed to maintain active local branches.

More importantly, the discussion about the party organization refers to the function of organizational linkage, namely the capacity of a party to create links to society and voters through civil society organizations and institutions.8 Currently, the issue is gaining momentum since SYRIZA lost its main resources, namely the resources provided by state capture and parliamentary activity. Since 2015, SYRIZA is almost exclusively reliant on these kind of resources to maintain its position and expand its voter base.

Parliament-linked resources seemed to play an important role into the overall activity of the party. SYRIZA benefited from the increase in subsidies granted to political parties by the public budget. According to the laws regulating political party financing, the subsidies are distributed according to the party's position in the elections (Law 3023/2002). For example, according to the Committee for the Control of assets, an independent authority controlling the assets and revenue of political parties and political staff, SYRIZA received a benefit of 972,624 EUR in 2011, while in 2017, the amount granted to the party was about 6.4 million euros.9 In parallel, the number of MPs increased from thirteen MPs in 2009 to seventy-one in June 2012 and one hundred forty-nine in January 2015. MPs provide extra financial sources for the party since the party receives part of their parliamentary allowances and they participate in supporting the expenditures of party organs at the local level. SYRIZA used the governmental coalition to implement targeted public policies with the aim to consolidate and expand its political clientele. SYRIZA aims to maintain and expand its electoral clientele. SYRIZA aimed to maintain and expand its electoral audience by implementing better access to healthcare for vulnerable groups, distributing social benefits to the outsiders of the economic crisis, and promoting civic rights and identity politics.

Furthermore, SYRIZA sought to consolidate its position by appropriating the state apparatus. SYRIZA provided the nomination for public administration roles, giving preference to party affiliates. These were senior positions in public administration, public organisms, and ministries. Controlling these key positions allowed SYRIZA not only to better implement its agenda, but also the opportunity to undertake patronage practices. Control over key public institutions is traditionally seen as a way to expand the party’s voters through nominations or different kinds of services. At the same time, SYRIZA controlled

7 Papanikolopoulos, Dimitris. 2019. SYRIZA kai koinwnika kinimata: h sxesi, o gamos, h diastase, in SYRIZA ena komma en kinisei, edited by Mpalampanidis, Giannis. Athens: Themelio, 121-141. 8 Poguntke, Thomas. 2002. Party Organizational Linkage: Parties witout firm social roots?, in Parties in the new Europe. Political and analytical challenges, edited by Luther, Kurt Richard and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel. Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press, 43-62. 9 Control Committee, https://epitropielegxou.parliament.gr/ (accessed: 30 October.2019).

Dimitrios Kosmopoulos

the nominations to gain the loyalty of the remaining members and to enroll new ones. The strategy of politicization of the state apparatus is far from being a particularity of SYRIZA. Historically, parties in power use their access into the state machine in order to maintain and expand their political influence.10

However, the overall social roots of the party remain weak as SYRIZA never succeeded to create organic links with institutions of interest representation or with local government authorities to establish itself locally. SYRIZA never created any strong links within the trade union movements or professional associations, unlike PASOK, New Democracy, and the Greek Communist Party, which maintained massive affiliated organizations. Despite PASOK’s loss of influence due to the austerity measures and the movement of several trade union leaders from PASOK to SYRIZA, SYRIZA still occupies a marginal position in that sector. A similar assessment is observed at the local level. Despite the victories at the national level, SYRIZA could not capitalize on these dynamics within the municipalities. The most notable victory for SYRIZA was the gain of the Attica region (which includes Athens) in 2014. Otherwise, the party has not won a significant number of municipalities or changed the electoral map since 2010. The weak performances suggest a broader inability for SYRIZA to sustain its influence in competition at the local level. As a result, the loss of power (and consequently the loss of institutional and state-related resources) obliged SYRIZA to establish itself within social spheres which could provide the party with broader visibility and legitimacy, as well as with experienced political staff.

Finally, the ideological and political identity of the party appears to be one of the most important issues. SYRIZA aims to strategically reposition itself within the ideological and political oppositions of the party system. The declared goal is to present SYRIZA as the representative of the broader progressive political camp by uniting the center-left, namely, an electorate that has been traditionally represented by PASOK. During this era, SYRIZA has redefined its ideological identity. The anti-memorandum rhetoric and practices allowed the party to undermine the traditional two-party system. However, once SYRIZA faced constraints while in power, the government has voted and implemented a third program of structural and economic adjustment since 2015.11 SYRIZA’s term in office and the ANEL coalition (a far-right party), made it impossible to invoke both the opposition to the memorandum and to the radical left legacy. Insofar, SYRIZA seeks a new narrative to maintain and increase its political influence, a narrative which would be more coherent with the catch-all strategy promoted by the party direction. Thus, SYRIZA’s goal seems to be the redefinition of, and the hegemony over, the center-left space. In that way, SYRIZA attempts to reactivate the traditional cleavage between left and right and dominate on the Greek left since PASOK has collapsed. This strategy is in line with the profile of its electoral base, which includes mainly former socialist voters. Therefore, SYRIZA's strategic priority is to capture the political space that has been historically monopolized, both ideologically and electorally, by PASOK.

10 Sotiropoulos, Dimitris. 2001. I koryfi tou pelateiakou kratous. Athens: Potamos. 11 Mpalampanidis, Giannis. (ed.). 2019. SYRIZA ena komma en kinisei. Athens: Themelio.

The 3rd Congress of SYRIZA in 2020: party change put into perspective

Conclusions The Congress and its outcome will decide, to a large extent, both the identity of SYRIZA and the features of the party system after a decade of constant transformation. As SYRIZA loses power and sees its parliamentary representation shrink, it automatically loses vital resources needed to compete for power. The party’s strategic goal is to enhance SYRIZA's entry into social spaces and arenas of competition that would allow a broader social clout while simultaneously leading the party into hegemony over the center-left political space. SYRIZA is thus trying to balance between two different kinds of resources that will decide the outcome of the strategy and the identity of the party.

Even though SYRIZA got separated from social movements during its term in office, the party steadily seeks to recreate and maintain connections with them. Linkage with social movements provides SYRIZA with potential members and internal legitimacy, as well as opportunities for dynamic opposition. Furthermore, associations with social movements allow SYRIZA to promote post-materialist issues that strikingly distinguish SYRIZA from both the traditionally conservative New Democracy and PASOK. However, it seems that the movement-related resources, both symbolic and material, have a minor role to play into the new orientation of SYRIZA.

SYRIZA opts to instead transform into a more professional-oriented party. The state machine, the interest groups, and the local government are perceived as privileged spaces for party activity and as the main channels of political promotion. This evolution shows a clear tendency towards the imitation and reproduction of the traditional modes of political domination in Greece. This evolution is in accordance with SYRIZA’s transformation of its broader identity as the party casts aside its radical left heritage and seeks to represent a broader audience. The transformation of SYRIZA will significantly shape the Greek left, which has been constantly shifting since 2012. SYRIZA is confronted with the challenge to reinvent the center-left in a period when this political identity is under scrutiny across Europe.

Bibliography Έντονο άρωμα ΠΑΣΟΚ στην Κεντρική Επιτροπή Ανασυγκρότησης του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ. Efsyn.gr, 28 November 2019. Available at: https://www.efsyn.gr/politiki/antipoliteysi/220881_entono-aroma-pasok-stin- kentriki-epitropi-anasygkrotisis-toy-syriza, (accessed: 08 December 2019). Harmel, R. and K. Janda. 1994. An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change. Journal of Theoretical Politics volume 6(3), 259-287. Mair, Peter / Müller, Wolfgang and Fritz Plasser. (eds.). 2004. Political parties and electoral change: party responses to electoral markets. London: SAGE. Mpalampanidis, Giannis. (ed.). 2019. SYRIZA ena komma en kinisei. Athens: Themelio. Poguntke, Thomas. 2002. Party Organizational Linkage: Parties witout firm social roots?, in Parties in the new Europe. Political and analytical challenges, edited by Luther, Kurt Richard and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel. Oxford / New

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York: Oxford University Press, 43-62. Rori, Lamprini. 2015. De la contestation au pouvoir. Les ressorts de l’ascension électorale de SYRIZA. Savoir/Agir volume 32(2), 61-71. Sotiropoulos, Dimitris. 2001. I koryfi tou pelateiakou kratous. Athens: Potamos. Spourdalakis, Michalis. 2014. The Miraculous Rise of the ‘Phenomenon SYRIZA’. International Critical Thought volume 4(3), 354-366. Tsirbas, Yiannis. 2016. The January 2015 Parliamentary Election in Greece: Government Change, Partial Punishment and Hesitant Stabilisation. South European Society and Politics volume 21(4), 407-426. Voulgaris, Giannis and Ilias Nikolakopoulos. (eds.). 2014. 2012: O diplos eklogikos seismos. Athens: Themelio.

Nationalism and the agency of musical performers in Serbia in the 1990s: A discussion with Dragana Mirković Event Analysis

Rory Archer Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Konstanz [email protected]

Contemporary Southeastern Europe 2019, 6(2), 13-21

DOI: 10.25364/02.6:2019.2.2

Rory Archer

Keywords: Nationalism, Serbia, Popular Culture, Music

Introduction: Pop folk music, the agency of performers and Serbia in the 1990s Research on popular folk music in Serbia and other parts of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s has claimed close ties between performers and Serbian nationalism.1 Authors have pointed to symbolic links between singers and the regime of Slobodan Milošević and ultra-nationalist public figures. The most notorious example of connections between of folk music performers and Serbian nationalism was the 1995 marriage between popular singer Svetlana Veličković- Ceca and paramilitary leader Željko Ražnatović-Arkan.2 This cemented the idea of a symbiotic relationship between pop-folk music and warmongering nationalism that aimed to foster an immoral value system. For example, Ivana Kronja writes that ‘This system of values aimed to establish the cult of crime and violence, war-profiteering, national-chauvinism and provincialism, together with the abandonment of morals, education, legality, and other civic values.’3

Other scholars caution the unproblematic assumption that Serbian pop-folk music and nationalism were so intimately connected. A regional overview of the development of a pan-Balkan pop-folk music market in the 1990s and 1990s stresses transnational links and dissemination, borrowing between various regional and national musical styles, the presence of national and sexual minorities in music production, and the importance of structural conditions like newly formed postsocialist music markets.4 Almost 20 years after the ousting of Milošević, pop-music styles remain popular in Serbia and across the Balkans while the gap between this style and other genres has become ever more blurred.

*Rory Archer is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz and an associated researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz. He has written on music, nationalism and post-Ottoman legacies, and social history of labour and everyday life in late-socialist Yugoslavia. His current research project examines intra-Yugoslav Albanian migration to Croatia and Slovenia in the second half of the 20th century. 1 I am very grateful to Catherine Baker, Ana Hofman and Krisztina Rácz for their comments on earlier versions of this text. 2 Gordy, Eric. 1999. The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 138. 3 Kronja, Ivana. 2004. Turbo Folk and Dance Music in 1990s Serbia: Media, Ideology, and the Production of Spectacle. The Anthropology of East Europe Review 22(1), 103. 4 Buchanan, Donna. (ed.). 2008. Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image and Regional Political Discourse. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press; Archer, Rory. 2012. Assessing Turbofolk Controversies: Popular Music between the Nation and the Balkans. Southeastern Europe 36(2), 178–207.

Nationalism and the agency of musical performers in Serbia in the 1990s: A discussion with Dragana Mirković

In the studies of Balkan pop-folk music, the professional musicians who have often formed symbolic reference points in national ethnopolitical discourse in former Yugoslav societies5 and informed scholarly discussions about music, identity and belonging in postsocialist Balkan societies have seldom been given a voice in academic debates. Usually, their views, attitudes and articulations are gleaned from musical texts, visual aspects of performances and statements made to media. This short contribution aims to bring one voice into such discussions. It draws on a public lecture delivered at the University of Graz in May 2015 by performer Dragana Mirković titled ‘The (Non)Politics of Folk Music’. Held as part of a lecture series on music and nationalism, Mirković was invited to speak on the topic in her own terms in the capacity of a performer who lived and worked in Serbia during the 1990s. She stressed that performers could demonstrate agency within the narrowed confines of 1990s Serbia, albeit agency that was constrained by the authoritarian and politicised context, conditioned by the demands of the shrunken market and the dire economic situation under international sanctions.

Initially apprehensive (‘This is the first time I am in this position and I am a bit nervous to be honest with you’), over the next two hours of her lecture and discussion with the audience Dragana Mirković expressed her own memories of being a young star in the 1980s late Yugoslav socialism, recollections about the destruction of the state and descent to war in the 1990s, and her experience of life in Austria where she has resided since 2000 while continuing to maintain a transnational musical career in the countries of the Balkans and in the diasporas in Western Europe, North America and Australia. Her talk (and subsequent discussion with students and researchers) offers insight into the understandings of one performer vis-à-vis music, nationalism and public life in Serbia during the 1990s. It is her personal and necessarily subjective account, mediated by the act of speaking biographically to an audience in Austria. She reflected on participating in the musical mainstream, while attempting to maintain artistic integrity and avoid political patronage in Milošević’s Serbia (an issue that tends to be in the foreground of research of the Serbian music industry of the 1990s). The rest of this text presents and contextualises excerpts of Mirković’s talk.

A Yugoslav performer and her audience in the 1980s Dragana Mirković was born in Kasidol, near Požarevac in Eastern Serbia and rose to fame in the mid-1980s as part of the musical collective Južni vetar. Južni vetar was composed of three Belgrade-based producers and five singers from Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia. The style of Južni vetar’s music was newly composed folk music, the bestselling musical genre in 1980s Yugoslavia, but the collective also experimented with more oriental sounds leading to marginalisation in many media outlets. Vidić Rasmussen writes that ‘Radio authorities spoke of the urgent need to “clean” radio programming of the trashy sounds that had accumulated since this music’s emergence in the market.’6

5 Baker, Catherine. 2006. The Politics of Performance: Transnationalism and its Limits in Former Yugoslav Popular Music, 1999-2004. Ethnopolitics 5(3), 275-93. 6 Vidić Rasmussen, Ljerka. 1996. Southern Wind of Change: Style and the Politics of Identity in Prewar Yugoslavia, in Retuning Culture: Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Slobin, Mark. Durham / London: Duke University Press, 103.

Rory Archer

Despite such demands, Južni vetar enjoyed mass popularity among Yugoslavs with the group estimating they sold some 10 million records and cassettes.7 The five singers were diverse in terms of their backgrounds, ethnicity and generational cohort and might be interpreted as an unashamedly working class, pan-Yugoslav manifestation of brotherhood and unity. In the late 1980s, in a Yugoslav society ‘drifting away from its professed ideals, the Serbian/Bosnian project of Južni vetar appeared as a statement of unity’.8 The original Južni vetar collective collapsed with the breakup of the Yugoslav state, as some of the performers forced to leave Bosnia Herzegovina with the outbreak of war, but the original ensemble re-established itself in 2008 releasing a song titled ‘Stronger than ever’ (Jači nego ikad) professing in the chorus ‘Now we are as one again, now we are stronger than ever. The world is small, no one can ever separate us’.9

In introducing herself to the audience, Mirković referred to her upbringing as unabashedly Yugoslav.10

“I was born in Yugoslavia…. To live in Yugoslavia in the time that I remember, means peace, equality; nobody cared whether someone was Orthodox, Catholic, or of Muslim faith. That is how I was raised at home, by my parents and that is how they taught us in school.”

Referring to her rise to stardom in the 1980s, she stresses the trans-ethnic and transnational grounding of her career and that her overriding commitment was to her fan base in Yugoslavia and the wider Balkan region.

“Most important of all, this was among all peoples [narodi] in Yugoslavia, and even in Romania and Bulgaria too where they declared me to a be a Balkan star […] In the 1980s to be in the music business – singing, without any kind of influence from anyone – simply from the beginning I belonged to music and my fans. That is the most important thing I wish to stress about the 1980s.”

She maintains that she enjoyed absolute freedom in her profession during the decade, declaring that ‘everything depends on whether one is a quality character [kvalitetna ličnost], a quality singer, and how much the fans like you’. Her description gels with the claims of scholars like Hofman that stress the affective component of musical labour for Yugoslav show business [estrada] performers11 who embody a range of social positionings ‘symbolising both a socialist woman and a capitalist entertainer, a working person and a “star”.’12 As a performer in the narodna genre,13 she was arguably in a symbiotic relationship with a collective—the people in general terms and her more narrowly defined fan base.

7 Vidić Rasmussen, Southern Wind of Change, 106. 8 Vidić Rasmussen, Southern Wind of Change, 112. 9 Sada smo k'o jedno opet / sad smo jači nego ikad / mali je svijet, ne može nas / rastaviti niko nikad 10 Cf. Hofman, Ana. 2012. Lepa Brena: Repolitization of musical memories on Yugoslavia. Гласник Етнографског института САНУ 60(1), 21-32. 11 Hofman, Ana. 2015. Music (as) Labour: Professional Musicianship, Affective Labour and Gender in Socialist Yugoslavia. Ethnomusicology Forum 24(1), 28-50. 12 Hofman, Ana and Polona Sitar. 2016. Buy me a silk skirt Mile! Celebrity culture, gender and social positioning in socialist Yugoslavia, in Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism, edited by Archer, Rory / Duda, Igor and and Paul Stubbs. Abingdon: Routledge, 156. 13 Narodna refers to the broad category of newly-composed folk music. See: Vidić Rasmussen, Ljerka. 1995. From Source to Commodity: Newly-composed Folk Music of Yugoslavia. Popular Music 14(2), 241-56.

Nationalism and the agency of musical performers in Serbia in the 1990s: A discussion with Dragana Mirković

Facing the 1990s: “A dark room in which you are suffocating” The central topic of the lecture, reflecting on being a commercially successful musician in Milošević’s Serbia, was soon broached in the talk. ‘Maybe we should move to the main theme, that is the 1990s… ufff!’ Despite being a major star in Serbia during the 1990s, Mirković’s memories of the decade are overwhelmingly negative. She presents personal privations against a broader ‘destruction of sociability’14 and the backdrop of a war—a war, as she notes, in which Serbia was officially not participating—while it was blindingly obvious to her that men of military age were being sent to the front to fight against those she considered to be their fellow countrymen and women.

“I was 21 years old when I experienced the biggest tragedy in my life. That was the breakup of my own country in the worst possible way—civil war […]. I don’t know if you can imagine how it was then, at that time. Not everything was as accessible, open, media and that… Can you imagine how a young person of 21 years who just adored music, loved books, films, travelling, and suddenly end up, and I can freely say it, in absolute darkness? Life in those 1990s reminds me of life in a dark room, where you are suffocating… how long can that go on for. I was in Serbia, which officially was not at war —that is very important to say— however, believe me, there was not a big difference. We did not have enough food, electricity…. Secondly, and more importantly, I could feel it, I could see that they were coming for young men literally at their homes at night, as if they were kidnapping them and then leading them to war […] I can say knowing the situation then, those young people did not want to go to war. Because Serbia ‘was not’ at war, officially, we lived ‘normally’—that is how it was presented. People went to work, singers sang, recorded—that is how it had to be. We had to continue. But everything was different. So different you simply cannot believe it. At the beginning I could not get a grip on it, how to get by in such a situation. Speaking as a singer, in showbusiness [estrada], there was no longer the freedom to work without being influenced… Since politics—and mafia—entered so deeply into all spheres of the country, it also entered the estrada… The consequences of this can be noticed today. Is really the worst thing that can happen to music. I consider that music is one of the most connecting things in the world, it is exceptionally humanistic […].”

Dragana Mirković might be considered a counterpoint to Ceca in terms of her public image and private life (indeed she alluded to such a view in her talk, delicately but firmly disparaging the choice of a notable ‘colleague’ to insert herself into nationalist politics and criminal, paramilitary milieus). While vying with Ceca in terms of popularity and record sales during the 1990s, Mirković struck an alternative course regarding her orientation towards aggressive Serbian nationalism while still participating in the same Belgrade show business scene. Maintaining a modest ‘girl next door’ persona and aesthetics akin to Brenda Walsh of Beverly Hills 90210, Mirković, when confronted with aggressive nationalism in the public sphere, relied on the performance of a feminine naïveté to deflect violent behaviour. While a successful strategy to navigate the violent realignment of national and gender orders, it also rendered female performers like herself who were not publicly associated with ‘strong men’

14 Gordy, The Culture of Power in Serbia.

Rory Archer

from the 1990s milieu of politics, paramilitaries and business, vulnerable in public settings. She recalled one such high-profile encounter in 1991 on the Serbian entertainment show ‘Minimakovizija’. Before the live programme began to air, she recalled that a third chair was added to stage and the guests were joined by ultranationalist politician and paramilitary leader Vojislav Šešelj. Šešelj tiraded against Croatians in base terms as members of the studio audience seated behind him laughed like drains.

