Socially ENgaged Music

In both socialist Yugoslavia and postwar Croatia some music reflected on and critiqued the present and envisaged a better tomorrow. Today such socially engaged music also rebuilds cultural ties across post-Yugoslav borders. 

With Ana Marković (The Socio-political Significance of Socially Engaged Music in Post-Yugoslav Space).

Listen: “Socially Engaged Music” (Episode #125)

Bonus Extras: “Socially Engaged Music” (Episode #125)

Ad-free version of “Socially Engaged Music” (Episode #125).

Transcript: “Socially Engaged Music” (Episode #125)

PETER KORCHNAK: This episode of Remembering Yugoslavia is brought to you by Yugoblok, a member-supported global community and resource hub for all who remember Yugoslavia. Through membership contributions, Yugoblok members make this podcast (and a whole lot more) accessible and freely available to all. Members can also listen to episodes ad-free and enjoy extended and bonus episodes.

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PETER KORCHNAK: This is Remembering Yugoslavia, a Yugoblok show exploring the memory of a country that no longer exists. I’m your DJ, Peter Korchnak.

Earlier this month at my Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana I sat in on a doctoral defense of Ana Marković. It was a stellar performance and the most interesting topic. 

Marković’s dissertation The Socio-political Significance of Socially Engaged Music in Post-Yugoslav Space quote “explores how such music articulates political critique and social reflection in post-conflict and post-socialist societies marked by the transition from socialism to capitalism.” Very relevant.

Marković was born in Yugoslavia (her words) and her formative years were marked by war. She spoke to me from Rijeka where she works as an independent consultant and grant writer. She is a jazz-leaning singer and is working to create a jazz hub in Rijeka.

ANA MARKOVIĆ: What pushed me into this is not to prove that music can change anything, necessarily, and especially not this sociopolitical reality of the region that we live in, or, you know, Croatia as a country, but to understand how people can survive, and how they actually survive in the world that already is changed.

Growing up, many things that we have lived through, they were not articulated, they were not explained, or at least not properly. And music was one of the places or the spaces where those lived experiences were actually, you know, properly articulated. They became real, they were articulated in the language that people can understand, that they can recognize something that is true. 

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PETER KORCHNAK: In Marković’s definition, socially engaged music is “a genre shaped by post-war disillusionment with political elites and expanding over time to address a wide range of socio-political and cultural issues.”

Her analysis covers the period from 1995 to 2025. She looked at the content of 80 socially engaged songs whose critiques ranged from institutional corruption to identity, gender, and power, and to neoliberal individualism and consumer culture. 

Marković also interviewed musicians and listeners. The musicians she interviewed included, for example, members of Hladno pivo, The Beat Fleet, and Dubioza Kolektiv, as well as rapper Edo Maajka. The research quote “highlights the role of these musicians in rebuilding cultural ties across post-Yugoslav borders through cross-regional collaboration, festivals, and digital platforms.” 

Let’s start at the beginning. As it goes with such things, the roots of Marković’s interest in socially engaged music dates back to her childhood in the 1980s and teenage years. 

ANA MARKOVIĆ: Parents struggle[d] economically. When we were young, kids, me and my sibling, we would go to school, and they could not provide us with food for the school lunch or with the money to buy a lunch. Luckily, our home was near school, so we would run during the long break to to we would run home, and we would eat bread and butter so I did not—- really it did not stay with me as something negative, but I can only imagine how my parents felt back then, because I have a child myself now, and I don’t know, how would I stand the fact that I could not provide food to him.

PETER KORCHNAK: The 1980s was the decade in Yugoslavia when, according to Dalibor Mišina, writing in his book Shake, Rattle, and Roll: Yugoslav Rock Music and the Poetics of Social Critique, music, some music anyway, became quote “an important popular-cultural outlet for reflecting upon the ideal of Yugoslav socialist community, grappling with discrepancies between the proclaimed and the existing, and—at its most explicit—envisioning the possibilities for overcoming the problems of the country’s cultural and political realities. Yugoslav rock music figure[d] as the most consequential popular-cultural catalyst of socio-cultural and socio-political critique in [the] Yugoslav society.” Certain segments of rock’n’roll were quote “grounded in serious artistic dedication to society and responsibility to audiences.” In other, or Marković’s words, socially engaged music. 

