Goran Bregović, a musician from Bosnia and Herzegovina known in Poland for his collaboration with Kajah, found himself at the center of a political scandal in Croatia, along with his band Bijelo Dugme.
The band is currently on tour in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and last night they played in Split, Croatia. About halfway through the show, the lead singer sang the song “Spit and sing my Yugoslavia”. It is a song from the later period of the band’s work, from the album of the same name, released in 1986. The song is a kind of homage to the communist state of the South Slavs, which was already beginning to collapse. Bregović, as a loyal Yugoslav and supporter of this regime, tried to “save” his country with this song. We know perfectly well how it all ended – with a bloody war caused by the imperialism of Greater Serbia.
Now, for some reason, he decided to return to the song and perform it in one of the largest Croatian cities. As the band sang the song, the flag of communist Yugoslavia appeared on the big screen behind them.
The same place where, during the last war, Serbian troops bombed Croatian cities in an attempt to conquer them. With this in mind, the performance of Bregović and his team was unpleasant, to say the least. Not to mention the fact that the flag is the symbol of a totalitarian state. Films of the concert show the audience’s mixed reactions to this behavior. Some spectators greeted the music with whistles, others with approval.
After the concert, however, several war veterans’ associations protested against the artist. The Zagreb association filed a complaint against the organizers and artists for promoting symbols of totalitarian ideologies. However, this was symbolic in nature, because in Croatia there is no law regulating the use of totalitarian symbols in public spaces.
The conservative Patriotic Movement party, which is part of the governing coalition with the center-right HDZ party, also spoke.
“We consider the performance of this song in homage to the Yugoslav State, in a city that was the victim of a brutal naval blockade, bombings and torture by the army serving that State, as an unprecedented provocation against the Croatian people and the State.”
Personally, I think this is not a provocation, but rather a completely wrong assessment by Bregović, who thought he could sing this song in Croatia. Goran Bregović is a conformist, a man who throughout his career has never risked conflict with the establishment, be it communist, post-communist or any other. If his band played this song, it means he thought he would not have any problems.
It seems he was a little wrong.
