Rechnet mit uns. Punk und Neue Welle im sozialistischen Jugoslawien
Count on us. Punk and New Wave in Socialist Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the specific context of the punk and new wave scene in Socialist Yugoslavia which flourished before and after Tito’s death in 1980. After a short reflection on the different forms of political articulation in the music scene, the article shows how the state authorities dealt with bands that were perceived as subversive. Instead of rigid censorship like in the Eastern bloc countries, an economic incentive – the so-called trash tax – was used to force bands to consent to the suggestions of their record producers. Despite a few harsh, but still unsuccessful efforts by conservative party officials to shatter the punk scene, a rather liberal strategy of affirmation lead to the support of young musicians via the state infrastructure of the Socialist Youth League which facilitated the development of a vivid and creative punk and new wave scene in Yugoslavia. Further, the article gives a brief overview of the main protagonists and centers of the music scene. The new culture connected young people, regardless of their ethnic or religious background or mother tongue, which put into practice Tito’s vision of “brotherhood and unity” of the Yugoslav people, albeit in an unplanned and delicate manner. The music scene lost its momentum during the economic and political crisis following Tito’s death. It split into explicitly commercial acts on the one hand and avantgarde projects on the other. With the tensions between the Yugoslav Republics growing stronger, the sound became darker, and some bands went with the nationalistic flow. The last part of the article presents the sociopolitical context of the new Youth culture. The punk and new wave music served young people as an outlet for the unease they felt, finding themselves on one side of a generation gap separating them from the unconvincing and pale successors of the heroic partisans and founders of Socialist Yugoslavia who were supposed to be the youth’s idols. Society had come to a halt, after several attempts at reform and opposition had failed. The Socialist rhetoric and rituals seemed outdated to young people. The technique of over-affirmation of empty official phrases, used in the song lyrics, dismantled the socialist ideology which constituted the grounding of the Second Yugoslavia. The slackening of censorship, however, did not promote the democratization of society, but prepared the ground for the nationalist discourse which was previously banned in Yugoslavia.

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