In the late Yugoslav period, musicians of New Wave, New Primitives, and New Partisans movements directly reflected on Yugoslavia’s realities and aimed quote “not to tear down but to help construct and realize the country’s self-proclaimed ideal of a genuine socialist-humanist community.” So rather than overthrow the system they lived in, [they] wanted to improve it, to make Yugoslav socialism what it said it wanted to be. 

Marković came of age in what is in Croatia called the Homeland War.

ANA MARKOVIĆ: My mom is Croatian, my dad is Serbian, and that was a very specific situation back then. When I was in school, I experienced school bullying, but not from students, not from pupils, but from [the homeroom] teacher. It was a very institutional young normalized bullying, where I would be ridiculed and mocked by my teacher from the first to the fourth grade in school, not directly, but indirectly. And that really, you know, that stayed with me. I did not have the language back then to articulate that. Years later, I understood what was going on, and that definitely left a mark on me. 

My father, he was taken to war. And I did not understand the danger of war and what it may bring to us. What I remember actually, from that period is you would wait for our father, when the busses from Lika would come with soldiers, we would wait for them on the square in Rijeka, me and my family. And of course, we were happy to see our dad. But what made me really happy is that he would bring a backpack full of food with, you know, juices or, you know, pineapple cans and stuff like that that they would receive from, I think, Germany. And he would not eat that because he knew he has kids at home, and he would bring that to us. 

So those moments were cut deeply into my memory. And you know, the older I get, the more I understand them, not as happy memories, but as memories of love, of sacrifice and survival. 

PETER KORCHNAK: The war ended, in 1995, but—

ANA MARKOVIĆ: —that didn’t mean things got a lot better, at least in an economic way. The transition happened actually from everyone that had something to some have everything and most have nothing. Factories were being sold, stripped and shut down. People lost their jobs. You would hear adults talk about who took what, who got rich. You know, for my parents, that situation did not mean prosperity that was promised back then by the political elites, but permanent insecurity. Survival became very much an individual struggle. You could not rely on anybody. It was just yourself. And how will you try to survive? How will you manage? 

So what stayed with me the most wasn’t only material poverty, but you know, the moral confusion behind because people who had done, let’s say nothing, suddenly became wealthy overnight and others who worked their entire lives, they lost everything overnight, and no one was held accountable, which created a deep sense of injustice. So this combination—war, mixed identity, displacement, and then this post-war dynamic transition with its corruption, with its inequality—formed the emotional background, not just of myself, but I would say my generation.

PETER KORCHNAK: In these times, the media in Croatia played and pushed music with national and nationalist themes, songs to boost troop morale and build the Croatian nation, including the crap half a million people heard at the Zagreb Hippodrome last July. 

Marković was enchanted with different genres altogether. 

ANA MARKOVIĆ: We were also as kids mostly on our own, we had to, you know, make our own sense in our head, our own meaning of it all, and it was a mess. And it was really a chaos. It was a mess. And what can a 10 year old really pick up? What can, what conclusions can a kid make? I don’t know. I I was confused, and music really helped me, in a way, not just as a 10-year-old, but later on, when I was older, when I was a teenager, it helped me to make sense of the of the situation, that of the environment that I was born and raised in. 

When I would listen to, I don’t know, Hladno Pivo, El Bahati, Edo Maajka, I recognized this background immediately. I could really hear myself, my story in those songs.

PETER KORCHNAK: This socially engaged music emerged from a particular historical moment.

ANA MARKOVIĆ: You had the post war country and you had the post socialist country, and those were two types of transition that was each in, you know, very specific and that music responded to that particular historical momentum. That’s why it was very, you know, direct confrontation, to the situation that we, you know, find ourselves in. 

What war destroyed— So you had to build it all over again, the infrastructure. The displaced people, you had to deal with your own trauma that was linked to war. And then also there was this shift, you know, economical and political, you know, from socialism to, let’s call it a multi party democracy, to neoliberal capitalism, which brought, you know, another set of issues, you know, along with the consequences of war. So that was a really specific situation. 