“It is hard to explain how I felt at that moment. Me, as somebody who grew up in a totally different time… the man who was sitting beside me, and again, a live show, I could not simply get up, at that moment how would that be perceived? Someone might interpret that as if I was against my own country. I sat there, the whole time, while that person talked about war. I did not want to hear anything like that or participate [in that discussion] ... and the way he spoked about it… you can see on YouTube how it was…, and the whole time I am thinking, should I get up? But someone will kill me on the street…. [laughs nervously]. No, thank god, nobody would kill me, and it turned out that the majority of the Serbian people were against that… They were such crazy times, complete craziness. Now when we are talking about it you might be like, why? But you cannot believe how those times were. One wrong word and I’m not saying you would lose your head, but you would simply be erased [from public life] as if erased by a rubber eraser.”

In a publicly available 10-minute video clip of the programme,15 a visibly uncomfortable Mirković avoids eye contract with the presenter and other guests and deflects questions about whether she would drive to Croatia on holidays (‘I don’t have a driving license….’ ‘I will spend my holidays with my family in Požarevac…’). While not intervening to condemn or distance herself from the discussions taking place her objections are clear to individuals watching the footage retrospectively on YouTube as indicated by numerous viewers’ comments.

“Zlaja: Most of all I feel sorry here for Mirković… you can see how the girl was so uncomfortable. Udarni Radnik: True scum. It is making Dragana feel as sick as I feel. DRAGANA I LOVE YOU ARE A GOD! MrvaSarajevo: 6:10 – this is the only part worth watching in the clip. Clear evidence that Dragana was and remained true to her views and is not a sick mind like that disgusting Seselj. FAIR PLAY DRAGANA!”16

Reflecting on the way that a number of her estrada colleagues eagerly supported ethno-nationalist mobilisation in Serbia, Mirković maintains that this was not a majority—‘most of us did not want to go along with that because we considered that we belonged to the people and not just to one people [a ne samo jednom narodu].’ She reflected on her role as a performer as one that is imbued with responsibility vis-à-vis her audience.

“The only right way in the profession I am in…. well, you see, I have a lot of fans, you could even say an army of fans. If I choose some wrong direction,

15 Der Kommissar (User-Account): Šešelj - Zardjale kašike (minimaksovizija '91). YouTube (accessed: 26. May 2019). 16 Der Kommissar (User-Account): Šešelj - Zardjale kašike (minimaksovizija '91) (accessed : 26. May 2019).

Nationalism and the agency of musical performers in Serbia in the 1990s: A discussion with Dragana Mirković

automatically I would lead someone astray [zavešću nekoga], I mean, I would teach somebody something which is wrong and that would be terrible. I have a much greater responsibility, regardless that show-business seems, you know— tra-la-la; it is a greater responsibility, a much more serious job than it seems. In every job which is a public role, one has to take care of every step, of every word is uttered… That is how most of us saw things, thank God!”

Rejecting political patronage Dragana Mirković described how for her and many colleagues, singing in the Yugoslav diaspora(s) in Western Europe and North America ‘was our outlet’, both in a financial and social sense. The abysmal economic situation in Serbia meant that earnings were greatly reduced and the wars of the 1990s interrupted the pan-Yugoslav folk music circuit of the 1980s. Performances in Germany, Austria and elsewhere secured earnings for singers while also offering a social space and buffer to gain respite from the deteriorated conditions in Serbia. It also offered an opportunity to meet with colleagues who were now physically separated by state borders and the violent ebbing of frontlines in Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia. Some of the Bosnian members of the Južni vetar collective and associated acts moved to Western Europe as refugees after 1992 and could regroup in Western European cities.

The showbusiness scene in rump Serbia was closely connected to politics according to Mirković. Furthermore, she states that she did not enjoy going out in Belgrade during the 1990s: “I was a voluntary prisoner in my own house because, to be honest, I was afraid.” The fear she described was perhaps less connected to the increased in organise crime and high-profile mafia hits that punctuated life in Belgrade during the early 1990s and more related to pressures to conform to the dominant nationalist values that had pervaded the Serbian estrada. Detailing the politicisation of the showbusiness scene, she explained her own strategy when confronted by activists who encouraged her to join the ruling party, Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia. She recalls that her popularity made her a target for the regime. When confronted with pressure to join the party she responded by pretending she did not fully understand the offer, relying again upon performances of naïve femininity as a defensive strategy to remain external to direct politicisation while not challenging or opposing offers of patronage explicitly.

“I was offered by the largest party then, to enter it. The party that held everything, not only in politics but in business, and showbusiness too. It was said to me, ‘you know, I got the million-dollar job [to invite you to join the SPS]’ — It was all sweet, with a smile, and I am silent and waited. I laughed and responded with a smile. In those times a smile was … some kind defensive weapon. When you smile it is as if you did not understand it, you even appear a bit stupid, but it does not matter…”

Following the offer which she politely refused, she focused on working in Germany and Switzerland for the next three months to avoid being confronted with another political offer by party activists. Recalling her career trajectory, she claims ‘I have to admit that a couple of times I really fell in to depression. At some points I was banned from the television, and more generally in the ‚media’.

Rory Archer

Having seen how certain colleagues who were SPS or JUL17 members and close to the regime apparatus, she noted that ‘they had it so much easier, getting flats in the city centre…. So obvious that it is better for them. Why didn’t I do it…? I considered it, but could not do it …. The idea of it disgusted me…. And now, I am glad I didn’t.’

Reconstituting a transnational career trajectory and post-Yugoslav sociability in Austria From the position of a long-term resident of Austria in 2015 speaking to a group of some 50 students and researchers, many of Yugoslav origins, Mirković evaluates her reluctance to be co-opted by the Serbian regime in the 1990s stressing that she would not be in a position to speak honestly and openly with the audience had she then acquiesced.

“I can really say, with pride… I said ‘no’ then…. I can go everywhere now—you can pose any question to me; I am not afraid of any question which is proof that I know what I did, and I do not have to be worried about it. I live in Austria, and my life, it looks like that nice one I mentioned from the 1980s. I am blessed. Again, I live life without external influences [political interference] … They [forces from the music industry who were against her] did not succeed in destroying me […] My response, then ‘no’—then when it was needed, was really the right answer, because now I live in a country where probably that would be a huge minus, if I had behaved differently back then. Like for other people it was a minus, they had problems, they were even banned from entering the country [Austria] and so on. I showed myself as somebody who did not want to be soiled [isprljan—i.e. by nationalist politics], not as a person and not as somebody who has the best job in the world and that is music. So, I say it again, perhaps that is some kind of reward because to live again like I had earlier, happily, unstressed, without feeling under pressure—like in the 1980s, I live like that now…”

Conclusion This contribution has sought to present some of the issues that Dragana Mirković addressed during a public talk and contextualise them with reference to scholarly discussions of pop-folk music in the Balkans as well as the ambivalent role of female performers in late-socialism and the immediate postsocialist era.

The act of inviting a well-known performer to speak in an academic context as a witness and participant in the former Yugoslav political economy of show business probably brings up more questions than it answers. To conclude I pose some of the questions the encounter with Dragana Mirković raised for me and colleagues who organised and attended the event.

• In academic discussions, in Area Studies of the Balkans and beyond, who is permitted to speak and in what terms? Might it be the case that hearing accounts from showbusiness personalities has scholarly value and can reveal perspectives that tend to be absent from the witnesses

17 Jugoslovenska Levica (JUL) was a party formed in 1994 by Mirjana Marković, wife of Milošević, which cooperated closely with the SPS and attracted several high-profile members of the estrada.

Nationalism and the agency of musical performers in Serbia in the 1990s: A discussion with Dragana Mirković

who are called on to speak in academic settings? (Typically, politicians, diplomats and activists from the NGO sector).18 • Are such interventions better reported as primary sources or contextualised critically, problematised and interrogated? How can knowing silences and implicit references to individuals and events expressed in these kinds of discussion by public figures be accounted for? • In scholarly discussions of ‘dealing with the past’, in which ways can researchers better integrate the experiences and accounts of public figures who remain outside of the constructed dichotomies of engaged liberal democrats and normative nationalists (i.e. ‘first’ and ‘other’ Serbia)? • How might performers, producers and consumers of music (in Serbia and elsewhere) be included in the research process? • How do semi-public discussions with musical performers further our understanding of phenomena like the music industry, the relationship between audiences and performers, and the subjectivity of individual performers who are routinely understood as symbolic reference points in both ethnonationalist discourse and narratives of social transformations and urban (self-) perceptions in the former Yugoslav region?

Lastly, I wish to extend thanks to Dragana Mirković for speaking candidly at the University of Graz, to Armina Galijaš and colleagues at the CSEES for facilitating the talk, and Krisztina Rácz who acted as interpreter for Dragana Mirković and the audience.

Bibliography. Archer, Rory. 2012. Assessing Turbofolk Controversies: Popular Music between the Nation and the Balkans. Southeastern Europe 36(2), 178–207. Baker, Catherine. 2006. The Politics of Performance: Transnationalism and its Limits in Former Yugoslav Popular Music, 1999-2004. Ethnopolitics 5(3), 275-293. Buchanan, Donna. (ed.). 2008. Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image and Regional Political Discourse. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Der Kommissar (User-Account): Šešelj - Zardjale kašike (minimaksovizija '91). YouTube (29 October 2007). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5g8YifGqiA (accessed: 26 May 2019). Gordy, Eric. 1999. The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Hofman, Ana and Polona Sitar. 2016. Buy me a silk skirt Mile! Celebrity culture, gender and social positioning in socialist Yugoslavia, in Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism, edited by Archer, Rory / Duda, Igor and and Paul Stubbs. Abingdon: Routledge.

18 Through see a number of biographies and autobiographies by popular stars - for example: Zmijanac, Vesna. 2000. Kad zamirišu jorgovani: Pokušaj autobiografije. Beograd: Evro, 2000; Katarina, Olivera. Aristokratsko stopalo. Beograd: Karić fondacija; Marković, Dragan. 2011. Knjiga o Silvani. Beograd: V.B.Z; Luković, Petar. 1989. Bolja prošlost: prizori iz muzičkog života Jugoslavije 1940-1989. Beograd: Mladost.

Rory Archer

. 2012. Lepa Brena: Repolitization of musical memories on Yugoslavia. Гласник Етнографског института САНУ 60(1), 21-32. . 2015. Music (as) Labour: Professional Musicianship, Affective Labour and Gender in Socialist Yugoslavia. Ethnomusicology Forum 24(1), 28-50. Katarina, Olivera. Aristokratsko stopalo. Beograd: Karić fondacija. Kronja, Ivana. 2004. Turbo Folk and Dance Music in 1990s Serbia: Media, Ideology, and the Production of Spectacle. The Anthropology of East Europe Review 22(1), 103-114. Luković, Petar. 1989. Bolja prošlost: prizori iz muzičkog života Jugoslavije 1940-1989. Beograd: Mladost. Marković, Dragan. 2011. Knjiga o Silvani. Beograd: V.B.Z. Vidić Rasmussen, Ljerka. 1995. From Source to Commodity: Newly-composed Folk Music of Yugoslavia. Popular Music 14(2), 241-56. . 1996. Southern Wind of Change: Style and the Politics of Identity in Prewar Yugoslavia, in Retuning Culture: Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Slobin, Mark. Durham / London: Duke University Press, 99–116. Zmijanac, Vesna. 2000. Kad zamirišu jorgovani: Pokušaj autobiografije. Beograd: Evro, 2000.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique Research Article

Marina Simić Professor; University of Belgrade [email protected]

Contemporary Southeastern Europe 2019, 6(2), 22-37

DOI: 10.25364/02.6:2019.2.3

Marina Simić

In this paper I address dominant critical discourses of turbo-folk music in Serbia. I suggest that we see music and music related practices as constitutive rather than reflective of identification in order to find a more nuanced ways to understand common discourses of (turbo-) folk critiques and its roles. To that aim, I draw from my long-term fieldwork research in the northern Serbian town of Novi Sad to show how public discourses are played out in private spheres, and also how they are created in and through everyday life. I identify the “anti-folk scene” based on univocal aesthetic exclusion that encompasses people from various social backgrounds and social strata. In conclusion, it could be said that despite its huge popularity and public visibility, turbo-folk remains one of the most important examples of aesthetics of others/other aesthetics in contemporary Serbia.

Keywords: turbo-folk, Serbia, lines of disidentification

Introduction Serbian folk singer Šaban Šaulić died in a car crash in February 2019. He received a state funeral in the Alley of Distinguished Citizens in Belgrade, and was the first folk artist to be buried there. His state funeral did not attract much attention until the death of Serbian poet Dobirca Erić, who died in March of the same year. Unlike Šaulić, he was buried in his native village of Donja Crnuća, where he spent most of his later life. Serbian president posthumously awarded the poet an award: Sretenjski orden trećeg stepena za naročite zasluge u oblasti književnosti, posebno pesničkog stvaralaštva. The public was outraged – a folk singer received a state funeral, the national poet did not. Few know that Erić, who was also a supporter of right-wing Serbian movements, also wrote lyrics for new folk songs, including one of the most famous from the veteran of Serbian new folk veteran Miroslav Ilić: the song “I used to love a girl from the city” – “Voleo sam devojku iz grada.” He also wrote for more controversial artists, like Svetlana Ražnatović Ceca, the most famous turbo-folk singer from the 1990s and the widow of war criminal Željko Ražnatović Arkan. However, liberal and other public discourses focus on the fact that a state policy commemorated a folk singer and not a poet (although both were close to the state politics) in a long enduring anti-folk discourse that permeates various strata of Serbian society. In this paper my aim is not to investigate or challenge the concepts that have proved to be surprisingly homogenous and long lasting, but to describe how they were expressed ethnographically – not commenting on whether or not such opinions reflect some type of reality or another – and to understand the ways in which they became the main negative discourses of

 Marina Simić graduate from the University of Belgrade obtaining degrees from the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Philology and received her Master and PhD degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester, UK. She is currently a Professor of Theories of Culture at Belgrade University.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

identification.1 I suggest that we see music and music related practices as constitutive rather than reflective of identification in order to find more nuanced ways to understand common discourses of (turbo-) folk critique and its roles. To that aim, I will draw from my long-term research in Novi Sad that started with a year of fieldwork in 2005 and continued with frequent visits in years after my initial research about music and identification. Keeping that in mind, I will start with the usual anthropological approach and include an ethnographic vignette that may give us insight into the issue at stake.

Locating the (turbo-) folk critique In the town centre of Novi Sad, there is a main square and main street with stylish shops, café, and bars that usually play some kind of “neutral music.” There are also many bars on both sides of the plaza where there is no music at all. In the area surrounding the town centre streets there are many places that play rock, house, electro, and similar styles of music. Most of them are located on Laze Telečkog Street and have English names, like Martha’s Pub and London, or Spanish names like Cuba Libre. There are also some places that play heavy metal and hard rock, the most famous being Dvorište, meaning “yard,” a small place that is quite hidden behind the Serbian National Theatre, or Izba (an archaic word meaning “shack”), where “alternative” people go-like NGO activists, art students, artists, musicians – and where I spent considerable amount of my time. Izba is located above the Novi Sad Student Centre of Culture; both places used to be state owned. However, with the collapse of the socialist Yugoslav state and massive privatization of state property, the building has now been rented out to a private tenant who for a while turned in to a place for rock concerts and exhibitions of all kinds.

One night of the many nights that I spent in Izba, I had a discussion about music politics. This time I was in all male company with some Exit festival team members, NGO activist and rock musicians. One of my interlocutors was for a short while a director of a local radio station in a town in Vojvodina where he banned folk songs on the radio, thinking that his colleagues would agree. He believed that people working in the radio station only played them because they were ordered to do so by previous editor, or because it was simply a habit. But one of his colleagues organized a petition to ask the radio to bring back folksy songs. He fired him for failing to turn up to work, but when the right-wing Serbian Radical Party came to power,2 people in the town council hired him back and paid him his salary for the period he did not work. As he explained,

“People were terrified, they said: ‘you want to take our folk music from us.’ I couldn’t explain to them that that it is not folk music, that all the songs were written [and composed] by someone in the 1950s and 1960s, all that sevdalinke (a type of Bosnian song connected mostly with Bosniaks) and that “[There are] two paths leading from the water spring” (a song by Lepa Lukić, “Od izvora dva

1 I deliberately use term identification instead of identity in order to emphasize process over the state of being. 2 Serbian Radical Party is a right wing party that later largely lost its influence and seats in the Parliament, although it is still present in the public life.

Marina Simić

putića”)3 is only 15 years older than YU grupa [YU Group].4 But they hold to it stubbornly, “[There are] two paths leading from the water spring,” that is something ours, authentic.”

Another friend added,

“People think that turbo-folk is some kind of music genre, but that was only the point where they [folk singers in general] got hold of the media. Everybody thinks that Lepa Brena was the beginning [of folk music], but she was only able to play on radio and TV stations, while Šemsa Suljaković and Sinan Sakić were selling the same number of records, but they were not able to reach the media [both are new folk music veterans from the 1980s and frequent targets of ridicule].”

Finally, another friend mentioned the tavern Mali Beograd [Little Belgrade] in Klisa, one of the suburban neighbourhoods with a dubious reputation for its refugee population prone to folksy songs and other “newly composed kitsch,” where “people naked to their waists listen to abnormal music.” He was not really angry; he was more astonished by that fact and found it hilarious and exotic. In a self-exoticising manner he wanted to add to Voja’s point that there is huge variation in what we understand as folksy songs, some of them being more prominent in media, while others heard only in taverns such as Little Belgrade. Leo and I agreed, but Leo added that the problem is not Little Belgrade, but the unequal treatment of turbo-folk stars and rock bands – what is considered to be “normal” and what is not. He said, “A few days ago, a Gypsy brass band woke me up at 8am in the morning and that’s [supposedly] fine, but if I take my band [Obojeni Program]5 at 8am in the morning and start playing in the street, I will be arrested for sure.”

There are many closely interwoven issues within this small fragment of a conversation in the bar that became my meeting point in Novi Sad. The people with whom I worked were relatively young people who usually define themselves through what they are not – they are not ‘turbo-folk’ people, as they view liking that kind of music as indicative of poor aesthetic (and moral) values; they are not urban peasants, as they do not identify with a recent rural past; they are not ultra-nationalists, as that suggests to them poor moral and political judgment; they are not the older people who the old days, as that implies misplaced nostalgia to them. These negative identifications make it much harder to grasp what they are. These people do not form a ‘community’ or a coherent group, and

3 It is a view shared among Serbian scholars that the release of the recording by Serbian female singer Lepa Lukić in 1964 named “[There are] two paths leading from the water spring” (“Od izvora dva putića”), which describes a young woman in a rustic village whose love is ruined when her lover decides to move to the city, marked the beginning of the market history of Yugoslav novokomponovana narodna muzika (literary newly-composed folk music—new folk music) (Vidić- Rasmussen, Ljerka. 1995. From Source to Commodity. Newly-composed Folk Music of Yugoslavia. Popular Music 14(2): 241-56; Vidić-Rasmussen, Ljerka. 2002. Newly Composed Folk Music of Yugoslavia. London and New York: Routledge). As Vidić-Rasmussen explains, “the title of the song is highly symbolic of the divergence of Yugoslav folk music into continuing narodna muzika (folk; literary ‘people’s music’) and an emerging pop stream” (Vidić-Rasmussen, From Source to Commodity, 241). 4 One of the first Serbian rock bands. They played soft rock and sympathized with 1960s hippy ideals. 5 Obojeni program (Color Television) is the Serbian rock band from Novi Sad. It is also recognized internationally; it has regular tours in Europe and was the first band from Socialist Yugoslavia to be presented on MTV. All the band members are from Novi Sad and the first letter from their records in an acronymic play, making the word NOVI SAD.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

the Bourdiean perspective that connects music and class cannot fully grasp the complexity of their position.6

In Serbia, people’s self-ascription of culture is not differentiated neatly by level of education or ‘class’ position and people are able to claim appropriation of culture even if they have very little education. Spasić in a comprehensive sociological study amongst a wide variety of social groups showed that the scope of levels of ‘cultural achievement’ was very broad and separated from its formal links with levels of education, becoming more like a category of ‘cultivation.’7 Cultivation was proposed to be a question of morality and civilization that was claimed by people with all levels of education – from those who did not finish primary school to those with university qualifications.8 The people with whom I worked in Novi Sad come from different social backgrounds; some of them have high cultural and social capital, while some of them would not usually be considered as having such. Some of them were heads of local NGO organizations and successful artists while others were failed students who were selling smuggled goods in the open market. Still, they were claiming high cultural capital based on their music taste. Thus, it seemed that my informants were trying to argue that new folk music, epitomized, for example, by Lepa Lukić’s songs, was not specifically “authentic” Serbian music – at least not more authentic than Serbian rock ’n’ roll – but the change in state policy managed to ‘persuade’ people that there was something more ‘authentic’ in Serbian new folk music than in Serbian rock. Furthermore, for my informants, new folk music, publicly marginalized in the 1980s, was not “really a problem,” as an informant put it, but the “real problem” was rather the “uncontrolled spread of turbo-folk” that was equally inauthentic, but more “dangerous.”9 Turbo-folk and its various new subgenres is the most prominent popular music in Serbia today.10 In order to understand its current predicament, I will briefly present the history of its emergence, critique it, and place it in the global context.

