How ravers harmonised Yugoslavia Turbofolk is the fuel for national identity

“We’re not here for nostalgia,” insists middle-aged party-goer Boris as he sips his fiery fruit brandy below a street sign emblazoned with the name of a communist anti-Nazi partisan, “Because we never stopped — we listen to this music every day. It reminds us of unity, of having a country on a level with other countries.”

Boris’s protestations notwithstanding, the ex-Yu music undeniably rides the crest of a broader wave of what’s called Yugonostalgia, a political and cultural yearning for the better quality of life, inter-ethnic tolerance and unity which marked the socialist era in the Western Balkans along with regret for the Nineties wars which engulfed the region. It’s far from a fringe phenomenon. A remarkable 81% of people in Serbia and 77% in multicultural Bosnia regret the collapse of Tito’s federation — though the figures are lower in pro-Western Slovenia and Kosovo. Restaurants bedecked in kitsch communist memorabilia are as common as populist politicians laying dubious claim to the socialist heritage.

“You had three religions, six different republics, Roman, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian culture,” recalls ex-Yu DJ Dušan, one half of the Yugoton project, a duo creating some of the scene’s most popular music. “My father told me, why would you need to leave? You had everything here.”

Uniquely in Europe, Tito’s partisans were able to kick out the Nazis, establish their own state, and resist co-option by either Stalin or the Western powers — thanks to canny statesmanship, they were able to place Yugoslavia at the head of a “Non-Aligned Movement”, encompassing over half the world’s population. Thereafter, a mixed economy and Marshall Plan aid combined with socialist protections and an anti-Stalinist political culture to guarantee a generally high standard of living.

Craftily playing Washington against Moscow while remaining independent from both, Yugoslavia enjoyed outsized diplomatic importance. As the two blocs both courted Yugoslavia, ordinary locals could travel freely to both East and West, using one of the world’s most powerful passports — a fact which would rapidly change in the Nineties, when the country descended into war and its passport became as useless as its rapidly devalued currency. (The Yugoland theme-park now issues its own novelty passports, claiming over 9,000 “citizens”).

Tito’s regime had guaranteed inter-ethnic cooperation on the basis of common prosperity, but as economic crisis worsened, foreign powers colluded with cynical local politicians to exploit nationalist grievances. Those wars were soundtracked by the emergent genre of turbofolk: an eclectic form of music, pivoting wildly between accordion and eurodance beats, while eulogising the warlords and gangsters who profited from the violence. Songs from the “Cocktail of Patriotic Hits” compilation show minarets under tank fire, paramilitaries and Nato bombing, while threatening the end of the region’s Muslim population. Turbofolk heroine Ceca was even married to infamous indicted war criminal Željko ‘Arkan’ Ražnatović, a bank robber and football hooligan who led his “Tigers” paramilitary group in their slaughter of scores of civilians.

But it’s now two decades since the hostilities ended. The region has been left in limbo, as America, Brussels and Russia prop up various successor regimes that are frequently denied any real hope of accession to the EU. “Now we have different flags, different borders, different anthems — but what else is different? Nothing,” laments Dušan. “Now we say I’m Serbian, I’m Croatian, I’m Bosnian — but are you happier? Are you living better? The salaries are hardly any different, and young people from everywhere are leaving, going to Germany for work.”

The much maligned turbofolk still plays in Belgrade clubs, including some from which the US has banned its embassy personnel over concerns of anti-American violence. But overtly militaristic themes are now rather less common than straightforward celebrations of wealth, sex, and gangster success: it’s a latter-day spirit of capitalist nihilism tinged with camp, Eurovision-style provocation. It has even been argued that turbofolk itself provides a platform for “cultural reconciliation” between young people from the different Balkan nations, particularly in the diaspora, where ethnic differences can blur and be forgotten in the name of a common, defiant Balkan spirit.

And indeed, the atmosphere at the Belgrade ex-Yu party isn’t wholly dissimilar to the vibe in popular mainstream clubs. Drinks here are four times the price in Yugoland, and the affluent, well-dressed crowd includes young Serbs who have travelled back from Germany, Canada and Australia to visit their homeland. Some older revellers pour scorn on the “trash turbofolk” being played elsewhere, and suggest even this crowd is too busy updating their Instagram stories to enjoy the atmosphere. “This music is older than we are,” cries one delighted, topless young man. “It’s what my parents played!”

There is no equivalent broad, nostalgic cultural movement in the countries of the former USSR or Warsaw Pact. But here, young people frustrated with contemporary regional politics can find common cause with ageing communists on the dancefloor.

“People who come to our parties are aged 18 to 70s, grannies and granddaughters,” says Dušan. He recalls playing a show near Vukovar, a small Croatian village lying beside the Serbian border, where ethnic Croats from a community which suffered severe violence during the Nineties nonetheless chanted “let’s go, Belgrade” in a message of tolerance to the Serbian DJs. “Especially in Bosnia and Sarajevo, people say Tito’s time was the best,” says the DJ, referring to the cosmopolitan “little Yugoslavia” which suffered the worst ethnic violence in the Nineties. “They are mostly Muslims, but they treat us like brothers. The music connects us.”

It’s no coincidence that the Yugoton Project’s most loved remix is the theme to a late Eighties Yugoslav soap opera called “Better life”. By the time the sitcom reached screens, the collapse of Yugoslavia was already an inevitability. Now, even the most Yugo-nostalgic locals admit there is no likelihood of a renewed federation emerging any time soon. But as Dušan says, “the song speaks about wanting a better life, and every one of us wants that — something better, to move on.”

As the boats moored by the floating nightclub pull away and drift downstream, the families aboard flash the nationalist a three-fingered Serbian salute. And you wonder what the communist guerilla-turned-statesman Tito, glowering down from the DJ’s t-shirts, would make of the contemporary Belgrade nightclub scene.

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Matt Broomfield is a freelance journalist and co-founder of the Rojava Information Center, the leading independent English-language news source in north and east Syria.

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