And this music back then, really spoke to that. It articulated lived experiences that were not recognized by the official narrative. You know, they were often dismissed as individual failures. They were silenced. So music kind of brought people together. You could see, oh, okay, he’s singing, what actually, what I’m feeling or what I went through. I’m not the only one. There are other people who had exact same experiences or similar or even worse experiences. And you know, it served as the emotional support as you know, it brought this, you know, sort of collective meaning making. It was a tool to build this community that shared the same reality as you. And music served as a reminder that you are not alone and that you do not have to be alone.

[SOUNDBITE]

PETER KORCHNAK: In her work Marković focused on music in her native Croatia. That said, there are a couple of Bosnian musicians in her sample. On the one hand, she writes “many songs by Croatian artists reference broader regional dynamics, reflecting shared experiences and challenges across the post-Yugoslav space.” On the other hand, “the inclusion of artists such as Edo Maajka, a Bosnian native, and Dubioza Kolektiv, a Bosnian band, provides a regional perspective…these artists embody the transnational character of socially engaged music in the region, underscoring the fluid boundaries of artistic discourse and its relevance beyond any single national context.” Finally, some of these musicians have lived or live in Croatia and some of their music was released on Croatian labels. 

ANA MARKOVIĆ: They provided me with this, let’s call it a regional perspective, this, let’s say pan Yugoslav perspective, not just the Croatian one, which is okay, but again, they have strong connections with Croatia. 

PETER KORCHNAK: In terms of themes, topics, and texts (lyrics), socially engaged music changed over time—and with the times.

ANA MARKOVIĆ: In the early post war years, and in [the] second half of the 90s, early 2000 the topics were 90 percent connected with war and with the consequences of war, and with this early transition that happened, you know, and with all the consequences it brought with it. So it was mostly, you know, direct confrontation towards that situation. 

And you know, of course, as the years went by, Croatia joined the EU in 2013 that was like the big event, so some of them would ridicule this situation. Of like Croatia finally exiting the Balkans, you know, and joining this European family, you know, to which it always belonged and those stories. And they would ridicule that, because it was obvious for them, perhaps not for the older listeners, but for them, it was obvious that it was, you know, BS, it’s just it wasn’t true. 

And, you know, of course,as neoliberal individualism, as you know, the globalism, it all was, of course, interconnected. You know, it was also in music, so digitalization, platform economy, all of that happened and it was rather new. It wasn’t anymore war topics. It was, you know, topics that would address alienation, isolation, fragmentation, and, you know, struggle of musicians to, let’s say, keep this social engagement within the reality where they need to be entrepreneurs, where they need to have the message that can be very fast, that can be catchy, that can be understood by the listeners in this era of individuality. So they had to struggle, not just with sociopolitical themes and, they had to struggle how to address them, how to present them to the listeners, it’s a whole different set of issues to be addressed.

PETER KORCHNAK: Strategy also changed.

ANA MARKOVIĆ: In early years, it was a direct confrontation, as I’ve mentioned, but later on, what was very much present is that they addressed the issues, sociopolitical issues, through sarcasm, through irony, through humor. It was their language of dealing with sociopolitical issues that they would address. It was their way, not just of dealing, it was their way of survival, of coping with the reality that the musicians lived in, and also to provide listeners who can relate to that music with a tool on how to make sense of the situation, of the environment, of the reality that they live in. So not just the war situation, not just the transition, but also this neoliberal individualism and everything that it brings with itself.

PETER KORCHNAK: So what does this music accomplish?

ANA MARKOVIĆ: Socially engaged music in [the] post-Yugoslav space, or in post-Yugoslav Croatia, is not about changing the— not the world, but, you know, the post Yugoslav space, or bring classical revolutions. You know, it’s about helping people live in that environment, and providing people with a space where they can, where they can imagine some alternative future, some alternative system that might actually work in reality. 

Most people don’t listen to this music to become activists, but they listen to it because it puts words to things that they already feel. You know, the value of this music is the recognition, not the instruction what to do, and you know, how to do it. 

Across different artists and generations, the same issues keep coming up. You know, corruption being one of it, and these songs are essentially mapping the social consequences of war, transition, digitalization. As I’ve already said, there is a shift from direct confrontation toward more ironic, satirical and humorous approach, which doesn’t mean that they started caring less. Irony isn’t apathy, it’s a survival strategy. 