Some scholars date the arrival of new folk music to the 1960s, a time when music that was marked as ‘traditional’ became fused with contemporary European pop music, mainly due to the development of the Serbian radio and

6 Bourdieu famously suggests that “taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier” (Bourdieu, Pierre. 2002. Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London and New York: Routledge, 6). ‘Proper music,’ according to Bourdieu, most clearly “affirms one’s ‘class’” (Bourdieu, Distinction, 18), and “fulfills a social function of legitimizing social differences” (Bourdieu, Distinction, 7); Simić, Marina. 2014. Kosmopolitska čežnja. Etnografija srpskog postsocijalizma. Beograd: Centar za studije kulture FPN. 7 Spasić, Ivana. 2006. Disinkcija na domaći način. Diskursi statusnog diferenciranja u današnjoj Srbiji, in Nasleđe Pjera Burdijea. Pouke i nadahnuća, edited by Nemanjić, Miloš and Ivana Spasić. Beograd: Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju. Zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka, 137-71; Spasić, Ivana. 2013. Kultura na delu: društvena transformacija Srbije iz burdijeovske perspective. Beograd: Fabrika knjiga. 8 See also: Jansen, Stef. 2005. Antinacionalizam. Etnografija otpora u Beogradu i Zagrebu. Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek; Simić, Kosmopolitska čežnja. 9 The issue of authenticity is an especially tricky one. New folk music and turbo-folk are both considered inauthentic for several interrelated reasons. Both are considered to be a departure from the “real” traditional music and contain “inadequate” mixture of Western popular music and Turkish, Islamic and Middle Eastern music influences in case of turbo-folk (Archer, Rory. 2012. Assessing Turbofolk Controversies. Popular Music between the Nation and the Balkans. Southeastern Europe 36, 178–207.) 10 The term is ascribed to the Serbian rock musician Rambo Amadeus and it is meant to be degrading.

Marina Simić

record industries.11 This development to a certain extent parallels that of other countries where a similar fusion between what was understood as ‘traditional’ and ‘Western’ music started to become more prominent with the development of the record industry and the inclusion of ‘traditional music’ into a more global music industry.12 As Flores, writing about the idea of ‘popular culture’ in the mid twentieth century argues, the idea of popular music shifted its meaning from the ideas of “traditional, collective creativity, commonly called “folklore,” to the domain of the mass media, the “mass culture” of technical reproduction and industrial commercialization”.13 The dominant idea was that “the mediated culture for the people came to eclipse and replace, in most theoretical assessments, the expressive culture of the people which had been the object of knowledge of popular culture and folklore studies in earlier generations”.14 A similar idea, that with the development of new folk music, ‘inauthentic mass culture’ replaced ‘traditional’ (and thus authentic popular music), is echoed in the writing of many Serbian intellectuals, who see it as ‘degradation of good taste’.15 Vidić-Rasmussen writes about the very term ‘newly composed’: it implies “novelty, temporariness, bricolage and kitsch” and it is considered to lack “historicity, and aesthetic/artistic attributes”.16

Turbo-folk emerged in 1990s as the most popular genre of new folk music. It is usually described as a synthesised type of dance music based on different Balkan rhythms. As Vidić-Rasmussen explains, “turbo folk represents kitsch of

11 This is not to say that the above authors argue for technological determinism; they are merely presenting the history of ‘Serbian popular music.’ Surely, if people were not interested in folk, it never would have become mixed with contemporary music, as these things need people to be motivated in order to happen, and those motivations are unlikely to be related to technology alone; Čolović, Ivan. 1985. Divlja književnost. Beograd: Nolit; Vidić-Rasmussen, Newly Composed Folk Music of Yugoslavia. 12 See e.g. Turino, T. 2000. Nationalists, Cosmopolitans, and Popular Music of Zimbabwe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 13 Flores, Juan. 2000. From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity. New York: Columbia University Press, 17. 14 Flores, From Bomba to Hip Hop, 17-18; see: Fabian, Johannes. 1998. Moments of Freedom: Anthropology and Popular Culture. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. 15 Buchanan describes a similar situation in Bulgaria: Buchanan, Donna. 2006. Performing Democracy. Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transition. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press; Stokes for Turkey: Stokes, Martin. 1992. The Arabesk Debate. Music and Musicians in Modern Turkey. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Archer for the Balkans more generally: Archer, Assessing Turbofolk. There are also “appropriate” ways of performing “folk music.” One is “staged folklore” that was officially supported during socialism; the other is “etno music,” that similar to the world music genre remakes folk music as “high art,” especially through performance of traditional Bosnian folk songs, known as sevdalinke (sevdah is the word of Turkish origin meaning “passion” or “lovesickness”) - for example Halka or Amira Medunjanin, which in Serbia were largely free from the political intentions of some of their promoters and performers (see Kozorog, Miha and Alenka Bartulović. 2016. Sevdah Celebrities Narrate sevdalinka. Political (Self-) Contextualization of sevdalinka Performers in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Traditiones 45(1), 161-79). In that sense, for my informants turbo-folk was not world music as it is suggested by some of its defenders (for details see: Višnjiić, Jelena. 2010. Re- konstrukcija identiteta kroz turbo folk u Srbiji. Magistarski rad. Fakultet političkih nauka, Univerzitet u Beogradu), but an inappropriate and inauthentic mix of traditional and Western popular music. 16 Vidić-Rasmussen, From Source to Commidity, 242; see also: Golemovoić, Dimtirije. 1995. Da li je novokomponovana narodna muzika zaista narodna? Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU 44, 185- 189; and: Dragićević-Šešić, Milena. 1994. Neofolk kultura. Publika i njene zvezde. Sremski Karlovci / Novi Sad: Izdavačka knjižarnica Zorana Stanojevića.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

the first order [which] is one point of consensus among its large and varied group of detractors”.17 Turbo-folk music is connected with ‘the rural,’ but contrary to the ‘real’ traditional music that is perceived as being undoubtedly and exclusively rural, turbo-folk and its predecessor, new folk music, are seen as impure contaminations of rural and urban. As Gordy writes, “although the music continued to be identified by its performers, promoters, and fans as “folk,” folk elements fell quickly out of the mix, to be replaced by the accoutrements of MTV dance culture as understood by Serbia’s peasants and peasant-urbanities”.18 Similarly, Collin describes turbo-folk as a “naïve reconstruction of the West seen on TV, mixed with the leftovers of rural life and dragged through the synthesising sound machine”.19 One of my informants, a former engineering student from working class, semi-rural family who was doing various odd jobs in order to support himself, told me that the music of turbo-folk stars like Jelena Karleuša, was just “stealing from” Shakira, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Lopez, and other female pop artists. In orther words, turbo-folk artists were borrowing from Western music without being able to adequately appropriate it and remake it as their own.

This ‘kitschy hybridity’ of turbo-folk20 is also a moral commentary about its performers and listeners. It is based on specific moral and aesthetic reasoning that my informants shared with established intellectual critics of the genre.21 In that sense, my informants were conflating the meanings of turbo-folk genre and turbo-folk scene that are usually “overlapped in the actual analysis” anyway.22 As Grujić explains that genre “means a set of historically developed patterns (conventions) of depicting certain topics in verbal sense and arranging them in musical terms. Scene includes the meanings of the genre, but it also contains some broader meanings, that of conditions of contextualization of a particular genre, as well as audiences’ response to that genre”.23 These two aspects are difficult to distinguish,as there is no genre without the scene,24 and unwillingly they both collapsed in these critiques of turbo-folk. However, it should be kept in mind that this is usually the case with critique of popular music more generally. Following that idea, it can be said that this is the study of the turbo-folk anti-scene, the non-public of turbo-folk genre, and their fight for social position and recognition.

17 Vidić-Rasmussen, Ljerka. 2007. Bosnian and Serbian Popular Music in the 1990s. Divergent Paths, Conflicting Meanings, and Shared Sentiments, in: Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene, edited by Buchanan, A. Donna. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 61. 18 Gordy, D. Eric. 1999. The Culture of Power in Serbia. Nationalism and Destruction of Alternatives. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, 133. 19 Collin, Mathew. 2001. This is Serbia calling. Rokenrol radio i beogradski pokret otpora. Beograd: Samizdat Free B92, 71. 20 In some other contexts the ‘hybridity’ of world music is a highly valued quality among its listeners (Stokes, Martin. 2004. Music and Global Order. Annual Review of Anthropology 33, 47-72). For more sociological analysis of ‘omnivore’ taste of contemporary European elite, that combine elements of previously ‘low’ and ‘high’ culture, see also: Peterson, Richard A. and Roger M. Kern. 1996. Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore. American Sociological Review 61(5), 900-7. 21 In recent years there are other voices that prise trubo-folk as emacipatory or even subversive, but they did not get wider prominence in public discourse and their ideas did not resonate much with my informants. See: Dimitrijević, Olga. 2009. The Body of a Female Folk Singer. Constructions of National Identities in Serbia after 2000. Genero 13, 5-41. 22 Grujić, Marija. 2012. Reading the Entertainment and Community Spirit in Serbia. Beograd: Institut za književnost i umetnost, 22. 23 Grujić, Reading the Entertainment and Community Spirit in Serbia, 22. 24 Confer for example the debate in: Kozorog, Miha and Dragan Stanojević. 2013.

Marina Simić

Turbo-folk anti-scene: the lines of dis-identifications There are two main closely connected lines of new folk and turbo-folk critique. The first is based on the idea of “pure art” that turbo-folk artists are considered to be failing to produce and turbo-folk listeners unable to appreciate; and the second is the understanding of poor moral judgment of turbo-folk performers and listeners. This dubious morality is twofold: it represents inadequate sexuality of women that is seen as “pornographic” and it is also considered to be close to nationalist politics both by direct connections between some turbo- folk stars and Milošević’s regime, and by more indirect connections that my informants assume between turbo-folk scene and politics.

Although the term kitsch has largely disappeared from contemporary cultural analysis,25 it still features strongly in the critique of so-called mass culture theorists and other theoreticians that follow the legacy of the Frankfurt school. I will not go into the details of these analyses, but will just briefly refer to Adorno, as some of his ideas resonate with the explanations given to me by my informants. In Adorno’s interpretation, popular music as kitsch is understood as a kind of ‘staple diet’ of clichés that produces a parody of catharsis.26 Adorno’s central argument was that music, through the manner of its composition, affects consciousness and serves as a means of social management and control.27 My informants quite frequently connected the turbo-folk genre with such control, claiming that its music itself together with its lyrics served to “dampen people” who were then unable to appreciate real art and proper culture. As such it was inevitably an unethical art.

It is almost universally accepted that the high arts (music included) of European modernism presuppose the “great divide” as it is called by Huyssen, between modernism and mass culture, with mass culture as the discursive “other” of modernism.28 Huyssen and Franklin argue that this opposition is based on the assumptions that modernist (high) art has a different function from ‘traditional’ art.29 As Binkley, for example, assumes, art in ‘traditional’ societies was embedded in daily life “in which uncertainties, existential questions and a sense of the freedom and creativity of human action are bracketed by reassuring traditions and habits of thought which penetrate the deepest crevices of the quotidian”.30 The main idea expressed here is that ‘pre- modern’ societies had ‘organic solidarity’ (although none of the authors above quote or mention Durkheim) and had art embedded in their everyday life, while

25 Binkley, Sam. 2000. Kitsch as a Repetitive System. A Problem for the Theory of Taste Hierarchy. Journal of Material Culture 5(2), 131-152. 26 Adorno, Theodor. 1976. Introduction to the Sociology of Music. New York: Seabury Press. 27 Adorno, Theodor. 1984. Aesthetic Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 28 Huyssen, Andreas. 1988. After the Great Divide. Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Basingstoke: Macmillan; for music see also especially: Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. 2002. Introduction. On Difference, Representation,and Appropriation in Music, in Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, edited by Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London: University of California Press, 1-57; Franklin, Peter. 2000. Modernism, Deception, and Musical Others: Los Angeles circa 1940, in Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, an Appropriation in Music, edited by Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 143-62. 29 Huyssen, After the Great Divide; Franklin, Modernism, Deception and Muscial Others. 30 Binkley, Kitsch as Repetitive System, 135.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

in modern society this is not the case. Binkley further concludes that kitsch has a similar aesthetic function in contemporary society. Thus, folk art in its various manifestations is not considered pure art because it is neither produced nor used for (pure) aesthetic enjoyment. This line of reasoning further develops into two interconnected lines of critique: first, that turbo-folk is a music of peasant-urbanities, who do not appreciate music for its aesthetic quality and second, that it is a commercialized form of music that is kitsch. In that sense, for many critics of new and turbo-folk music, this kind of music is not ‘an art’ in Kantian terms of disinterested judgment, but an inadequate distortion of art (music) in the hands of peasant-urbanities, who are considered to be unable to adequately adopt either western popular music or official national elitist cultural model, which has resulted in the production of kitsch as an application of their ‘traditional’ way of life to new circumstances.31 Due to its ‘passivity,’ the rural population adopted only the parts of popular culture that “fit into archaic patterns of folk culture” that are also considered to be anti-individualistic, passive, and prone to consumerism.32 In the specific circumstances of Novi Sad, my informants ascribe these “archaic patterns” of culture to rural immigrants, refugees, and other “peasants” – from “colonists” (mostly Serbs from rural area of socialist Yugoslavia) to the numerous Serbian refugees that fled to Novi Sad after wars in Croatia and Bosnia more recently.33 These newcomers are not necessarily seen as passive, but rather as aggressive, vigilant (although not particularly self-consciousness) supporters and promoters of turbo-folk. Not only is their music choice considered to be kitsch, but it is also considered to be morally questionable. This morality includes not only the supposed nationalism of turbo-folk genre and scene, but the sexual morality of their female performers and listeners.

Svetlana Boym in her study of Russia in the 1990s, explains that kitsch was not merely bad art, “but also an unethical act, an act of mass manipulation.”34 This Adornian idea of art is further connected with banality, lack of spirituality and sexual obscenity (poshlost’).35 There is no single word in Serbian that would encompass all of the above meanings (Russian ‘poshlost’’ is usually translated to Serbian/Croatian as banalnost, trivijalnost, vulgarnost), but they are usually intermingled in Serbian usage. Oskar36, a bass guitar player for two famous Serbian punk-rock bands in the late 1980s and 1990s, told me in one of numerous conversations – some of which I recorded, as he greatly enjoyed talking to my recorder – about “that primitivism,” this time in particular while we were having an early afternoon coffee in front of his tattoo studio:

“In the nineties, in the nineties when the war started, when that Serbian madness started, that worst fall (posrtanje), that was when that started. And

31 For critique of this position confer: Nenić, Iva. 2009. Roze kiborzi i /de/centrirane ideološke mašine. Preobražaji muzičke culture (turbo) folka. Genero 13, 63-80. 32 Dragićević-Šešić, Neofolk kultura, 126. 33 For an analysis see: Simić, Marina. 2010. Locating Cosmopolitanism. Practicing Popular Culture in Post-socialist Serbia. Der Donauraum 50(3-4): 345-63. 34 Boym, Svetlana. 1994. Common Places. Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 15. 35 Boym, Common Places, 15. 36 All names of my informants are pseudonyms.

Marina Simić

then from Palma [one of the first private, commercial TV stations] to Pink37, of course, look, every day the whole day on Palma there were folksy songs, but not only folksy songs, but trash, trash, trash, trash and at 2 in the morning porno movies, man, to end it as it started, and you see what that is, I mean, you know, it was not a kind of porno, like, you know, a cultural one, but it was, I don’t know how to describe that to you, it was almost animal sex, fuck it, the worst possible fucking (trpanje), um, B, C porno production, you know, home video, some idiots fucking each other, terrible, terrible, terrible, no law, no law, no censorship, just let it go, just poisoning the masses […]”.

This connection between turbo-folk and women’s inadequate sexuality was noted in academic literature on turbo-folk that describes its genre and scene as reproducing a patriarchal model of sexuality and society.38 For my informants this “inadequate sexuality” was constructed as “dubious morality” and quite literally inscribed to the body of the town itself. Thus, some of my informants told me that the small area between the newly built Dalton building and Futoška Pijaca that boasts many turbo-folk playing bars, pizza resaturants, and kebab (ćevap) houses, is a disgrace to Novi Sad. While I was there, at night it was full of dressed-up young people with loud music coming from the stereos – I could have easily recognized Ceca, Seka Aleksić, and other major turbo-folk stars. There were men resembling Dizelaši from the 1990s (the term is coined from fashion brand Diesel, understood to be their favourite shop) – young men who prefer to listen to turbo-folk and are engaged in mafia business (usually on a smaller scale) that secures them money for expensive, but tasteless, clothes (typically jogging trousers, or wide jeans and trainers with a top tucked into the bottoms) and jewellery. They were often accompanied by young women in high heels and extensive makeup, known as ‘sponsor-seekers’ (sponzoruše). Many of my informants were especially angry about these young women, sponzoruše. I was told that Spens, an area between the town centre and University campus near the Spens sport complex and one of the first shopping centres in Novi Sad, was especially well-known for its bars visited by Dizelaši; it is thus called “Thong Valley” (Dolina tangi; in Belgrade a similar area is called Silicon Valley, alluding to the silicon used in plastic surgeries). I heard several times that, “a blond woman driving a jeep – that means a whore.” When I complained about these blunt assertions, I was usually met with incomprehension. I quickly learned that in order to be a rich and successful woman, you need to belong to the ‘silicon culture,’ as one of my informants called it, of newcomers, turbo-folk, and poor taste more generally.

Jansen explained that the “prototype of a newcomer from the village was always a man; although there were comments about excessive makeup, in this urban Orientalism the women who came from villages were mostly just an addition that confirmed the backwardness of gender relations in rural areas”.39 This fits well with the stereotypes of the new rich as tasteless primitives with certain elements of style, such as mobile phones, as a sure marker of their

37 Pink refers to a private but close to the state regime private TV and radio station that plays popular music and supported Milošević, as well as the current government. 38 Confer e.g. Kronja, Ivana. 2001. Smrtonosni sjaj. Masovna psihologija i estetika turbo-folka. Beograd: Tehnokratija. 39 Jansen, Antinacionalizam, 125.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

inappropriate cultural capital.40 New rich women connected with turbo-folk were also of great concern for my informants. They were connected with turbo- folk singers who combined sexually illicit behavior with inappropriate sexual image promoted through their music.

Female singers dominate turbo-folk, while before the 1990s there were plenty of male singers, although the most famous new folk star from the 1980s was a female singer Lepa Brena, with whom the new commercialized era of new folk music begins. At the beginning of the development of the new folk music in the 1960s, female singers were quite rare and ‘being a singer’ was generally seen as an inappropriate profession for a woman. In that time, the record industry of new folk music was at its very beginning and most of the singers were performing in taverns - places of male entertainment. Consequently, female singers were regarded as a kind of prostitute.41 There are still many female new folk singers that perform in taverns in Serbia and neighbouring countries; their social status is similar to that of the prostitutes – very low. A female informant from a working-class background told me that her father had told her that he would kill her if she dared to touch a microphone (to become a singer).

