„Село моје лепше од Париза“ - народна музика у социјалистичкој Југославији
My Village, More Beautiful than Paris: Folk Music in Socialist Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the most popular musical form in the socialist Yugoslavia. Having been a predominantly peasant country until WWII, folk music was the most popular kind of music in the country even after the change of the social system. The communist government started a modernizing program which spurred urbanization, but the new town-dwellers retained their peasant musical taste. For that reason folk music remained the most popular musical form throughout the decades of socialism. It had essentially two forms: original folk music - made by anonymous authors in the previous ages and transmitted by live performances - and industrially made folk music, made and sung by professional singers. The latter form was the popular music of the country. Most of its authors stemmed from the Eastern and South-Eastern parts of the country. Majority of its adherents was of poorer and less educated background, but parts of the newly educated technical intelligentsia and Party leaders were also fond of it. Stars of this kind of music often led a Hollywood-style lives, undermining thus the official model of communist austerity. The “Newly-composed Folk Music”, as it was called, survived the break-up of Yugoslavia, and even spread into the territories where it had few adherents before.

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