So this music provides a space, space for alternative socio political imaginaries, alternative visions and ideas of a better society, better democratic system. You know, in a Kantian sense, this music works with ideals that may never be realized, but that still matter, because they give people something to orient themselves by. So it doesn’t promise change. It refuses silence. It’s not about utopia. It’s about refusing to let the idea of justice disappear. This music keeps the horizon visible even when no one, particularly you know, believes that they will reach it. 

PETER KORCHNAK: What does this look like in real life? An example Marković used during her dissertation defense was concerts of Edo Maajka in his native Bosnia and Herzegovina, which of course is a country divided into ethnically-based entities.

ANA MARKOVIĆ: People who came to these concerts are not only, you know, Bosniaks or Serbs or Croatians, but are all of them together, which usually is very difficult to summon those people together, because, you know, they live in a society where they live their separate lives, and they do not get along well because of the what political elites serve serves them, you know. So they came together to the concert of Edo Maajka, and he would sing about corruption, he would sing about transition, he would sing about political lies, about everything that happened in this region, and people from, you know, different backgrounds, different nationalities that are usually in conflict, let’s say, they understood, they sang together, they created this collective experience during the concert that, let’s say, provide them, perhaps with a vision or with the possibility that they can actually live together. They can actually, you know, it can. It makes more sense for them to live together in a harmony than to be divided by imposed differences that are actually not real. 

So, okay, it lasted for two hours, or hour and a half, or, I don’t know how long the concert of Edel Michael asked. And obviously, when they went back home, it probably went back to, let’s call it normal. But you know, I think this glimpse of [an]hour-two, this moment that provided them with a vision of alternative future, of something that can actually exist, and I think that is the most revolutionary potential of music, to provide people with the vision of the future that is than this, that is better than this, so called democracy that we were given, because that democracy, those democratic systems that we were promised to have, that was, you know, like the Western democratic values, they are crushing in front of our very eyes, today.

And the importance of this music is to provide, of course, the small tribe of people who listens to it, unfortunately, with this alternative imaginaries that are better than the ones that we are having now so that, as I mentioned, it works with ideals that may never be realized. We don’t know, but it still matters, it still matters because it gives people, you know, something to do, as I said, to orient themselves by.

PETER KORCHNAK: In the end, this music speaks to people not only because they agree with the messages but because they can identify with it on a personal level. 

ANA MARKOVIĆ: Privatization can be studied from various different perspectives. You know, you can use statistics, approaches, laws, whatever. But what that does not capture is the lived experiences of the everyday people. So music captures this emotional and moral dimension of transition, you know, and that those parts that they are not presented in the official histories. 

In this space, we talk about the war, but not that much, about what happened after the war. And this music, it’s where post-war disillusionment, the betrayal, it is documented. And these songs, they form an unofficial archive of transition, you know, the disappointment, the anger, the irony and those things they will never be present in the textbooks, you will never read it anywhere. 

So if we think about Yugoslavia through the lenses of only ideology or the transition only through its economic aspects, we will then unfortunately miss the lives of ordinary people, how they lived through it, how they experienced it. So studying this music is taking, you know, everyday experiences of people very seriously and as a political knowledge. It’s about listening to society when it’s not speaking with the words of power, in the language of power. 

So many of the issues addressed, they did not disappear. They have intensified. They are still here. They are still very much reflected [in] the everyday reality of societies marked by war, prolonged transition, corruption, disillusionment, general disillusionment. So it’s not only about the past, it’s about understanding why—why so many people today feel betrayed, feel tired, feel cynical, and they actually feel disengaged.

[SOUNDBITE]

PETER KORCHNAK: That’s all for this episode of Remembering Yugoslavia, thank you for listening. 

All guests’ opinions expressed are solely their own; unless otherwise noted they do not express, reflect, or represent the views or opinions of any third party, including myself. 

Find additional information, sources, embeds, links, photos, and the transcript of this episode at Yugoblok.com/RememberingYugoslavia.

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Outro music courtesy of Robert Petrić https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOx5DkDkceU. Interludes courtesy of Sticky Keys.

I am Peter Korchňak. 

Ćao!