New folk music reinforced the low status of women performing in kafanas (taverns), and similar ideas became attached to female turbo-folk singers, many of whom first started singing in taverns and at weddings. As Dimitrijević explains “public space of kafana is coded as male space, the privileged space of homosociality” in which women like kafana singers bring an erotic component central to the bond between male rivals, which serves as “the force that strengthens patriarchal society.”42 However, my informants’ dissatisfaction with the open sexuality of turbo-folk stars does not stem from the worries about the perpetuation of patriarchal norms. The label “tavern singer” (kafanska pevačica – pevaljka) remained the main insult ‘to the honour’ of a female singer; the term is still in use as a derogatory term for turbo-folk stars. A friend of mine, talking to me about a wedding he attended, told me that he first thought that the female singer who was singing on the occasion was just a “tavern singer.” However, when he asked her to sing some of the sevdalinke, she performed them very well. This assured him that the singer was something like Esma, a world-music singer, and he concluded that she only sang at weddings in order to earn money.43 The idea that folk singers have to work hard and

40 Jansen, Antinacionalizam. 41 Silverman (2003) describes the case of the famous Macedonian Gypsy female new folk singer Esma Redžepova whose father allowed her to pursue her music career only when he was convinced by her future husband, an accordionist and folk music arranger from Radio Skopje, that he would “make her an artist” and never allow her to sing in kafana [taverns]. Indeed, she is today recognized as a world music singer and was invited to sing at Novi Sad’s Exit festival on the main stage; Silverman, Carol. 2003. The Gender of the Profession. Music, Dance, and Reputation among Balkan Muslim Rom Women, in Music and Gender: Perspectives from the Mediterranean, edited by Magrini, Tullia. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 135; see also: Vidić-Rasmussen, From Source to Commodity; Dimitrijević, The Body of a Female Folk Singer. 42 Dimitrijević, The Body of a Female Folk Singer, 31. 43 Generally weddings were understood as occasions at which someone could clearly manifest his/her cultural capital, in this case usually called “cultural level” (kulturni nivo). Thus, I heard several times that certain weddings were ‘cultured,’ while others were more ‘peasant-like.’ Thus, a member of an ethno band, with whom I spent some time, told me that they were asked to sing at a “cultured wedding,” but refused, as they considered their music to be artistic and inappropriate for “carousing.”

Marina Simić

unwillingly perform at all kind of places and circumstances is part of a common per aspera ad astra narrative of many new and turbo-folk female stars like Lepa Brena, Seka Aleksić, Slavica Ćukteraš, Tanja Savić, and Radmila Manjolović.44 They may embody dreams of social upward mobility fostered by some from their (female) audience (ibid), but for my informants their upward mobility was seen as social climbing typical of new rich. This was of great concern for many of my informants. I recall one evening in Cuba Libre after a night out in Bus, a bar near Spens that was hosting a Capoeira dance competition but was itself of dubious reputation among my informants, the following conversation about “people in Novi Sad” and their music preference:

Jovana (Spanish language teacher): “That’s because most people are in turbo-folk mood. […] And you see what has been done in the town: Thongs’ Valley near Spens, here you also have a few café-houses (kafići)45 in the town centre, Cyrillic is booming, and that’s it.”

Marko (IT engineer): “You should have seen those guys who came here when I went out [on Saturday nitght]. Some guys in leather jackets with huge necks [he showed how big the radiuses of their necks were] and some blond girls.”

Me: “I thought this was an urban place.”46

Jovana: “Yes, but during the weekend here, I mean, you can’t, all the places are the same at the weekend. You know, last night, like it was in Bus, or Piping [club in Laze Telečkog Street that plays “commercial hip-hop”], during the weekend every place turned into that.”

Apart from usual racial commentary about newcomers and (turbo-) folk,47 Jovana and Marko made a clear connection between turbo-folk and Serbian nationalism epitomized in the term “Cyrillic,” the official Serbian script.48 In that sense, turbo-folk was again an inappropriate art – this time because it was connected with nationalism. It is not unusual that women’s bodies and

Similarly, music related to turbo-folk is called ‘wedding-music’ in Hungary (Lange, R. B. 1996. Lakodalmas Rock and the Rejection of Popular Culture in Postsocialist Hungary, in Retuning Culture: Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Slobin, Mark. Durham / London: Duke University Press, 76-91) and Bulgaria (Rice, Timothy. 1996. The Dialectic of Economics and Aesthetics in Bulgarian Music, in Retuning Culture. Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Slobin, Mark. Durham / London: Duke University Press, 176- 99). 44 Dimitrijević, The Body of a Female Folk Singer; Hofman, Ana. 2015. Music (as) Labour. Professional Musicianship, Affective Labour and Gender in Socialist Yugoslavia. Ethnomusicology Forum 24(1), 28-50. 45 There is clear difference between kafana (tavern) and kafić (coffee house). The former is traditional place for socializing and entertaining and they are usually conceded with rural or semi-rural areas, while the latter is considered to be ‘the modern one’ and they are found in the urban settings, but the music played in them can be the same. 46 I was referring to the usual connections between ‘urbanity’ and Western popular music, see: Simić, Kosmopolitska čežnja. 47 See: Simić, Kosmopolitska čežnja. 48 Serbian can be written both in Cyrillic and Latin script and people’s preferences are mostly completely random. Scripts used to be completely interchangeable and Jansen reports that when he asked people to write something down and then asked them which script they used, usually they could not answer the question (Jansen, Antinacionalizam). In the 1990s, the question of the script became important for building a Serbian national identity and differentiating between the Croatian/Bosnian language, which can be written only in Latin, and Serbian, which should be written only in Cyrillic.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

sexuality serve both as sources for nationalist and anti-nationalist reconciliation.49 For my informants there was no room for the camp of turbo- folk, or gender transgression of some of the turbo-folk stars that may open cracks in the patriarchal order.50 In that sense my informants were consistently “modernist,” for them there were no “feminine and masculine arts” (as one of my informants told me complaining about women’s studies), only “pure” faceless aesthetics that should also be kept separately from politics.

The issue of politics of music became the critical focal point of many recent critiques of Serbian popular music and of turbo-folk in particular. Specific understanding of art (and music as art) in a Kantian discourse of “universal aesthetics” has long been the founding stone of European modernist art theory. Although challenged by contemporary art critique, in the classical art theory art should be separated from politics. This ideology of art has been transferred in the usual critical understanding of socialist art. Thus, some authors argue that not only has socialist art been highly politicized, but that “in the everyday, especially in the highly politicized and semioticized Soviet everyday, the aesthetic and the ethical are indistinguishable in the ordinary micropractices”.51 Similarly, Frigyesi writes that “in Hungary there had never been “free” and “noncommitted” art in the way it exists, for instance, in the United States.”52 She further argues that this was not a question of official ideology, although “the political establishment was always ready to exploit art for its own purposes”,53 concluding that “as much as certain intellectuals would like to see what they regard as a healthy separation of culture and politics, such separation has not yet happened in Hungary and there is no sign that it will occur in the near future”.54 Silverman, writing about Bulgarian music, asks rhetorically “what could be more apolitical than Bulgarian folk dance?” and answers in some length that “virtually all cultural phenomena in Bulgaria are in some way affected by politics.55 More specifically, folklore, with its strong ties to the past, plus its potential for manipulating the national consciousness, is indeed an important arena for government involvement”.56 Although I agree with Silverman that ‘folk dance’ was part of the state political project in socialist Yugoslavia, as it was in Bulgaria, both statements are based on the idea that in socialism, everyday life – as well as ‘culture’ and art – was highly controlled by the state, making everyday life highly political. It seems to me that these arguments reify the socialist state and imply that everyday life in ‘capitalism’ is not political (although I agree that it might be less explicitly political).57 I am more inclined to think that art is everywhere both aesthetically

49 See: Jansen, Stef. 2010. Of Wolves and Men. Postwar Reconciliation and the Gender of International Encounters. Focaal - Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 57, 33–49. 50 Dimitrijević, The Body of a Female Folk Singer; Nenić, Roze kiborzi i /de/centrirane ideološke mašine.. 51 Boym, Common Places, 158. 52 Frigyesi, Judit. 1996. The Aesthetic of the Hungarian Revival Movement, in Retuning Culture. Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Slobin, Mark. Durham / London: Duke University Press, 57. 53 Frigyesi, The Aesthetic of the Hungarian Revival Movement, 57. 54 Frigyesi, The Aesthetic of the Hungarian Revival Movement, 58. 55 Silverman, Carol. 1983. The Politics of Folklore in Bulgaria. Anthropological Quarterly 56(2): 55-61. 56 Silverman, The Politics of Folklore in Bulgaria, 55. 57 Confer the critique by Yurchak: Yurchak, Alexei. 2006. Everything was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 11-14.

Marina Simić

and ethically, and that this is not limited to the socialist period. Thus, at the beginning of the war in Croatia new folk music became an important element in building the new identity of the nation states. Similar was the case in Serbia. Gordy argues that the Serbian regime used new folk music in order to promote its nationalistic aims.58 However, for most folk critiques, it is not only that that there was folk music that was directly related to nationalist politics (which was actually very rarely the case), but more so that estrada, a mainstream music show business, was politically dubious on its own regardless of the particular political engagement of the artists.59 More important than the direct engagement with politics was national, parochial outlook attached to folk generally and turbo-folk particularly that made rock not only global, but universal. Thus, on one occasion when I was sitting with two female friends in Martha’s Pub on Laze Telečkog Street having a quick drink, I mentioned that the night before I had visited a party in Latino Bare near Spens that was a part of the “Study Better!” campaign by Exit festival that promoted implementation of the EU Bologna Agreement in Serbian universities. Commenting on that, a friend of mine, an editor at local TV station who later immigrated to USA together with her husband (who was also an occasional DJ) said that Exit was too “politicized” and that “the main story should be about music, and music is something that connects people, people go there because of good music that does not know any borders.” I asked if music in general connects people, and whether that applied to turbo-folk as well, as I had recently seen people of mixed backgrounds (both Bosniaks and Serbs) in a wedding I attended in Sarajevo, dancing to turbo-folk from Serbia and Bosnia alike. She replied, “no, only good music. You know, primitivism is primitivism, they do not understand English, and so they have to listen to something they understand.” This means that taste (like language) can be learned and my informants certainly considered it to be the case. However, in order for proper taste to be developed, they believed that state has to have firm cultural politics that support proper art. My informants believed that the current Serbian state lacked not only the means and will to promote proper music and art more generally, but also that its general cultural scene was helplessly commercialized in an uncanny connection of business and politics. This left my informants with very little room for self-expression and they were using various social strategies for carving out that space. Some them were applying for various art and culture related grants through NGOs, while others like Nikola, who was working at various odd jobs after leaving his studies, still dreamt of a “total change of cultural scene in Serbia.” The last time we met he told me that he was preparing for “a movement,” a “kind of revolution,” whose outline is not clear yet but that will include various events, like poetry and literary evenings, concerts and the like under the slogans “Stamp out the pink stain” and “Don’t go where everyone else goes” (Kud svi, tu nemoj i ti). A few years later it seems that the revolution is still on hold, but that lines of dis-identification remain unchanged.

58 Gordy, The Culture of Power in Serbia. 59 It is true that many turbo-folk stars were close to the Milošević’s regime, but there were also rock musicians who were close to the nationalist politics, although not necessarily those of Slobodan Milošević.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

Conclusion Krims writes that “there is one commonality between many cultural studies works (like John Fiske, Ian Chambers and Lisa Lewis) and that of Adorno – that is that both “desire to locate liberatory force in expressive culture.”60 This liberation is sometimes perceived quite literally as political liberation, while sometimes is understood in a more subtle way as “liberation of spirit.” For the people with whom I worked in Novi Sad, from various backgrounds and social positions, these liberatory forces are placed in various genres of non-turbo folk music that are considered to epitomize some kind of “trashy modernity” – an inappropriate local appropriation of modernity based on poor taste (from food, like pljeskavice to Jelena Karleuša’s grotesque appropriation of Shakira). Music is seen as “universal language” based on universal aesthetic criteria that are considered unreachable in turbo-folk genre. Various other types of music are able to include good and bad pieces, but not turbo-folk. New folk and turbo-folk music is thus seen as performing certain social roles and is appropriate for sociological analysis that is different from aesthetic analysis of art.61 In those analyses, new folk music and turbo-folk are not ‘an art’ in Kantian terms of disinterested judgment, but an inadequate distortion of art (music) in the hands of those who are considered to be unable to adequately adopt either western popular music or an official national elitist cultural model, which result in the production of kitsch. In that sense, turbo-folk and other types of new folk music remain one of the most important dis-identification strategies among the people with whom I worked. This “anti-folk” scene encompasses people from various backgrounds that belong to different social strata, but whose identification strategies are based on similar aesthetic exclusion. In that sense, turbo-folk remains one of the most important aesthetic others in contemporary Serbia.

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor. 1976. Introduction to the Sociology of Music. New York: Seabury Press. . 1984. Aesthetic Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Archer, Rory. 2012. Assessing Turbofolk Controversies. Popular Music between the Nation and the Balkans. Southeastern Europe 36, 178–207. Binkley, Sam. 2000. Kitsch as a Repetitive System. A Problem for the Theory of Taste Hierarchy. Journal of Material Culture 5(2), 131-52. Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. 2002. Introduction: on Difference, Representation,and Appropriation in Music, in Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, edited by Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London: University of California Press, 1-57. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2002. Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London / New York: Routledge. Boym, Svetlana. 1994. Common Places. Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press.

60 Krims, Adam. 2007. Music and Urban Geography. New York / London: Routledge. 61 Čolović, Divlja književnost.

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Buchanan, Donna. 2006. Performing Democracy. Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transition. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Collin, Mathew. 2001. This is Serbia calling. Rokenrol radio i beogradski pokret otpora. Beograd: Samizdat Free B92. Čolović, Ivan. 1985. Divlja književnost. Beograd: Nolit. Dimitrijević, Olga. 2009. The Body of a Female Folk Singer. Constructions of national identities in Serbia after 2000. Genero 13, 5-41. Dragićević-Šešić, Milena. 1994. Neofolk kultura. Publika i njene zvezde. Sremski Karlovci i Novi Sad: Izdavačka knjižarnica Zorana Stanojevića. Fabian, Johannes. 1998. Moments of Freedom. Anthropology and Popular Culture. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Flores, Juan. 2000. From Bomba to Hip-Hop. Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity. New York: Columbia University Press. Franklin, Peter. 2000. Modernism, Deception, and Musical Others. Los Angeles circa 1940, in Western Music and Its Others. Difference, Representation, an Appropriation in Music, edited by Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 143-62. Frigyesi, Judit. 1996. The Aesthetic of the Hungarian Revival Movement, in Retuning Culture. Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Slobin, Mark. Durham / London: Duke University Press, 54-75. Frith, Simon. 1993. Popular Music and the Local State, in Rock and Popular Music. Politics, Policies, Institutions, edited by Bennett, Tonny at al. London and New York: Routledge, 14-24. Golemovoić, Dimtirije. 1995. Da li je novokomponovana narodna muzika zaista narodna? Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU 44, 185-89. Gordy, D. Eric. 1999. The Culture of Power in Serbia. Nationalism and Destruction of Alternatives. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University. Grujić, Marija. 2012. Reading the Entertainment and Community Spirit in Serbia. Beograd: Institut za književnost i umetnost. Hofman, Ana. 2015. Music (as) Labour. Professional Musicianship, Affective Labour and Gender in Socialist Yugoslavia. Ethnomusicology Forum 24(1), 28-50. Huyssen, Andreas. 1988. After the Great Divide. Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Jansen, Stef. 2005. Antinacionalizam: Etnografija otpora u Beogradu i Zagrebu. Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek. . 2010. Of wolves and men. Postwar reconciliation and the gender of international encounters. Focaal - Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 57, 33–49. Kozorog, Miha and Dragan Stanojević. 2013. Towards a Definition of the Concept of Scene. Communicating on the Basis of Things that Matter. Sociologija 55(3), 354-74 . 2016. Sevdah Celebrities Narrate sevdalinka. Political (Self-) Contextualization of sevdalinka Performers in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Traditiones 45(1), 161-79. Krims, Adam. 2007. Music and Urban Geography. New York / London: Routledge. Kronja, Ivana. 2001. Smrtonosni sjaj. Masovna psihologija i estetika turbo- folka. Beograd: Tehnokratija.

Music of the Others. Locating the (Turbo-) Folk Critique

Lange, R. B. 1996. Lakodalmas Rock and the Rejection of Popular Culture in Postsocialist Hungary, in Retuning Culture: Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Slobin, Mark. Durham / London: Duke University Press, 76-91. Nenić, Iva. 2009. Roze kiborzi i /de/centrirane ideološke mašine. Preobražaji muzičke culture (turbo) folka. Genero 13, 63-80. Peterson, Richard A. and Roger M. Kern 1996. Changing Highbrow Taste. From Snob to Omnivore. American Sociological Review 61(5): 900-7. Rice, Timothy. 1996. The Dialectic of Economics and Aesthetics in Bulgarian Music, in Retuning Culture. Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Slobin, Mark. Durham / London: Duke University Press, 176-99. Silverman, Carol. 1983. The Politics of Folklore in Bulgaria. Anthropological Quarterly 56(2): 55-61. . 2003. The Gender of the Profession. Music, Dance, and Reputation among Balkan Muslim Rom Women, in Music and Gender. Perspectives from the Mediterranean, edited by Magrini, Tullia. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 119-45. Simić, Marina. 2010. Locating Cosmopolitanism. Practicing Popular Culture in Post-socialist Serbia. Der Donauraum 50(3-4): 345-63. . 2014. Kosmopolitska čežnja. Etnografija srpskog postsocijalizma. Beograd: Centar za studije kulture FPN. Spasić, Ivana. 2006. Disinkcija na domaći način. Diskursi statusnog diferenciranja u današnjoj Srbiji, in Nasleđe Pjera Burdijea. Pouke i nadahnuća, edited by Nemanjić, Miloš and Ivana Spasić. Beograd: Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju. Zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka, 137-71. . 2013. Kultura na delu. Društvena transformacija Srbije iz burdijeovskeperspective. Beograd: Fabrika knjiga. Stokes, Martin. 1992. The Arabesk Debate. Music and Musicians in Modern Turkey. Oxford: Clarendon Press. . 2004. Music and Global Order. Annual Review of Anthropology 33, 47-72. Turino, T. 2000. Nationalists, Cosmopolitans, and Popular Music of Zimbabwe. Chicago:University of Chicago Press. Vidić-Rasmussen, Ljerka. 1995. From Source to Commodity: Newly-composed Folk Music of Yugoslavia. Popular Music 14(2): 241-56. . 2002. Newly Composed Folk Music of Yugoslavia. London / New York: Routledge. . 2007. Bosnian and Serbian Popular Music in the 1990s. Divergent Paths, Conflicting Meanings, and Shared Sentiments, in Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene, edited by Buchanan, A. Donna. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 57-94. Višnjiić, Jelena. 2010. Re-konstrukcija identiteta kroz turbo folk u Srbiji. Magistarski rad. Fakultet političkih nauka, Univerzitet u Beogradu. Yurchak, Alexei. 2006. Everything was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton / Oxford: Princeton University Press.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992) Research Article

Ivana Polić Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, San Diego [email protected]

Contemporary Southeastern Europe 2019, 6(2), 38-56

DOI: 10.25364/02.6:2019.2.4

Ivana Polić1

While histories of ethnic conflicts and nationalism focus mainly on adult actors, this study seeks to shed light on the importance of children and their centrality to post-socialist nation-building through popular culture. Looking at what in Croatia is known as the War of Independence (or Homeland War), the project focuses on a particular, so far almost completely unexplored, aspect of Croatian nation-building: the role of children in the production, dissemination, and impact of Croatian patriotic music. During the war in Croatia, musicians of all genres joined the effort of “defending the homeland through music,” and their songs and videos were incessantly broadcasted on national television and radio stations. Existing studies analysing Croatian patriotic music in this period consider it mostly from the perspective of a cultural and regional identity marker, while the interest to explore music as a political tool has become a nascent field only in the past two decades. Although a few works have attempted to explore depictions of male and female gender within this discourse, no studies have so far researched the role of children as an impact factor via this type of art. Through a media analysis of music production materials, this article shows that numerous patriotic songs and videos included children, whether as singers or background participants, who became actively involved in promoting the Croatian cause at home and abroad, and were therefore one of the essential agents of creating a distinctively Croatian national identity.

