Echoing the Beats of Turbo-folk

Popular Music and Nationalism in ex-Yugoslavia

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  • Markéta Slavková

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14712/12128112.3614

Klíčová slova:

former Yugoslavia, Serbia, turbo-folk, popular music, nationalism, identity formation

Abstrakt

This paper discusses the popular musical phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia known as “turbo-folk” – also referred to as “the music of the war.” In the late 1980s and early 1990s, “turbo-folk” partly emerged from a postmodern mix of more readily accessible modern technologies (turbo – techno-pop beat) and the desire for “retraditionalization” (folk). Therefore, it could be seen as part of the occurrence of “the invention of tradition” in the process of re-constructing a group’s identity. This peculiar synthesis of transformed tradition combined with modernity could also be traced back to the communist-led social engineering and rapid urbanization, which, in fact, led to mass “ruralization” of the cities in Yugoslavia at the time. Noticeably more than any other music genre, “turbo-folk” has closely been linked to the expansion of nationalism, in which it played an important role in spreading the nationalistic discourse and “satisfying” the emotions of the masses. I argue that “Turbo-folk,” as a “form of identity,” continues to be closely related to the broader socio-political trends in the former Yugoslav countries.

Biografie autora

Markéta Slavková

received a Bachelor of Humanities degree with a focus on social anthropology in 2007 at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Currently she is completing a Master’s degree in “General Anthropology – The Integral Studies of Man” at the same institution. Between 2008 and 2009 she studied at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she concentrated on the former Yugoslavia region. At Melbourne she participated in the “(Post) Yugoslav Identities Conference” that took place on the 26th and 27th of September 2008 at the University of Melbourne. As well as manifestations of nationalism in the region of the former Yugoslavia, she studies transnationalism, migration and the anthropology of consumption.

Stahování

Publikováno

2010-07-01

Jak citovat

Slavková, M. (2010). Echoing the Beats of Turbo-folk: Popular Music and Nationalism in ex-Yugoslavia. Lidé města, 12(2), 419-439. https://doi.org/10.14712/12128112.3614

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