Keywords: Croatia, war, children, patriotic music, national identity

Introduction The turbulent 1990s in Croatia, marked by the country’s secession from Yugoslavia accompanied by warfare, state- and nation-building, and the difficult process of economic recovery, have so far yielded a wide spectrum of literature from various scholarly branches. The majority of works focus on political, demographic, and social history, analysing domestic and foreign political actors and the consequences of the war in terms of demographic losses and different kinds of trauma suffered by the population exposed to warfare. This study, however, turns to two much less explored but equally important domains: that

1 Ivana Polić is a Ph.D. Candidate in Modern European History at the University of California San Diego, focusing on childhood history and the importance of children in modern nation- building processes, especially in the Yugoslav successor states. She has published an article on the use of children as instruments of war propaganda in Croatian and Serbian media in the 1990s, and a few other commentary peaces pieces for regional Southeastern Europe news portals. Her dissertation research has been supported by the Association for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, University of California Frontiers of Innovation Scholars Program, and a few other fellowships and grants.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

of popular culture in the form of patriotic music, and the role a specific generational group – children – played in the nation-building process via popular music.

The idea of music as a political tool of modern nation-building has been gaining more and more attention by scholars over the past two decades. With the emergence of modern national(ist) movements in the 19th century, music became one of the defining, distinct elements of the new nations. A wide variety of musical forms could serve this purpose, and the repertoire became considerably richer with the flourishing of mass media in the second half of the twentieth century. While most studies focus on modern Europe, more recent ones also analyse music in national movements in the Middle East and Latin America, where its creation stems from both state and non-state actors.2 Some of the more recent works also point to the importance of musical expressions of stateless nations, where it functions as an indicator of both group cohesiveness and spatial looseness.3 One of the observations that most meticulously disentangles the interplay between music and national and cultural identity is that which Philip Bohlman, a distinguished ethnomusicologist, made in his pioneering work The Music of European Nationalism, where he explores the historical trajectory of music as a nation-building pillar in modern Western and Central Europe. Specifically, he clearly differentiates between music for “national” and “nationalist” purposes. While the former portrays “the nation itself” through its historic images and cultural traditions, the latter emphasises the “state” in the “nation-state” formulation, and appears at times of instability or confrontation with another nation. As the nation struggles to establish itself as a legitimate actor in a given geopolitical order, music becomes an instrument of such legitimacy, and the state initiates and supports musical activities vital to this project.4 What is more, the entrance and establishment of music as a player in the national arena comes not only “from above.” On the contrary, both the creators and the recipients (audience) participate in the process of its affirmation of the national imagery.5

This article will rely on Bohlman’s notion of “nationalist” music, given its direct connection to the case of Croatia in the early 1990s, where conflict broke out after the country’s declaration of independence was rejected by the leadership of the insurgent Croatian Serbs supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army. By the end of 1991, almost a third of Croatia’s territory had become a part of the self- proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina. Besides military mobilisation, massive

2 See Beezley, William. (ed.). 2018. Cultural Nationalism and Ethnic Music in Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press; Bohlman, Philip V. 2011. Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe. New York: Routledge;.Frolova-Walker, Marina. 2007. Russian Music and Nationalism: From Glinka to Stalin. New Haven / London: Yale University Press; Herder, Johann Gotfried and Philip V. Bohlman. 2017. Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism. Oakland: University of California Press; McDonald, David A. 2013. My Voice is My Weapon: Music, Nationalism, and the Poetics of Palestinian Resistance. Durham: Duke University Press; Morra, Irene. 2014. Britishness, Popular Music, and National Identity: The Making of Modern Britain. New York: Routledge; Vuletić, Dean. 2018. Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest. London / New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 3 See Bohlman, Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe. 4 See Bohlman, Philip V. 2004. The Music of European Nationalism: Cultural Identity and Modern History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 119-20. 5 Bohlman, The Music of European Nationalism.

Ivana Polić

support for the Croatian war cause spread within a variety of social and cultural spheres, and one that gained enormous public attention and mass following was the ‘patriotic’ music. Nearly all musicians of all genres engaged in creating a series of patriotic songs in order to contribute to the “defence of the homeland.” Incessantly broadcast on national television and radio stations throughout the country, their song verses were instantly memorised by the predominantly receptive audience that spent days and nights following the news from the war zones.

While the majority of studies center on regional musical traditions and their role as cultural identity preservers throughout the war, until now only a few scholars have looked at the importance of Croatian popular patriotic music for the larger process of nation-building in the 1990s.6 The most comprehensive study to date is certainly that of British historian Catherine Baker, who analysed the Croatian patriotic music repertoire throughout the whole of the 1990s and presented changes in music as responses to different stages during the war, its aftermath, and the difficult process of the country’s economic and social recovery.7 In terms of gender studies, Croatian musicologist Naila Ceribašić has looked at the typical representations of male and female gender in Croatian and Serbian popular music.8 However, none of the studies have delved into the importance of the youngest, generation-specific participants within this realm, a deficit which this study aims to address.

While the scholarship on armed conflicts, political transitions, or even popular mass culture during those unstable times revolves mainly around adult actors, this study also highlights the immense importance of children as both agents and subjects in the process of nation-building. The place of children in nation- building has so far been acknowledged by scholars working almost exclusively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western Europe, the United States, or the Soviet Union. Nation-building processes in these places, at least compared to Southeastern Europe, seem much more completed.9 In the Croatian case, however, the role of children in this process is limited to a few studies of the Croatian Pioneers in Yugoslavia, and analysis of school (although mostly history) textbooks after independence, considering the changed national narratives.10

6 See Baker, Catherine. 2013. Music as a Weapon of Ethnopolitical Violence and Conflict: Processes of Ethnic Separation During and After the Break-up of Yugoslavia. Patterns of Prejudice 47(4-5), 409-29 (accessed: 2. May 2019); Mavra, Miroslav and Lori McNeil. 2007. Identity Formation and Music: A Case Study of Croatian Experience. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self- Knowledge 5(2), 1-20 (accessed: 20 April 2019); Pettan, Svanibor. (ed.). 1998. Music, Politics, and War: Views from Croatia. Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research; Senjković, Reana. 2002. Lica društva, likovi države. Zagreb: Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research. 7 Baker, Catherine. 2010. Sounds of the Borderland: Popular Music, War and Nationalism in Croatia Since 1991. Surrey / Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited. 8 Ceribašić, Naila. 2000. Defining Women and Men in the Context of War: Images in Croatian Popular Music in the 1990s, in Music and Gender, edited by Moisala, Pirko and Beverly Diamond. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 219-38. 9 See Fruhstuck, Sabine. 2017. Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in Japan. Oakland: University of California Press; Kelly, Katriona. 2007. Children’s World: Growing Up in Russia, 1890-1991. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Saunders, Anna. 2007. Honecker's Children: Youth and Patriotism in Eastern Germany, 1979-2002. New York: Manchester University Press; Zahra, Tara. 2008. Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948. London: Cornell University Press. 10 See Agičić, Damir. 2011. Prikaz postanka suvremene Republike Hrvatske u hrvatskim udžbenicima povijesti za osnovnu školu, in Kultura sjećanja: 1991: povijesni lomovi i svladavanje prošlosti, edited

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

Whereas the great majority of the scholarly literature pertaining to children in 1990s Croatia has analysed the consequences of trauma, loss, and exile on children who suffered throughout the war,11 this study turns to a different question: how did children partake in Croatian nation-building through, in this case, popular culture in the form of patriotic music?

I argue that, by participating in the production and advertisement of patriotic music through their appearance in the verses, music videos, or public performances of the songs, the generational and symbolic role of children was used to contribute to the impact of these songs on both the domestic and international stage. The argumentation relies on an analysis of lyrics and music videos, as well as newspaper and television reports, and other kinds of materials (cultural event pamphlets, catalogues of museum exhibitions, etc.) pertaining to the presence of children in patriotic music. Through case studies of particular thematic clusters in musical production, the article shows that children’s role was two-dimensional. The first section shows how their victimhood served as a symbol of a nascent state that was suffering under the “Great Serbian aggression”. This aspect made children active ambassadors of Croatia on an international stage. The second section looks at the domestic arena; the fact that children symbolised family values made them extremely close to the fighters on the domestic front, and this bond was intended to contribute to the mobilisation statistics. Children’s appearance in the domestic arena also had a third dimension, that of characterising ‘the enemy’ as a savage and uncivilised attacker, which also intensified interethnic animosity in this period of fear and uncertainty. The article mainly focuses on the period between 1991 and 1992, the most fruitful period for the production of patriotic songs, marked by the declaration of independence, the onset of the actual warfare, the displacement of a large part of population, and international recognition. After the recognition and the ceasefire between the Republic of Croatia and the Yugoslav People’s Army [Jugoslavenska narodna armija, JNA] in 1992 which ended the first phase of the conflict, patriotic music production and circulation decreased considerably, and did not regain equal rigour even after the official victory following ‘Operation Storm’ in 1995. Hence, the initial phase of the conflict remains the crucial one for studying the mechanisms of creation and thematic and semantic selection of this genre’s products.

The birth of popular patriotic music Up until the late socialist period in the 1980s, music also served to strengthen the principle of ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ [bratstvo i jedinstvo] among the by Cipek, Tihomir. Zagreb: Disput, 359-77; Duda, Igor. 2015. Danas kada postajem pionir: djetinjstvo i ideologija jugoslavenskoga socijalizma. Zagreb: Srednja Europa; Erdei, Idliko. 2006. Odrastanje u poznom socijalizmu – od “pionira malenih” do vojske potrošača, in Devijacije i promašaji: etnografija domaćeg socijalizma, edited by Čale Feldman, Lada and Ines Prica. Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, 205-40. 11 See Haberle, Ivana / Uskok, Gordana and Vera Jurčević (eds.). 2015. Krhotine djetinjstva: koracima nade u istinu. Zadar: Udruga “Žene u Domovinskom ratu”; Šaravanja, Vjekoslav. 2002. 10.000 djece bez roditelja u Domovinskom ratu. Gradina: Rimokatolički župni ured; Šikić, Neven / Žužul, Miomir and Ivan Fattorini. (eds.). 1994. Stradanja djece u Domovinskom ratu. Zagreb: Naklada Slap and Klinika za dječje bolesti Zagreb; Terzić, Janoš / Meštrović, Julije, Đogaš, Zoran, Furlan, Dubravko and Mihovil Biočić. 2001. Children War Casualties During the 1991-1995 Wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzgovina. Croatian Medical Journal 42(2), 156-60.

Ivana Polić

Yugoslav peoples, and its production and distribution was state-controlled. Children in schools learned about the different musical traditions of all the Yugoslav republics, and concerts and other important public political events with music performances often included folklore groups from various parts of Yugoslavia. On the other hand, public reproduction of songs with particular national or religious connotations was forbidden, as it posed the danger of unearthing ethnic tensions and revoking painful memories of the Ustashe and Partisan crimes during the Second World War. After the last changes to the constitution in 1974, followed by Josip Broz Tito’s death and growing dissatisfaction exacerbated by economic crisis, nationalist aspirations also brought changes in cultural and artistic spheres, including musical expression. In the Croatian case, the revival of old, previously forbidden patriotic songs symbolising the Croatian struggle for national recognition and sovereignty was happening in parallel with political changes, only to be intensified after the multiparty elections and the Croatian Democratic Union’s [Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, HDZ] ascendance to power.12

Euphoria over the fulfillment of a “thousand-year-old dream of statehood” accompanied the subsequent declaration of independence from Yugoslavia, and some of the most powerful expressions of national pride came in the form of publishing cassettes and CDs with remakes of old Croatian patriotic songs. Traditional Croatian musical instruments, such as the tamburica, which HDZ also used in performances during their public rallies, represented the return to Croatian ethnic roots and the distinctiveness from other, especially Serbian, folk music and instruments.13 Moreover, music events held to traditionally host musicians from all over Yugoslavia, such as Zagrebfest, suddenly refused to invite Serbian artists, justifying their actions with the democratic changes in Croatia and new standards that excluded music that carried associations of the “east” and “the Balkans”.14 Separating Croatian television stations from the Yugoslav network and establishing the national Croatian Radio Television network (Hrvatska radiotelevizija, HRT) as a separate institution was an important transitional moment for the music industry as well.15 Just like almost all main press and radio headquarters, HRT was controlled by the party in power, which means that the broadcasting of mainstream music also became heavily censored.

With the beginnings of armed conflict in Croatia, however, music gained an unprecedented dimension not only in affirming Croatianness, but also as an instrument of propaganda and an omnipresent source of moral support for citizens and those fighting on the front lines. When looking at the topic of music in the context of media, the influence of mass media in the Yugoslav Succession Wars was enormous, and households without television or radio were extremely rare, meaning that the great majority of people could actually follow the news

12 One of the songs that probably best represents this shift was Ustani, bane [“Rise, Viceroy”], which celebrates and invokes viceroy Josip Jelačić who, despite being loyal to the Austrian army in crushing 1848 revolution, is represented as a Croatian national leader. 13 Pettan, Svanibor, 1998. Music, Politics, and War in Croatia in the 1990s: An Introduction, in Music, Politic, and War: Views from Croatia, edited by Pettan, Svanibor. Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, 12-16. 14 Baker, Sounds of the Borderland, 21. 15 Baker, Sounds of the Borderland, 18.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

from the war zones on a daily, even hourly basis.16 As for music production, Croatia Records was established as the lead Croatian record label (after its predecessor, Jugoton, ceased to exist), and it recorded songs with strictly patriotic themes that went hand in hand with the ideologically imbued programmes broadcast by HRT; the war that broke out in Croatia was depicted as a sacred, almost mythical struggle for freedom and independence, Croatian victims were labeled as martyrs and a symbol of the collective victimhood of the state suffering from “Greater-Serbian aggression”, and there was no mention of the victims of other nationalities.17 Musicians from all genres of music, from both younger and older generations, were involved in this production, as they themselves felt the need to contribute to the war cause through their own professional skills. HRT financed large-scale productions of music videos with band aids (groups of mixed-genre singers with the purpose of contributing to charity funds) and humanitarian concerts, and even introduced special music TV shows where viewers could request songs and leave messages to their loved ones on the fronts.18 The popularity of patriotic music was also reflected in the scarcity at the time of any other type of music that did not refer to contemporary circumstances or the war for independence.19

It is important to point out that we can distinguish between two types of patriotic music. The first is, as Croatian musicologist Svanibor Pettan called it, the ‘official’ patriotic music repertoire, which was produced by state-controlled record houses, possessed a certain level of musical and technical quality, and was easily purchasable in stores.20 On the other hand, patriotic music also had its ‘alternative’ category, with songs and cassettes produced by private individuals or groups (such as members of army units, local amateur musicians, etc.) sold on the ‘street’ markets. Its often profane language and overall musical quality, which was on a much lower level than the former category in terms of professional music making, were the reason why those were not sponsored or broadcast by the state media.21 Since this study explores the top-down perspective of state-sponsored productions, its main focus will be on the former category.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children” The song that marked the symbolic birth of Croatian wartime patriotic music was without a doubt Tomislav Ivčić’s Stop the War in Croatia, one of the first large-scale musical projects initiated by the HRT. At the time of the song’s release, Ivčić himself was not an unknown artist. Dalmatian by birth, he became popular after performing at music festivals in the 1970s, and earned his audience with songs celebrating the southern coast lifestyle and ikavian dialect. His career reached another, politically charged level in the early 1990s when he became a member of the HDZ and even sang the official party hymn following

16 For instance, some statistics show that in 1990 94.4 percent of households in Croatia possessed television, while only 31.4 percent did so in 1968. Duda, Igor. 2010. Pronađeno blagostanje: svakodnevni život i potrošacka kultura u Hrvatskoj 1970-ih i 1980-ih. Zagreb: Srednja Europa. 17 Baker, Sounds of the Borderland, 27. 18 Baker, Sounds of the Borderland, 27; Pettan, Music, Politics, and War in Croatia in the 1990s, 17. 19 Pettan, Music, Politics, and War in Croatia in the 1990s, 15. 20 Pettan, Music, Politics, and War in Croatia in the 1990s, 19. 21 Pettan, Music, Politics, and War in Croatia in the 1990s, 19.

Ivana Polić

their victory in 1990.22 The idea behind Stop the War in Croatia was quite straightforward: written and performed in English through short and catchy verses, its aim was to appeal to an international audience by attracting attention to the suffering of Croatia and Croats. More specifically, it calls out the European Community as responsible for and capable of ending that suffering through intervention. The music video consists of two main and simultaneous thematic parts. One follows Ivčić and backup vocals as they sing while playing the piano, and the other consists of different kinds of images, contrasting what were believed to be sources of Croatian national pride (natural heritage, cities and towns, cultural monuments, etc.) with scenes of war and devastation. There is a set of another, equally important images, showing the leaders of the European Community at session, the European Community flag, some street views from Brussels, etc. Such scenes were to show who the target audience actually was.23

Stop the War in Croatia was first broadcast at the end of the evening news (Dnevnik) on 12 August 1991.24 CNN, BBC and 31 other channels in different parts of the world broadcast the song on the very next day, and it even ended up as one of the 100 most popular songs on Billboard’s chart at the time.25 By 1993, the album with the song had sold 64,000 copies, a record setter in then only two- year-old country.26 The response of the public was tremendous: the song not only became an instant hit, but also generated numerous initiatives for humanitarian events supporting Croatia’s independence, both at home and abroad. However, what is often overlooked when remembering the song’s impact is the fact that Ivčić himself was hardly the only ‘factor’ contributing to the song’s popularity. It was the participation of children that elicited international sympathies, and transformed the song into an actual political advocate for the crucial international stage. The case of this particular popular culture product demonstrates that children were essential ‘tools’ not only for building Croatian identity, but also for provoking international reaction through their status as universal war victims on the brink of twenty-first-century Europe.

While Ivčić did write the lyrics and composed the song, he himself was in fact not the only performer. Namely, even though they were not listed separately as performers, a children’s choir from Zagreb called Zagrebački mališani accompanied Ivčić with backup vocals. Starting from the second half of the song, the choir joins in each of the subsequent choruses.27 This is not surprising, since they personify one of the most striking messages of the song, contained in the second-to-last verse of the chorus:

Stop the war in the name of love Stop the war in the name of God Stop the war in the name of children

22 Baker, Sounds of the Borderland, 27-28. 23 Ivčić, Tomislav. 1991. Stop the War in Croatia (accessed: 22. April 2019). 24 Sikavica, Miroslav. 2017. Glasnije od oružja (accessed: 30. October 2017), 28:33. 25 Brstilo Rešetar, Matea / Nevešćanin, Ivica and Andreja Smetko. 2013. Katalog izložbe “Domovinski rat.” Zagreb: Hrvatski povijesni muzej, 281. The number of international stations that broadcasted the song on the day after its release in Croatia is still disputed, since different sources offer different number, but the range varies between 31 and 44. 26 Baker, Sounds of the Borderland, 29. 27 Ivčić, Stop the War in Croatia, 1:24.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

Stop the war in Croatia28

While the meaning of “love” and “God” could be classified as more or less abstract, the concreteness of the noun “children” made immediate connections not only to the gravity and the geographical vicinity of the warfare in the heart of Europe, but also the pain and agony of Croatian children, whose young age symbolised their equally young and nascent state. This was accentuated by the music video scenes, such as those of children forced to spend their childhoods in basement shelters or crying during funerals for their fathers, who were fallen soldiers.29 The scene of the children’s choir singing in front of the renowned Mimara museum in Zagreb was meant to provoke intense emotional reactions. The camera shows children as they sang gathered at the entrance to the museum, behind a blossoming garden full of flowers, and the subsequent close- up depicts their vigorousness and engagement as they followed the lyrics.30 This juxtaposition of children’s innocence and joy as they took part in singing, and then seeing them trapped in the midst of chaos and fire, served as yet another cry for help and was supposed to leave the viewer, especially the international one, in a state of anxiety and disquiet. In one of the interviews for a Croatian TV channel, Ivčić himself stated that the world must be blind if it did not react to the “slaughtered children, brutal, unseen aggression in recent history, and demolition of towns and sacral monuments […].”31

The prominence of children as both physical and symbolic pillars of nation- building is very transparent here. On the one hand, they clearly represent the collective body of the Croatian nation. Their frightened faces reflect the state’s harrowing present, but they also stand for the nation’s past, history, and tradition: the viewers can see this in a scene where small children, dressed in regional folk costumes, hold hands and walk together during what appears to be Croatian folklore festival.32 While the use of children to incite instinctive emotional responses (and, hence, actions) from the viewers is hardly a novelty in the history of propaganda and political campaigning, the time period of the late twentieth century and, at least from the Western point of view, the unexpectedly violent collapse of Yugoslavia and the Croatian War of Independence make this study especially significant for exploring the process of modern nation-building. The extent of popular culture’s presence and mass media development resulted in many Europeans being able to see daily footage of warfare for the first time. While the rest of Europe celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall and looked forward to a peaceful future, the simple and straightforward verses of this song denounced precisely that carelessness and apathy of Europeans as they watched the war in Croatia from their TV screens. Ivčić and the children sang wholeheartedly about the Croats’ genuine desire “to share the European dream,” and to become “one of Europe’s stars,” which would grant them the security their viewers enjoyed as they listened to the song.33 Finally, the verse “Europe, you can stop the war” stood as a direct call-out to the European Community, whose principles of providing peace and security were being questioned with the

28 Ivčić, Stop the War in Croatia. 29 Ivčić, Stop the War in Croatia, 0:58 and 2:05. 30 Ivčić, Stop the War in Croatia, 1:23, 1:34 and 1:45. 31 Ivčić, Tomislav. 1991. Interview (accessed: 2 May 2019). 32 Ivčić, Stop the War in Croatia, 2:31. 33 Ivčić, Stop the War in Croatia, 1:01 and 1:12.

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underlying message of the song, and the very images displayed in the music video.34

The reactions which followed confirmed that Stop the War in Croatia indirectly provided Croatian children with a platform much larger than simply that of symbolising the nation’s suffering. Namely, it was indeed for the sake of children that numerous actions abroad were initiated after the release of Ivčić’s song, mostly by the Croatian diaspora, in order to send help to Croatia and expedite its international recognition. Throughout 1991 and 1992, countless humanitarian events took place from Australia to the United States in order to help Croatian children, and some were directly inspired by Ivčić’s song. For instance, the Croatian diaspora in Australia, where the song became extremely popular, organised a “Croatian picnic” every week, where customers could buy “cakes for Croatian children.” According to one of the correspondence letters sent by the organisers in Australia to friends in Croatia, the picnics were extremely well attended, and people were eager to help.35 Encouraged by the initial reactions, Ivčić went on a tour that included countries with significant Croatian diaspora, such as Germany and Australia, where funds were collected to improve living conditions for Croats, especially children, affected by the war. After the song was released abroad, some famous music stars, like Phil Collins, actively advocated the need to help Croatian children.36 They were followed by others, like Meryl Streep, Audrey Hepburn, Pete Sampras, and many more.37 Croatian celebrities in the diaspora also joined the effort: for instance, the famous singer Tatjana Matejaš Tajči was often seen wearing “Stop the War in Croatia” shirts, while tennis player Goran Ivanišević used the opportunity to assert his support for the Croats’ fight for freedom.38 A delegation of children from Croatia visited the then-president of Austria, Kurt Waldheim, while another was received by Pope John Paul II in the Vatican, affirming the spiritual bond between the Roman Catholic Church and the Croatia nnation.39

Furthermore, the cultural sphere was another one that took part in promoting the idea of Croatian victimhood through the children’s perspective. Many international cultural institutions hosted exhibitions of Croatian children’s drawings, messages, or other forms of expression implicitly or explicitly depicting their trauma and suffering. For example, in November of 1991 children’s drawings were displayed in the opera house of Graz, Austria, while another collection was exhibited in galleries in New York and New Mexico.40 In the summer of 1992, an exhibition of drawings by children from Slavonia who had lost one or both parents was hosted in Basel, Switzerland.41 In the same year, the Croatian School Museum gathered a collection of drawings showing

34 Ivčić, Stop the War in Croatia, 1:18. 35 Brstilo Rešetar, Nevešćanin and Smetko, Katalog izložbe “Domovinski rat,” 267. 36 HRT. 2016. TV Kalendar. 12. August 2016 (accessed: 21. March 2019). 37 See Pitaf-Mrzljak, Greta. (ed.). 1992. Nobel Laureates for Peace in Croatia. Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, 230; Fagač, Branimir. 1993. Spasite naše duše: Djeca u domovinskom ratu 1991.-1994. Zagreb: BIROTISAK d.o.o., 69; HRT, TV Kalendar. 38 Križan, Josip. 1992. Tajči osvaja Broadway. Večernji list, 8. March 1992, as cited in Baker, Sounds of the Boderland, 29; HRT, TV Kalendar. 39 Fagač, Spasite naše duše, 52-53. 40 Fagač, Spasite naše duše, 53. 41 Večernji list. 1992. No title. 25. June 1992, 14, as cited in Senjković, Lica društva, likovi države, 34-35.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

Croatian children’s understanding of the war surrounding them, and the best works participated in the international exhibition of children’s art in Lidice, Czech Republic.42 UNICEF sponsored and assisted in organising another exhibition, “I dream of peace” [“Sanjam o miru”], organised by the Croatian School Museum, which also took place in 1992. Exhibits included drawings by and photographs of children living in refugee camps and other locations where living quarters for displaced persons were provided.43 Although this particular exhibition was hosted in Croatia, it was the UNICEF support that ensured an international platform and advertisement network for the cause. In nearly all of these exhibitions one can find drawings accompanied by the omnipresent “Stop the War in Croatia” labels, placed over the ruins of houses, the frightened faces of children and adults, or flowers and toys symbolising hope and a peaceful outcome. While the song itself, of course, was not a direct initiator of these exhibitions, it aided immensely in directing international focus towards child victims of war in Croatia, and one of many results was the initiatives of this type. These exhibitions always attracted a lot of attention, and were followed by humanitarian aid or individuals’ private engagement in providing financial or other forms of assistance.

Figure 1: Drawing from an exhibition hosted by the French Cultural Information Centre in Zagreb, 1992.

Source: Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research, Photo archive, item no. 32461 (“Visual apects of political propaganda – exhibition of children's drawings of war in the French Cultural Information Centre,” author Reana Senjković).

The song’s slogan, together with its specific reference to the dangers children faced, was also used for creating war posters designed for a European audience. For instance, one of the most famous war posters showed a reproduction of a drawing made by an eleven-year-old Croatian pupil who drew a house and a church in flames, while the message “Stop the War in Croatia” dominates the drawing with its size and position at the top of the poster. This was one of several posters with reproductions of children’s drawings in a series of war posters printed throughout 1992, each of which was framed with the Croatian

42 Papir, boje, kist i rat: izložba likovnih iskaza hrvatske djece o domovinskom ratu. 1992. Zagreb: Hrvatski školski muzej. 43 Sanjam o miru / I Dream of Piece [exhibition catalogue]. 1992-1993. Zagreb: UNICEF Zagreb and Croatian School Museum.

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checkerboard pattern and titled “Help Croatia Now.”44 Many museums and other cultural venues in countries around the world hosted these war poster exhibitions.

In addition to this, the message of the song inspired an entire spectrum of pre- virtual means of communication aimed at accessing an audience abroad. For example, the Croatian ethnologist Reana Senjković wrote about an interesting aspect of public mobilisation through mass media. Namely, Croatian Post and Telecommunication Services issued a series of postcards and holiday cards with “Stop the War in Croatia,” “SOS for Croatian Children,” etc. printed on the covers.45 More tellingly, many of them contained messages and drawings made by children, or reproductions of war posters with children’s drawings. A special set of postcards showed illustrations of animated child characters carrying components of old Croatian regional coats of arms, together making the official one. In another version, the carried objects were balloons decorated with red stars symbolising the European Community, with messages such as “Peace to the Children of Croatia.”46 Some postcards were replicas of war photographs, many of them depicting children affected by fear and the loss of loved ones.47 The song’s effect was felt as strongly on the ‘home front’ as it was abroad: “Stop the War” drawings, messages, posters (such as that depicted in Figure 2), and postcards decorated shop windows in Zagreb streets and squares.48 Customers could find clothes and other accessories with the song logo, and saw it in newspapers on a daily basis, while various versions of the song opened music festivals or fundraising events within Croatia.49

Figure 2: Stop the War in Croatia window poster on Zagreb streets, 1992

Source: Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research, Photo archive, item no. 32392 (Visual aspects of political propaganda, author: Reana Senjković)

Besides Stop the War in Croatia, a few other songs were also written entirely or partly in English. For example, another song that achieved almost cult status in Croatia, but also had an English version, was Moja Domovina [“My Homeland”], released in September of 1991. Performed by Croatian Band Aid, composed of

44 Brstilo Rešetar, Nevešćanin and Smetko, Katalog izložbe “Domovinski rat,” 283. 45 Senjković, Lica društva, likovi države, 35. 46 Senjković, Lica društva, likovi države, 35. 47 Senjković, Lica društva, likovi države, 35. 48 Senjković, Lica društva, likovi države, 33. 49 Baker, Sounds of the Borderland, 29.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

every singer considered reputable in Croatia at the time, it glorified the country’s natural beauties but also advocated the righteousness of the ongoing battle for independence through famous verses such as “there is only one truth.”50 The purpose of the band aid was also to raise money through performances at humanitarian concerts. The song was also recorded in an English language version. Interestingly, even though some verses were altered in the translation to successfully convey the meaning, other verses were replaced with an entirely different meaning. The most conspicuous change is the part before the last chorus series, where the composers replaced the original Croatian version with a completely new part that emphasised children and offspring, as the following translations in Table 1 show:

Table 1: Verse modifications in the English version of Moja Domovina:

Original Croatian English translation of original Official English version of the version Croatian version song

Vratit’ ću se moram doći, I will return, I have to come, As the child of generations tu je moj dom, here is my home, this is my land Moje sunce, moje nebo. My sunshine, my sky. Where I was born, where I'll die Novi dan se budi A new day awakens, For the children of my children kao sreća osvaja conquers like happiness this is my land Ti si tu sa nama... Sa You are here, with us…with us! Where I was born, where I will nama! die... I will die!51

Inserting lines that explicitly refer to the relationship of (even unborn) children to the Croatian homeland in the English version indicates the intention of the composers to utilise children as a component aimed at emotionally shaking the viewers. Additionally, this part is sung in high tones, and these are therefore the most emotionally charged verses of the song.

When it comes to its success abroad, the English version of Moja domovina never achieved the status of Stop the War in Croatia. However, it still remains one of the first associations of the War for Independence for Croats in Croatia, a symbol of unity and solidarity in those times, and it is also frequently performed today on occasions of national importance. Several other patriotic songs, such as Don't ever cry by the band Put, who represented Croatia in a Eurovision song contest for the first time, or Josipa Lisac and Guido Mineo's Sloboda i mir [“Freedom and Peace”], contained parts of choruses sung in English.52 While they were frequently broadcast on the national radio and television channels, the records of their impact beyond Croatian borders remain scarce. It is also interesting to notice that these songs, including Ivčić’s, do not name the ‘aggressor’ in any way, and dedicate all space to building a unique image of Croatia’s martyrdom to freedom. Such was, however, not the case in songs composed for domestic distribution, and this will be addressed in the next section.

What is indisputable is that Ivčić's song was among the very first media products that brought international attention to what Croatian leadership and the

50 Hrvatski Band Aid. 1991. Moja domovina (accessed: 10. March 2019), 0:58, 3:03. 51 Hrvatski Band Aid, Moja domovina, 4:00. 52 Put. 1993. Eurovision 1993 Croatia (accessed: 11. April 2019); Lisac, Josipa and Guido Mineo. 1991. Sloboda I mir (accessed: 12. April 2019).

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majority of its citizens believed was a legitimate right to independence and sovereignty. Such messages would contribute to the change of diplomatic attitude towards Croatia and its recognition. The following section will provide examples showing that the presence of children in domestic patriotic music production was just as significant for wartime nation-building and mobilisation at home as it was for seeking material and diplomatic help abroad.

“I Will Be a Croatian Soldier, Too” For the party that came to power in 1990 and led Croatia to independence, HDZ, inclusion of children in their political campaigns represented a secure way for gaining voters’ sympathies. Children appeared in all kinds of campaign materials, from posters with Franjo Tuđman holding small girls wearing traditional dresses in his arms to video ads broadcast on national television, in which children implicitly invited voters to acknowledge HDZ as a party that cared about the young country’s future generations.53 Children’s choirs were regular participants in the annual General Assemblies of HDZ, where they took part in performing various popular patriotic songs with other singers.54 While the audience of politicians watched them and frequently accompanied them on stage, children personified HDZ’s commitment to preserving their childhood and well-being, which was an emotionally charged aspect that resonated positively with the general public, especially families. The party also had (and still has) its official hymn, a song by Đani Maršan called Bože Čuvaj Hrvatsku [“God Save Croatia”], which also became one of the most memorable wartime patriotic songs.55 Carrying very conspicuous religious connotations symbolised by the abundance of sacral architectural monuments and other related elements, the song glorifies the individual’s vow to sacrifice their life for the Croatian homeland. While neither the song nor the music video mention or directly include children, it was children that often participated in the public performances of this and other songs suitable for campaign a agenda. In fact, an HDZ campaign video from 1995 shows children using the verses of Bože čuvaj Hrvatsku as their bedtime prayer, while the song is played in the background.56 This points to not only intentionally placing children in connection with the already extremely politicised patriotic song, but also equalising Catholicism and religious doctrine with Croatianness, and treating it as a normal and in fact desirable presence in the lives of the youngest.

This symbolisation of children as the essence of the nation, once entrenched in the political discourse, became an extremely popular poetic motive as well. While existing studies of gender in popular music take men and women as the main points of analysis, they tend not to give palpable space to children, treating them primarily within the concept of motherhood. However, it is precisely they who, due to their position as the centre of family life and its most affirming ‘element’, also embody the collective national being. The nuclear and ideally religious family became the source of much needed cohesion during these times of instability, and was celebrated through political and religious rhetoric, popular

53 See, for instance, HDZ. 1990. “Sigurna budućnost Hrvatske”– promidžbeni poster. Zagreb: Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research, unsorted funds. 54 See, for example, Sikavica, Glasnije od oružja, 36:50. 55 Maršan, Đani. 1991. Bože čuvaj Hrvatsku (accessed: 13. March 2019). 56 HDZ. 1995. Promidžbeni spot (accessed: 2. May 2019).

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

culture, and art. A whole spectrum of patriotic songs positioned the child as a central reference of relationship to the homeland. For example, a famous song by Doris Dragović, Dajem ti srce, zemljo moja [“Homeland, I Give You My Heart”] revolves around the notion of the birth of a son as the most sacred gift a woman could give to her homeland, given that “mothers have done so since ancient times [k’o što od davnina rađale su majke za tebe].”57 In the music video, viewers could see scenes of Dragović’s family as she and her husband play with their small son during what seems to be an idyllic family day. While women, more specifically mothers, personified the Homeland, it was children of this particular generation that were raised in the independent Croatia their ancestors, according to the narrative, had dreamt of for so many centuries. Hence, their nurturing was among the most momentuous of tasks, as they needed to learn specific ideological patterns of the Croatian national narrative that had long been suppressed in their parents’ generation. This was a prominent theme in another omnipresent song at the time, Od stoljeća sedmog [“From Seventh Century A.D.”] by Dražen Žanko. 58 He begins the song by accusingly referring to those who planned to drive out Croats from their ancient homeland and move them to foreign lands, so that their children would not know their peoples’ history [djeca roda povist neće znati] and therefore not even consider themselves Croats [svoj na svome neće bit’ Hrvati].59 As Žanko sings these verses in the music video, a girl appears by his side, adding to the emotional undertone. Hence, children also acted as carriers of the national narrative, and it was necessary for them as future leaders to understand and know the ‘right’ kind of history so as to further ingrain and maintain such national imagery. The issue of historical narrative, particularly that in history textbooks, has certainly become one of the most urgent topics of revision in the 1990s educational curricula, and has in fact remained a point of fierce debate until this day.

Popular music also played on the notion of children as a huge influencing factor of mobilisation and morale boosters. This is where the relationship between children and fathers occupied the central stage, turning into one of the most recognisable trademarks of popular culture in early 1990s Croatia. In her studies on representations of gender in Croatian and Serbian patriotic music, Croatian musicologist Naila Ceribašić argues that the depiction of men in Croatian music resembled that of a loving, warmhearted warrior defending his family from the enemy (unlike in Serbia, where characters of soldiers in popular culture were more focused on protecting and defending Serbian symbols and territory).60 Within the concept of family, it was children who demanded most protection, and this went hand in hand with naturalising the bond between father and child throughout the military context. One of the songs that very effectively represented such a pattern was Jasmin Stavros’ Za djecu djece naše djece [“For the Children of Our Children’s Children”].61 Sung from the perspective of a father and soldier, the song idolises the relationship between a father who vows to protect not only his children, but also his future great-grandchildren, with his life. Similarly, the song Halo Tata [“Hello, Dad”] by Mirko Cetinski consists of

57 Dragović, Doris. 1992. Dajem ti srce, zemljo moja (accessed: 18 February 2019), 0:32. 58 Žanko, Dražen. 1991. Od stoljeća sedmog (accessed: 6. April 2019). 59 Žanko, Od stoljeća sedmog, 0:50. 60 Ceribašić, Naila. 1995. Gender Roles During the War: Representations in Croatian and Serbian Popular Music 1991-1992. Collegium Antropologicum 19(1), 91-101. 61 Stavros, Jasmin. Za djecu djece naše djece (accessed: 7. April 2019).

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conversations between a loving father and his small daughter (verses sung by an actual child), who receives his calls from the front.62 As the daughter asks him to come home soon, she also asks if it is true that “some fathers do not come back [jel’ istina kažu da neke se tate i ne vrate]”, which underlined the magnitude of all Croatian fathers’ sacrifice for their children’s future in a free country.63

Having a father in the Croatian army units became reality for many children, and this inevitably translated into popular culture. Various music shows on HRT invited viewers to send messages to their loved ones in the army, and frequently it was children who ordered, dedicated, or even themselves sang songs to their fathers or Croatian soldiers in general.64 The children’s choir Zagrebački mališani [Zagreb kids] even produced an album titled I ja ću biti hrvatski vojnik [“I Will Be a Croatian Soldier, Too”], which also included a version of the aforementioned Bože Čuvaj Hrvatsku [“God Save Croatia”] by Đani Maršan.65 The Schooling Institute within the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Education approved the request for the group’s cross-country music tour, and recommended the purchase of this radio cassette by schools and kindergartens.66 The publisher, Festival Records, even suggested its inclusion in the official curricula of elementary school music education, and also specifically requested distribution to the Croatian Army sector.67 This was endorsed by then-deputy of the Croatian Ministry of Defense Slobodan Praljak, with the explanation that the project affirms the traditional values of long-repressed “Croatian patriotism, family, Christianity, humanity, and readiness to defend one’s home.”68

An important attribute of the father-soldier theme is also that of characterising ‘the enemy’. While songs such as Stop the War in Croatia did not explicitly name those who were defined in domestic discourse as “aggressors,” some patriotic songs aimed at domestic distribution referred to “the enemy,” especially in conjunction with vivid descriptions and reports of Croatian peoples’ suffering and pain. For that reason, inclusion of children as the incarnation of that misery always implied the undeniable blame of ‘the other side’. For instance, the music video of Hrvatine [Croats], by Đuka Čaić, originally written as a march, shows a scene where a mother with a child lies hidden in a shelter, followed by a soldier carrying a baby in his arms.69 The scene follows the lines čuvaj oče majčicu, ognjište i sestricu [“Father, Protect Mother, Hearth, and Little Sister”]. Those responsible for the dichotomy of a newborn in the midst of warfare and destruction are indeed labelled; in the second verse of the song Čaić tells the “evil beasts” [zvijeri zle] to run away, and also directly warns the JNA (by name) that Croatia (and its forces) will defeat them [jugo vojska mora znat’, Hrvatska će dobit’ rat].70 Such an animalistic, savage characterisation (“evil beasts”) enlarged the dimension of “the enemy’s” crimes and reinforced the difference between a civilised, defense-oriented ‘us’ and a demonic, barbaric ‘them’, which

62 Cetinski, Mirko and Nataša Čačić. Halo, tata (accessed: 28. April 2019). 63 Cetinski and Čačić, Halo, tata, 0:46. 64 Sikavica, Glasnije od oružja, 29:37. 65 Zagrebački mališani. 1992. I ja ću biti hrvatski vojnik (accessed: 14. April 2019). 66Republika Hrvatska, Ministarstvo kulture i prosvjete, Zavod za školstvo. 1993. Predmet: Kaseta “I ja ću biti hrvatski vojnik” – stručno mišljenje” (accessed: 7. July 2018). 67 RH, Zavod za školstvo, Predmet: Kaseta. 68 RH, Zavod za školstvo, Predmet: Kaseta. 69 Čaić, Đuka. 1991. Hrvatine (accessed: 2. April 2019), 1:37. 70 Čaić, Hrvatine, 0:39 and 1:04.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

fits into the political rhetoric of Croatian leadership that insisted on separating Croatia from the rest of the Balkans, or at least the Eastern Balkans (where Serbia was). Another song, Gospodine Generale [“Hey, Mister General”] by Vladimir Kočiš Zec, directly addresses a JNA general as responsible for inflicting pain and anguish upon the (Croatian) nation, and acts as a warning of strength and persistence of the Croatian community which will ultimately prevail.71 Zec attempts to evoke the human side in the general by singing, among other things, about a boy who has to leave his wedding to go fight the war imposed by the general (and his army) [Gospodine generale, dječak pred crkvom ostavlja svatove, mora se krenut’ u vaše ratove].72 The “boy” is clearly a grown man, but this poetic attribution of childlike feature serves the purpose of intensifying the audience’s emotional response. In the last verse before the final chorus, Zec reaffirms his faith in collective endurance of the people by acquainting the general about his plans to once again take his son fishing once the war is over, as well as continuing to tell children endless stories [kad prođe tuga i vjetra jecanje, vodit’ ću sina opet na pecanje, djeci ću pričat’ beskrajne priče].73 Even more emotionally infused was the song by the enormously popular Mišo Kovač, Grobovi im nikad oprostiti neće [“The Graves Will Never Forgive Them”], in which he describes his home region as filled with “children’s cries and howlings everywhere” [sada jauk djece i plač sa svih strana životna je slika moga zavičaja].74 This was, of course, caused by “them,” who would have to face their prophetic destiny of not being forgiven by either the living or the dead.

Finally, the last type of repertoire that included children was that of songs promoting the universal message that children themselves embodied: that of peace and unity among all people. A song that could represent such a direction was, for instance Mir do neba [“Peace Up to the Sky”] by the band Magazin.75 As the verses are interchangeably sung by the band singer and children, they express their fears, anxieties about their grim reality, and plead for the war to end. However, although the lyrics convey a global message of solidarity, obvious national symbols in the music video (like the word “Croatia” framed with a heart on the school building in front of which children sing, or a Croatian flag hanging by the piano) do leave an impression of certain exclusivity, and the understanding that the term “my people” in the song refers to Croatian people only.76 One song which entered the lives of many generations growing up at the time was Kad bi svi [“If All [people] in the World”], produced by the crew of popular children’s show Malavizija [Little [Tele]vision] as a remake of the original version by renowned Croatian composer Arsen Dedić from 1967.77 Sung by both children and various Croatian musicians, actors, TV personas and other artists, this song assumed the role of children’s band aid, promoting ideas of peace and solidarity among children and adults, and encouraging acts of helping those in need. However, since the target audience was primarily that of children and not the general public, the song does not completely fall into the category of patriotic repertoire as pertinent to this research.

71 Kočiš Zec, Vladimir. 1991. Gospodine generale (accessed: 1. May 2019). 72 Kočiš Zec, Gospodine Generale, 1:18. 73 Kočiš Zec, Gospodine Generale, 2:46. 74 Kovač, Mišo. 1991. Grobovi im nikad oprostiti neće (accessed: 4. March 2019), 0:32. 75 Magazin. 1991. Mir do neba (accessed: 31. April 2019). 76 Magazin, Mir do neba, 1:16 and 2:16. 77 Malavizija. 1991. Kad bi svi (accessed: 7. April 2019).

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Conclusion This study has pointed to the so far underexplored representation of children in Croatian patriotic music in the 1991-1992 period, crucial for the country’s international status and positioning on the European political map after the declaration of independence. I have argued that children’s presence was persistent in musical production aimed at both domestic and international markets, and that it effectively took part in shaping the victim-centered image of Croatia. The immense impact of Stop the War in Croatia, as one of the first ‘messengers’ that acquainted the international audience with Croatia’s indispensable need for aid, could not have been accomplished without children who sensitised the European and global public by representing the country that finally wanted to take part in the “European dream,” but was enduring a brutal military attack. Their childhood also symbolised the concept of Croatia’s birth as an independent state and its political ‘youth’.

Within Croatia, children’s participation in musical production or as imaginary characters in the lyrics had a mobilisation-oriented aim, as it perpetuated the absolute responsibility of the other side for the suffering of the Croatian national body, and the ability of the older generation to ensure a future for their children in which they would not have to hide their ethnic and national loyalty or, worse, be ignorant of their own people’s history. While the concept of ‘the enemy’ was, perhaps intentionally, not clearly defined in Ivčić’s or other songs for the international market, those for the domestic market were more likely to denounce the JNA or use other derogatory terms to depict the other side in the worst possible light. In any case, both categories of patriotic music analysed in this article reiterate the official elements of ethnonationalist discourse in the country’s ruling party and president Tudjman, without acknoledging the civilian victimhood of the other ethnic side(s). Finally, the study aims to open up avenues for further research on the importance of children for nation-building even after the era of mass children’s organisations like the Yugoslav and Soviet Pioneers, and the relationship between popular culture and nationalism in post-Yugoslav spaces.

Bibliography Agičić, Damir. 2011. Prikaz postanka suvremene Republike Hrvatske u hrvatskim udžbenicima povijesti za osnovnu školu, in Kultura sjećanja: 1991: povijesni lomovi i svladavanje prošlosti, edited by Cipek, Tihomir. Zagreb: Disput, 359-77. Baker, Catherine. 2010. Sounds of the Borderland: Popular Music, War and Nationalism in Croatia Since 1991. Surrey / Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited. . 2013. Music as a Weapon of Ethnopolitical Violence and Conflict: Processes of Ethnic Separation During and After the Break-up of Yugoslavia. Patterns of Prejudice 47(4-5), 409-29 (accessed: 2. May 2019). Beezley, William. (ed.). 2018. Cultural Nationalism and Ethnic Music in Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Bohlman, Philip V. 2011. Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe. New York: Routledge.

“Stop the War in the Name of Children”: Children and Nation Building Through Croatian Patriotic Music (1991-1992)

. 2004. The Music of European Nationalism: Cultural Identity and Modern History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 119-120. Brstilo Rešetar, Matea / Nevešćanin, Ivica and Andreja Smetko. 2013. Katalog izložbe “Domovinski rat.” Zagreb: Hrvatski povijesni muzej. Ceribašić, Naila. 1995. Gender Roles During the War: Representations in Croatian and Serbian Popular Music 1991-1992. Collegium Antropologicum 19(1), 91-101. . 2000. Defining Women and Men in the Context of War: Images in Croatian Popular Music in the 1990s, in Music and Gender, edited by Moisala, Pirko and Beverly Diamond. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 219- 38. Cetinski, Mirko and Nataša Čačić. Halo, tata (accessed: 28. April 2019). Čaić, Đuka. 1991. Hrvatine (accessed: 2. April 2019). Dragović, Doris. 1992. Dajem ti srce, zemljo moja (accessed: 18. February 2019). Duda, Igor. 2010. Pronađeno blagostanje. Svakodnevni život i potrošačka kultura u Hrvatskoj 1970-ih i 1980-ih. Zagreb: Srednja Europa. . 2015. Danas kada postajem pionir: djetinjstvo i ideologija jugoslavenskoga socijalizma. Zagreb: Srednja Europa. Erdei, Idliko. 2006. Odrastanje u poznom socijalizmu – od “pionira malenih” do vojske potrošača, in Devijacije i promašaji: etnografija domaćeg socijalizma, edited by Čale Feldman, Lada and Ines Prica. Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, 205-40. Fagač, Branimir. 1993. Spasite naše duše: Djeca u domovinskom ratu 1991-1994. Zagreb: BIROTISAK d.o.o., 52-53. Frolova-Walker, Marina. 2007. Russian Music and Nationalism: From Glinka to Stalin. New Haven / London: Yale University Press. Fruhstuck, Sabine. 2017. Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in Japan. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Herder, Johann Gotfried and Philip V. Bohlman. 2017. Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Haberle, Ivana / Uskok, Gordana and Vera Jurčević (eds.). 2015. Krhotine djetinjstva: koracima nade u istinu. Zadar: Udruga “Žene u Domovinskom ratu”. HDZ. 1990. “Sigurna budućnost Hrvatske”– promidžbeni poster. Zagreb: Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research, unsorted funds. . 1995. Promidžbeni spot (accessed: 2. May 2019). Hrvatska radiotelevizija. TV Kalendar 12.08.2016. 2016 (accessed: 21 March 2019). Hrvatski Band Aid. 1991. Moja domovina. (accessed: 10. March 2019). Ivčić, Tomislav. 1991. Interview (accessed: 2. May 2019). . 1991. Stop the War in Croatia (accessed: 22. April 2019). Kelly, Katriona. 2007. Children’s World: Growing Up in Russia, 1890-1991. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kočiš Zec, Vladimir. 1991. Gospodine generale. (accessed: 1. May 2019). Kovač, Mišo. 1991. Grobovi im nikad oprostiti neće (accessed: 4. March 2019). Križan, Josip. 1992. Tajči osvaja Broadway. Večernji list, 8. March 1992. Lisac, Josipa and Guido Mineo. 1991. Sloboda i mir (accessed: 12. April 2019). Magazin. 1991. Mir do neba (accessed: 31. April 2019). Malavizija. 1991. Kad bi svi (accessed: 7. April 2019). Maršan, Đani. 1991. Bože čuvaj Hrvatsku (accessed: 13. March 2019).

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Mavra, Miroslav and Lori McNeil. 2007. Identity Formation and Music: A Case Study of Croatian Experience. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 5(2), 1-20 (accessed: 20. April 2019). McDonald, David A. 2013. My Voice is My Weapon: Music, Nationalism, and the Poetics of Palestinian Resistance. Durham: Duke University Press. Morra, Irene. 2014. Britishness, Popular Music, and National Identity: The Making of Modern Britain. New York: Routledge. Večernji list. 1992. No title. 25. June 1992, 14. Papir, boje, kist i rat: izložba likovnih iskaza hrvatske djece o domovinskom ratu 1992. Zagreb: Hrvatski školski muzej. Pettan, Svanibor. (ed.). 1998. Music, Politics, and War: Views from Croatia. Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research. Pitaf-Mrzljak, Greta. (ed.). 1992. Nobel Laureates for Peace in Croatia. Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada. Put. 1993. Eurovision 1993 Croatia (accessed: 11. April 2019). Republika Hrvatska, Ministarstvo kulture i prosvjete, Zavod za školstvo. 1993. Predmet: Kaseta “I ja ću biti hrvatski vojnik” – stručno mišljenje” (accessed: 7. July 2018). Sanjam o miru / I Dream of Peace [exhibition catalogue]. 1992-1993. Zagreb: UNICEF Zagreb and Croatian School Museum. Saunders, Anna. 2007. Honecker's Children: Youth and Patriotism in Eastern Germany, 1979-2002. New York: Manchester University Press. Senjković, Reana. 2002. Lica društva, likovi države. Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research. Sikavica, Miroslav. 2017. Glasnije od oružja (accessed: 30. October 2017). Stavros, Jasmin. Za djecu djece naše djece (accessed: 7. April 2019). Šaravanja, Vjekoslav. 2002. 10.000 djece bez roditelja u Domovinskom ratu. Gradina: Rimokatolički župni ured. Šikić, Neven / Žužul, Miomir and Ivan Fattorini. (eds.). 1994. Stradanja djece u Domovinskom ratu. Zagreb: Naklada Slap and Klinika za dječje bolesti Zagreb. Terzić, Janoš / Meštrović, Julije / Đogaš, Zoran / Furlan, Dubravko and Mihovil Biočić. 2001. Children War Casualties During the 1991-1995 Wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatian Medical Journal 42(2), 156-60. Vuletić, Dean. 2018. Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest. London and New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic. Zagrebački mališani. 1992. I ja ću biti hrvatski vojnik (accessed: 14. April 2019). Zahra, Tara. 2008. Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948. London: Cornell University Press. Žanko, Dražen. 1991. Od stoljeća sedmog (accessed: 6. April 2019).

The Abolition of University Asylum as the Inauguration of the Era of (New) Authoritarianism in Greece Event Analysis

Dimitra Mareta Research, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki [email protected]

Contemporary Southeastern Europe, 2019, 6(2), 1-12

DOI 10.25364/02.6:2019.2.1

Dimitra Mareta*

Keywords: university asylum, Greece, New Democracy, authoritarianism

Introduction After almost 5 years of the government of the SYRIZA-ANELL coalition (Coalition of Radical Left-Synaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras-SYRIZA and Independent Greeks-Anexartitoi Ellines-AN.ELL), the party of New Democracy won the elections on 7 July 2019. It is the oldest conservative party of the country; it aspires to be thought of as a liberal European party and has formed the first no-coalition government since 2011, a fact that allows it to apply its policy freely and easily. The new government immediately began to prepare and vote on bills in order to proceed with a series of so-called reforms. Among the very first bills voted in July and August—the summer period during which the legislative activity is usually almost null—there was a law that totally and without any doubt abolished university asylum in Greece. The central concept of this analysis is that its abolition is not a substantive movement indispensable for social peace and public order in the country, but a movement to spread the word that the era of toleration is over and in its place a new era is inaugurated— one of authoritarianism.

The history of the concept of authoritarianism is long and is often related with and connected to dictatorial and illiberal regimes, with typical measures against freedom of the press or the right to assembly, among others. Whilst many theories (or at least detailed descriptions) have been formulated addressing the issues of authoritarianism in general, in other Balkans countries, or as a danger for non-western states,1 this paper mainly draws on the very classical and often neglected approach of Hermann Heller’s “Authoritarian Liberalism” and, additionally, it will draw on the three definitions of authoritarianism codified by Somek in his employment of

* Dimitra Mareta holds a PhD in Political Science from the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences. She is currently a post-doc researcher in Political Science at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and she was a Visiting Research Fellow in Political Science at the University of Peloponnese for the academic year 2018-2019. Her research interests include state theory and theory of sovereignty, counterrevolution, counter-Enlightenment, political theology, Greek politics and politics in Southern Europe, liberalism, and neoliberalism. 1 Brown, Wendy / Gordon, Eli and Max Pensky. 2018. Authoritarianism: Three Inquiries in Critical Theory. Chicago / London: The University of Chicago Press; Bieber, Florian. 2019. The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans. Chan: Palgrave Macmillan; Diamond, Larry / Plattner Mark F. and Christopher Walker. 2016. Authoritarianism Goes Global. The Challenge to Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press and The National Endowment for Democracy.

The Abolition of University Asylum as the Inauguration of the Era of (New) Authoritarianism in Greece

Hermann Heller’s theory in order to describe the current situation in the European Union.2 As Scheuerman aptly underlines,

“Heller astutely summarizes the core underlying political logic of the ‘unholy alliance’ of free market (economic) liberalism and political authoritarianism […] which nonetheless remains a disturbingly appealing political option for those of a free market bent with little if any faith in mass democracy.”3

Of course, when we employ a term invented in the Weimar democracy, we do not claim either that the juncture is the same or that that term can be applied uncritically. Furthermore, for the needs of this paper, only the concept of authoritarianism will be examined and not the critical connection and interaction of capitalism with democracy or with the state, even though Heller himself addresses finally the authoritarian state as authoritarian liberalism4— considering it the fullest development of the authoritarian state—and his remarks can be very useful for the current situation in Greece.5

Paraphrasing Zafirowski—who delivers an interesting connection of authoritarianism with Protestantism6—in this paper authoritarianism will not be equivalent or synonymous to tyranny, totalitarianism, or dictatorship but will rather be closer to Goldberg’s approach regarding the US neoconservative authoritarian welfare state: “to obey the law and, above all, to work.”7 In other words, authoritarianism will refer to the state that first of all conceives its authority in terms of order and not in terms of its own authority,8 which would include a reasoning for it or a theory of social contract at its base, or its duties and obligations towards its citizens as well. Hence, the authoritarian state does not collide with a ‘pre-state’ or a ‘non-state’ condition but, as Heller stresses, it opposes the democratic state and the democratic state authority.9 In this regard, authoritarianism is approached as new for Greece, because it has nothing to do with the one known in the country until 1974 (which was actually synonymous to absolutism or dictatorship) and its new form and content can be

2 Somek addresses three contexts in which the authoritarian principle appears as a distorted continuation of the delegation. The first context relates to the conviction that the delegator has the right and the power to act beyond the delegate’s mandate, because that latter provides the former with that mandate, if they know the new circumstances the delegator is faced with. In the second context the authority rejects the critique as unreasonable; and finally, in the third context the delegator regards a different choice or will of the people as an “obstacle towards something greater,” Somek, Alexander. 2015. Authoritarian Liberalism. Austrian Law Journal 1, 67-87. Available at: https://doi.org/10.25364/1.2:2015.1.5 (accessed: 27 January 2020), 310. In all three cases the crucial point for Somek is the demand for obedience. 3 Scheuerman, William, E. 2015. Hermann Heller and the European Crisis: Authoritarian Liberalism Redux? European Law Journal 21(3), 306. 4 Heller, Hermann. 2015. Authoritarian Liberalism. European Law Journal 21(3), 299. 5 For example, the following one: “the ‘authoritarian’ state is characterized by its retreat from economic production and distribution. Papen, however, would not be the representative fighter for the ‘authoritarian’ state if he were not simultaneously fighting against the ‘welfare state,’” Heller, Authoritarian Liberalism, 300. 6 Zafirowski, Milan. 2007. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Authoritarianism. Puritanism versus Democracy and the Free Society. New York: Springer. 7 Goldberg, Chad Alan. 2001. Social Citizenship and Reconstructed Tocqueville. American Sociological Review 66(2), 303. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2657419 (accessed: 27 January 2020). 8 Hetherington, Marc J. and Jonathan D. Weiler. 2009 Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 34. 9 Heller, Authoritarian Liberalism, 295.

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correlated with modern expressions experienced recently or currently in other western democracies.

Returning to Greece, it is important to mention that we will not examine every aspect, tendency, or form of the current situation but only its specific aspect that relates to the approach of the state as authoritarian. In its current form authoritarianism is about obedience to every single aspect of the vision of the government; its values and aims are considered indispensable. As such, this vision needs to be obeyed and adopted by everyone in the country because it is what common sense dictates the country needs and therefore no actions of disobedience are tolerated. Within this context, democracy comes to mean the sanction of a party program once every four years. Furthermore, this sanction means that everyone is obliged to accept and approve every single action and decision, because all of them are justified on the basis that the government is elected to implement its program, even though it is not voted for by everyone, nor it is necessary that those who vote for it agree with all its aspects. With this argumentation, the state abandons one fundamental liberal principle—that of tolerance and respect for those who oppose it, and tends to be a liberal democracy deprived from its substance both as liberal and as a democracy, and confirming thus its authoritarianism. As a consequence of this argumentation, any protest should be prepared to be oppressed, because it is an obstacle—to use Somek’s term—to something greater; in this particular case, to the attempt of the government to lead the country back to legality, to credit rating upgrades, and to economic growth. University asylum was the first to be suspended as the most emblematic form of protest, resistance, and disobedience in Greece since 1974 and the fall of the military dictatorship.

In the following chapters, we will examine briefly the special meaning of university asylum for Greek society and political culture. We will then focus on the governmental rhetoric that accompanies this stance by studying public speeches and declarations, official parliament documents, and the news in the press using the critical discourse analysis in order to explore both the obvious and the hidden meanings and messages in them.

University asylum, the state, and (opposition) movements After the fall of the colonels’ dictatorship in 1974, there was a lot of debate about the meaning and the legal recognition of academic asylum. This debate ended in its legal recognition (law 1268/1982) by the government of PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement-Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima) in 1982. Under the title “university asylum” the right of the free circulation of ideas was recognized both politically and socially within the universities, and above all, police were prohibited from entering—at least without permission from the rector. This legal status has been scarcely revised since then; in 2011 the government of PASOK made the last major change before its total abolition in 2019. With that amendment (law 4009/2011), known as “Diamantopoulou’s Law”—named after the Minister of Education, Lifelong Learning, and Religions at that time—the no-go zone for the police was no longer valid in the act of committing any offence, for in such cases the police could act as in every other similar case and enter in the university without waiting for a permission by the rector. This bill was also voted in by New Democracy, even though it was the fiercest opponent of PASOK at that time due to its disagreement with the

The Abolition of University Asylum as the Inauguration of the Era of (New) Authoritarianism in Greece

austerity policies implemented by PASOK. The SYRIZA-ANELL government restored the previous status of university asylum (law 4485/17, known as “Gavroglou’s Law” this time, again named after the then Minister of Education, Research, and Religions) but kept the provision that the police could operate in the universities in cases of felonies and crimes against life; in any other case of offense, permission from the rector would be necessary in order to enter the university.

University asylum has been a kind of sacred subject after the invasion of a tank in the National Technological University of Athens (Polytechnic School) in order to suppress the revolt against the dictatorship in November 1973, which left dozens of dead behind. It has been connected with the Metapolitefsi in Greece, a word which cannot be translated in other languages and means the era that begun after the end of the dictatorship and signified the end of the political violence, torture, and persecutions against those on the left, communists, and in general democrats. Metapolitefsi also inaugurated an era of relative political stability and presidential liberal democracy in the country. Until today it has been violated only a few times, the most significant violation taking place in November 1995, when the police were ordered to suppress the Polytechnic School’s occupation by anarchists in support of a hunger strike begun by a fellow anarchist and riot in Greece’s largest prison. That police operation ended with about 500 arrests and caused a long-lasting political and social debate about university asylum, its use by non-academic persons and for non-academic purposes, and the limits and role of the police action in such cases.

This is a difficult debate due to the tremendous historical impact that its violation by the military dictatorship has had through the ages: its violation by the police has since then carried the association of brutal, authoritarian, and arbitrary state power. On the other hand, its legislation and protection against any state violation have the intention not only of creating and protecting academic freedom and the free circulation of ideas, but also of creating and protecting a free public sphere of thinking and acting without the fear of suppression, even when this thinking is against the state itself. As such all governments since 1974—with only a few exceptions, as we have already mentioned— have respected it and has been considered an essential part of the rule of law, democracy, and freedom. It has been considered a symbol against police and state arbitrariness and authoritarianism, and a symbol of democracy in Greece after about 70 years of continuous and repeated crises, including the Civil, Balkan, and World Wars, multiple dictatorships, and periods of serious political and social upheaval.

It is indeed true that university asylum has been used for more than just academic purposes, but in Greece (as is the case in several other countries as well) it has always been related to and connected with the widespread and well- established conviction that it is part of Greek political culture, it belongs to everyone, and everyone has the right to use it. Political and activist groups use universities to meet and organize their actions, their assemblies, their political events, and public discussions—especially the Polytechnic School, which hosts such activities every day. In some universities there are squats organized by students and in a few cases by non-student groups. The Polytechnic School is also known as the center of clashes with the police during or after

Dimitra Mareta

demonstrations; this is usual for some universities in various smaller towns of Greece as well. The universities around the country, as anticipated, were the center of the last important student movement (2006-2007) against the educational reform introduced by New Democracy, and above all they were the center of the revolt in 2008, when New Democracy was in office. That particular insurrection broke out when in December 2008 fifteen-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was executed by police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas after a trivial dispute. The occupied universities—protected at that time by university asylum—were the most important centers of that insurrection, with thousands of people participating in the occupations and no police violating the academic asylum law by entering and evacuating them; we will see in the next chapter the current Prime Minister’s stance against this choice of his party. All of this has been used by many as a good reason to turn against academic asylum and demand its abolition. It is within this context that many prominent conservative or far-right politicians condemn university asylum as part of the ideological hegemony of the left in Greece, even though the left was defeated in the Greek Civil War (1945-1949), has suffered constant persecution since then and until 1974, and never governed the country until 2015 for the first time.

The new law has not been seriously disputed so far not only because it was passed during a holiday period but mainly because the (opposition) movements are in recession in Greece. There were a few demonstrations during the summer and the autumn of 2019, but nothing that could worry the state or imply a dynamic response. Previous attempts to abolish or even to lift it for the police to operate were confronted and blocked by student or political groups or by the widespread acceptance of the asylum by society in general. The current recession refers to every kind of movement, not only to student movements, and allows the state to act as it wants. The debate about this recession is young and ongoing; the failure of SYRIZA to be consistent with its electoral pledges, its subsequent compromise with the economic orthodoxy, and the fact that no alternative (TINA) dogma has been proposed as the main reasons for this recession,10 but a more thorough examination of this phenomenon is beyond the scope of this paper. Before examining the rise of the authoritarianism, it can only be mentioned that the author’s view is that the recession of opposition movements is another symptom of the rise of conservatism in the country, and due in part to the authoritarianism that is under examination.

The rhetoric against university asylum and its abolition as the start of (new) authoritarianism It is clear that after the amendment in 2011 university asylum did not cover illegal actions that were committed within the universities and the police were allowed to operate without the rector’s permission. Academic asylum continued to cover only the free circulation of academic, political, or any other kind of ideas. Therefore, it could be claimed that the new abolishment of university asylum is not a precondition for the state’s action against illegal acts and acts of violence within the universities. Nevertheless, after many attacks on the asylum law from New Democracy when it was in opposition, the provision that totally abolished it was part of the second bill voted in by the new government.

10 See for instance Fouskas, Vassilis K. 2019. The Greek Conundrum. The Political Quarterly 90(4), 772-76.

The Abolition of University Asylum as the Inauguration of the Era of (New) Authoritarianism in Greece

The rhetoric against academic asylum starts with the common approach that public universities usually are assessed as not good enough according to academic criteria and characterized as “loci of lawlessness,” places where unlawful actions are committed or encouraged by persons that do not belong to the academic community and use academic asylum as a cover for their activities. The most common accusations are either that they seek to act violently against the state or that they sell drugs or other illegal goods.11 The public statements and speeches of the President of New Democracy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, always include references to the abolition of academic asylum, and it is always referred as “asylum of violence and unlawfulness.”12 A significant part of the electoral campaign was based on the need to end it as the beginning of the implementation of the “law and order” dogma, as Mitsotakis connected the abolishment of university asylum with the restoration of the safety within the country that was threatened by it.13 In addition, Mitsotakis has always opposed it, and his point of view on asylum has determined one of his major political decisions with regard to the election of Prokopis Pavlospoulos as President of Greek Democracy in 2015.

When back in 2008 the revolt was expanding rapidly, as it became known later,14 Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and Minister of Public Order Pavlopoulos ordered the police to be on the defensive and refused special forces of police—or even the army, as some insisted at that time—to operate in order to suppress the revolt and evacuate the occupied universities and other public

11 Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. Address of the President of New Democracy Mr Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the Presentation of the Education Programme of New Democracy. Available at: https://nd.gr/omilia-toy-proedroy-tis-neas- dimokratias-k-kyriakoy-mitsotaki-stin-paroysiasi-toy-programmatos (accessed: 1 December 2019). 12 See, for example, his speech to the parliamentary group of New Democracy on 9 October 2019: Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. Address of the President of New Democracy Mr Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the Session of the Parliamentary Group of the Party. Available at https://nd.gr/omilia-toy-prothypoyrgoy-kai-proedroy-tis-nd-k-kyriakoy-mitsotaki- sti-synedriasi-tis, (accessed: 1 December, 2019); his address to the congress of New Democracy’s youth organization on 10 October 2019: “the universities are free from the chains of unlawfulness, violence, and the obstruction of free teaching procedures” (Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. Address of the Prime Minister and President of New Democracy Mr Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the 12th Congress of ONNED. Available at: https://nd.gr/omilia-toy- prothypoyrgoy-kai-proedroy-tis-nd-k-kyriakoy-mitsotaki-sto-12o-synedrio-tis-onned [accessed: 1 December 2019]); his interview on a TV station where he associates university asylum with the riots in the town of Thessaloniki and drug trafficking; he refers to a regime of immunity and unlawfulness, including his address with regard to the presentation of the party’s programme: “The Universities will be released from unlawfulness, from rioters, from drug traffickers, from those that blackmail and terrify students and professors in the name of their allegedly ideological supremacy”, (Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. Interview of the President of New Democracy Mr Kyriakos Mitsotakis on SKAI, on the Programme “Atairiastoi” and to Journalists Christos Koytras and Giannis Ntsounos. Available at: https://nd.gr/synenteyxi-toy-proedroy-tis-neas-dimokratias-k-kyriakoy-mitsotaki-ston-skai-stin- ekpompi-atairiastoi [accessed: 1 December 2019]) and Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. Presentation of the Governmental Programme of New Democracy by the President of the party Mr Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Available at: https://nd.gr/paroysiasi-toy-kyvernitikoy-programmatos-tis-neas-dimokratias-apo-ton-proedro-toy-kommatos-k- kyriako (accessed: 1 December 2019) respectively). 13 See, for example, his interview on “Atairiastoi” (Mitsotakis Interview on the Programme “Atairiastoi”) in which he connects academic asylum with riots and drug trafficking in the city; his election campaign’s central address: “The toleration ends on 8 July. University asylum is abolished within the first month of our government. The universities cease to be the base for some to make Molotov bombs and for the hooded ones to traffic, along with the drug traffickers, their drugs” (Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. Election Campaign’s Central Address of the President of New Democracy Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis at Thissio. Available at: https://nd.gr/kentriki-proeklogiki-omilia-toy-proedroy- tis-nd-k-kyriakoy-mitsotaki-sto-thiseio (accessed: 3 December 2019); and finally the governmental programme of his party in which the abolishment of university asylum is part of its safety policy, Mitsotakis. Presentation of the Governmental Programme. 14 See, for example, Tvxs.gr, Reportage Without Frontiers, 2010. The Chronicle of a Murder Foretold (Documentary), 3 December 2010. Available at: http://dai.ly/xfx9q4 (accessed: 28 November 2019).

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buildings. In 2015, the current Prime Minister and at that time candidate for the Presidency of New Democracy blamed him for the fact that New Democracy surrendered Athens to the anarchists without reacting; he made it clear that this was the reason that he did not vote for Pavlopoulos for the Presidency of Democracy, even though the latter came from his party and he was proposed by SYRIZA.15

One certain purpose of the total and definite abolition of university asylum by the government of New Democracy is to prepare the ground for the privatization of the existing universities and the foundation of new private universities in the country. The privatization of all existing public property, state-owned and public corporations—like the Public Corporation of Electricity, the hospitals, or the museums, for example—is a known and declared aim of the government of New Democracy.16 The foundation of private universities—or non-profit universities, as they are better called—is part of the wishful thinking of the government and the many private interests that support it, even though it is not allowed by the Greek Constitution, which provides that universities in Greece can only be public. However, there is some evidence that the government will try to impinge on public education and prepare the ground for the private universities; the abolition of the university asylum is one step forward in this direction.

Nevertheless, the abolishment of university asylum is something more than just good business: it is an emblematic movement of an authoritarian and conservative government against a symbol of the non-state public and of the fight against state coercion and police suppression—a movement against the concept of democracy that puts citizens’ rights and freedom before order. New Democracy under the leadership of Mitsotakis considers safety to be the first obligation of the state and the first presupposition of the citizens’ individual freedoms,17 as Mitsotakis has insisted that there is dangerous violence at the

15 Anonymous Author. The epilogue of Karamanlis’ Government Was Written in December 2008. Skai.gr, 17 December 2015. Available at: http://www.skai.gr/news/politics/article/302099/mitsotakis-ston-skai-ktizetai- stugno-kommatiko-kratos-sheseis-suriza-me-alites/#ixzz46IuHNJEj (accessed: 28 November 2019). 16 See, for example, the statement of the Minister of Development and Research, Adonis Georgiadis, in a parliamentary debate: “You understand, we were elected by the Greek people saying that we will proceed to mass privatizations. Did you listen to me, to Mr Voridis [deputy of the party and Minister of Agricultural Development and Foods, known for his far-right opinions and keen adherent of the state suppression, see, for example, his defense of the police operation in the Economic and Business University of Athens by claiming that the beating is necessary in order the state to impose the law and it is a legal action,” (Anonymous Author. Simera. Voridis: It Is Not Possible to Impose the Law with Roses. Skai.gr, 13 November 2019. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VJMLUvNkWI (accessed: 2 December 2019). The relative abstract can be found in the minutes: 0:00-11:33 and especially in the minutes: 5:37-6:20, to Mr Mitsotakis pledging nationalizations to the Greek people before the election, Mr Pappas (deputy of SYRIZA to whom Georgiadis addresses his response)? Or did you listen to us saying mass privatizations?” (Georgiadis, Adonis. Plenary Session, 17 October 2019. Available at: https://www.hellenicparliament.gr/Vouli-ton-Ellinon/ToKtirio/Fotografiko- Archeio/#9a6a45f7-99be-4661-ac88-aaea009ef1cd, the relative abstract is in the minute: 24:04-24:29 (accessed: 2 December 2019). 17 Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. Address of the Leader of Opposition Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the Debate on Off-agenda Item in the Parliament Regarding the Citizens’ Safety. Available at: https://nd.gr/nea/omilia-toy-arhigoy-tis- axiomatikis-antipoliteysis-k-kyriakoy-mitsotaki-stin-pro-imerisias-0 (accessed: 28 November 2019).

The Abolition of University Asylum as the Inauguration of the Era of (New) Authoritarianism in Greece

universities that is like every other kind of violence and threatens Greek society like unlawfulness, terrorism and criminality of every other kind.18

As the PM himself has claimed, the problem of public order demands an approach of zero tolerance and not even the slightest sign of anomie should be tolerated. The government has adopted the broken window theory and wihes to apply it without hesitation or delay.19 Furthermore, the abolishment of academic asylum symbolizes the attack of the state on any thought that turns against it, and any movement that could literally or figuratively put it under threat or call its power into question. It is an attack against the opposition movements in Greece: even though they indeed are in a state of recession, this does not affect the state’s will to restrict them even more or be prepared for any possible rise in the future. Finally, this abolition could be interpreted as a signal to the police that they can operate without limits or rules, and that they are the real guardians of public order and do not have to worry about apologizing for their brutal actions or the violence they use against demonstrators. An example of this new (and at the same time, so old) practice of the Greek police can be found in the evacuation of a squat at the Athens University of Economics and Business and the suppression by the police in various recent cases that is unlike that of a democratic and liberal European state. The violence against the demonstration on the anniversary of the revolt of 17th of November 1973 against the dictatorship, and the torture of arrested persons in the neighborhood of Exarchia (that included even virtual rape against a known member of an anarchist activist group) in a police operation in the neighborhood on November 11th, 2019 are examples of a few recent instances.20

The law and order dogma has been used for the evacuations of various squats across the country—not only in Athens, although most of them were in the capital—some of which that were used by refugee families and asylum seekers who preferred to live in squats rather than in camps. This wave of evacuations began almost immediately after the national elections in the summer and could also be interpreted as part of the turn towards authoritarianism, as until then the squats were treated with tolerance and not as a dangerous threat against public order and the law; the elimination of this threat, along with the implementation of the law and order agenda and the abolition of the university asylum, is a sign of the ideological defeat of the ideas of the left and, if the ideas of New Democracy are finally accepted by society, it will be a landmark change in the ideological paradigm in the country.21 This was explicitly expressed by a major MP, who defends these policies and justifies them because they were

18 Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. 76th Session, 5073-74. Available at: https://www.hellenicparliament.gr/UserFiles/a08fc2dd- 61a9-4a83-b09a-09f4c564609d/es20170217.pdf (accessed: 28 November 2019). 19 Mitsotakis, 76th Session, 5074. 20 Louka, Maria, Tortures by the Anti-Riot Police Signed by the Government. Available at: https://omniatv.com/853454496?fbclid=IwAR2hdJM2ztE_IBvwwiSGxiWPwNIWsjeLBh_EdfNMmec6IV1wSnZkficU fbw (accessed: 2 December 2019). 21 Voridis, Mavroudis, Plenary Session, 18 December 2019, Available at: https://www.hellenicparliament.gr/Vouli- ton-Ellinon/ToKtirio/Fotografiko-Archeio/#4d832dad-ac14-4ebf-90e3-ab28009f9701 (accessed: 2 February 2019). The relative abstract can be found at minutes 1:31:25-1:38:27, along with his ideological manifesto about the change of the ideological paradigm, the uselessness of the Marxist ideas, and the forthcoming end of the ideological hegemony of the left in the country.

Dimitra Mareta

voted in as a whole—along with the financial policy and others—by Greek society.

Apart from the law about university asylum, PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced during his address to the party’s congress on its last day that until the end of the year a bill would be introduced in the Greek Parliament concerning

“…the announcement, the organization, and the allocation of demonstrations. With full respect to the constitutionally entrenched right to gathering but based on the volume and burden that the protest of few causes on the lives of millions of people. For this is what it means at last to be with the many and not with the few.”22

Even though this bill has been announced twice—once in this congress and once in the first days of 2020 during a Council of the Ministers—it has not yet been introduced and we do not know its final provisions. Nevertheless, there is still a dual reading of this statement. The first is that with it the PM counters the main slogan of the electoral campaign of SYRIZA for the European elections in May 2019, which was “now it is the time for the many,” a slogan that is considered to be inspired by the slogan of Britain’s Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn “for the many, not the few.” The second reading is that the state is eager to restrict the constitutional right to protest and demonstrate in order to safeguard what it believes to be the utmost good—the undisturbed and unobstructed exercise of the majority’s economic activities, even when it occurs at the expense of the rights of smaller social groups. But, as John Stuart Mill would remind us, the protection of minorities against the will of the majority and the protection of all from the oppressive exercise of the authority are the most essential purposes of a liberal political community.

Conclusion Even though the abolition of university asylum could be considered as just another law of a newly elected government, this analysis has claimed that it is rather the beginning of an era in which the state will rule based on the “law and order” dogma instead of the rule of law. The law and order dogma—along with a privatization agenda—was the basic pylon of the electoral campaign of New Democracy and today is implemented first in the universities and then in various squats across the country. Promoted as the fulfillment of the party’s pledges, it is the first step that would enable police forces to enter to the universities at their own will and construct a new consensus based on obedience to and acceptance of the authority of the state, because it can guarantee order. Therefore, the abolition of university asylum should not be considered as a necessary law that will bring about the desired growth of Greek economy after more than ten years of crisis, but as an emblematic movement used to declare the end of the toleration era and in its place the rise of a new era in Greek politics, that of the authoritarian state.

22 Mitsotakis, Kyriakos. Address of the Prime Minister and President of New Democracy Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the termination of the 13rd Congress of New Democracy. Available at: https://nd.gr/omilia-toy-prothypoyrgoy-kai- proedroy-tis-neas-dimokratias-k-kyriakoy-mitsotaki-gia-kleisimo-ton (accessed: 2 December 2019).

The Abolition of University Asylum as the Inauguration of the Era of (New) Authoritarianism in Greece

Given the recession of the opposition movements and their tepid reactions to this abolition, it will be a very interesting experiment to watch; this mainly refers to the possible resistance the movements will show (or will not show) to the crucial changes the state is currently working on and not to the abolishment of academic asylum itself. As the previous decade favored the rise and the prevalence of conservative political ideologies and attitudes in Greece, the new decade seems to be even riper for moving in an even more conservative direction. After all, the authoritarianism introduced recently in the country— and the argumentation and rhetoric that defend and accompany it—are all part of the conservative ideology that with various forms and names is gaining ground throughout Europe and strives to eliminate any progressive or radical legacy. Even though Greece has its own political dynamic, if and how this authoritarianism will finally prevail or be prevented will be influenced to a considerable degree by the relative developments in Europe.

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The Abolition of University Asylum as the Inauguration of the Era of (New) Authoritarianism in Greece

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