New Partisans

New Partisans was a short-lived mid-1980s movement on the Yugoslav rock scene. The term was used to denote albums by Sarajevo-based bands Bijelo Dugme, Plavi Orkestar and Merlin which were

The mid-1980s in Yugoslavia were marked by political turmoil. Death of Yugoslavia’s president for life Josip Broz Tito in 1980 was followed by growing liberalization in arts and culture, but also by the growing problem of foreign debt, and by protests of Kosovo Albanians, which demanded more autonomy within the country. By the mid-1980s, the tensions between Yugoslav republics emerged, and nationalism was on the rise. However, despite the tensions in the country, the Yugoslav rock scene flourished as one of the richest and most vibrant rock scenes of Europe. Prior to the appearance of New Partisans, the 1980s Yugoslav rock had already seen several music scenes and subcultural movements with the prefix New. The Yugoslav new wave scene, closely associated with the Yugoslav punk rock scene, emerged in the late 1970s on the country’s rock scene, up to that point dominated by progressive and hard rock bands. The new wave scene’s peak in the early 1980s came in synchronicity with the death of Josip Broz Tito and new tendencies in art and culture. The bands like Pankrti, Paraf, Azra, Prljavo Kazalište, Pekinška Patka, Film, Haustor, Lačni Franz, Idoli, Električni Orgazam, Šarlo Akrobata, U Škripcu, Piloti and others recorded songs which were critical of the Yugoslav social reality, experimenting and conjoining with other art forms, with some veteran acts, like Bijelo Dugme, Parni Valjak and Buldožer, joining in on the new, exuberant scene. In 1984, the band started the informal art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (German for New Slovenian Art) with visual arts group IRWIN and Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, continuing to provoke the Yugoslav public. Finally, in Sarajevo, the New Primitivism movement emerged in the early 1980s, initially in the form of humorous sketches in Radio Sarajevo show Primus, and later through the work of the bands Zabranjeno Pušenje and Elvis J. Kurtović & His Meteors and their show Top lista nadrealista. Through their ironical songs and their Pythonesque TV show, the New Primitives ridiculed the staggering Yugoslav economy and Yugoslav social reality, the petty-bourgeois mentality, and their predecessors on the Yugoslav scene, including Yugoslav new wave bands and their city’s and the country’s biggest band, Bijelo Dugme. In his 2013 book Kako smo propevali: Jugoslavija i njena muzika (How We Started to Sing: Yugoslavia and Its Music), Serbian and Yugoslav music journalist and author Ivan Ivačković dedicated a chapter to New Partisans movement entitled “Poslednje bitke Mirka i Slavko” (“The Last Battles of Mirko and Slavko”). In the chapter, Ivačković pointed out that the Yugoslavs born in the mid-1960s, like Plavi Orkestar leader Saša Lošić, got a notion of the Yugoslav Partisans struggle through popular 1960s and 1970s comic Mirko and Slavko and Partisan films. He wrote:

The beginnings (1984–1985)#

In December 1984, Bijelo Dugme released their self-titled album, unofficially widely known as Kosovka devojka (Kosovo Maiden) due to the usage of the famous painting by Serbian painter Uroš Predić on the cover. It was the band’s first and only album recorded with vocalist Mladen Vojičić “Tifa”, who came to the band as the replacement for Bijelo Dugme’s original vocalist Željko Bebek. Despite featuring new and up to that point relatively unknown vocalist, the album was a huge commercial success, selling more than 420,000 copies. The album was co-released by the state-owned label Diskoton and the newly-founded private label Kamarad, started by the band’s leader Goran Bregović. In 1985, Plavi Orkestar released their debut album Soldatski Bal (Soldiers’ Ball). Led by vocalist and principal songwriter Saša Lošić, the band had been formed three years earlier, and was in their early phase associated with the New Primitivism movement. The group gained the attention of Yugoslavia’s biggest record label Jugoton after starting to cooperate with music manager and promoter Goran Marić, alias Malkolm Muharem. However, among more alternative-oriented Yugoslav audience the album was met with negative reactions. The music critics described the band as a pale copy of Bijelo Dugme, however, the album sold 60,000 copies, much to surprise of the country’s music journalists.

The peak (1986–1987)#

In 1986, Bijelo Dugme released their new studio album Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo (Spit and Sing, My Yugoslavia), recorded with new vocalist Alen Islamović. Bregović’s idea was to have Vukov sing the ballad “Ružica si bila, sada više nisi” (“You Were Once a Little Rose”). A World War II holder of the Order of the People’s Hero still appeared on the record, however, instead of Koča Popović, it was Svetozar Vukmanović Tempo. He, together with Bregović and children from the Ljubica Ivezić orphanage in Sarajevo, sang a cover of “Padaj silo i nepravdo” (“Fall, (Oh) Force and Injustice”), an old revolutionary song. In 1987, the band released the live album Mramor, kamen i željezo (Marble, Stone and Iron), recorded on the promotional tour. In the interview for November 1986 issue of Rock magazine, Dino Dervišhalidović stated: “I’m sad because in these times people believe more in lottery and sports betting than in any ideals”, expressing his longing for “war and post-war morality” and stating that he feels sorry because “Partisan girls don’t go through our street no more”. Hari Mata Hari, Bolero, and Crvena Jabuka. The mid-1980s albums by some of these acts featured songs with lyrics inspired by brotherhood and unity, like Valentino’s “Jugovići” (“Jugovićs”, the title being a Yugoslav slang for Yugoslavs), Hari Mata Hari’s “Naše malo misto” (“Our Little Town”) and Crvena Jabuka’s “Ako, ako” (“If, if”) and “Jedina” (“Only One”), while Bolero included a cover of the old Husino rebellion song “Konjuh planinom” (“Across Konjuh Mountain”) on their 1986 concept album O Jesenjinu (Of Yesenin). and the second album by another Belgrade-based pop rock band, Alisa, was heavily influenced by the sound of Sarajevo bands. However, despite pop rock sound with folk elements and occasional brotherhood and unity-themed songs, Partisan struggle and Yugoslavism were never predominant in the bands’ lyrics and imagery and these groups were not labeled as New Partisans. Large part of the Yugoslav public, especially in the republics of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzgovina, Macedonia and Montenegro, feeling concerned with the future of the country, welcomed the Yugoslavist themes and iconography in rock music. However, the reactions of the Yugoslav music critics were generally negative, largely due to the bands’ blend of rock and folk, compared by the music press to Yugoslav “newly-composed folk music”, which was at the time denounced in Yugoslavia by the largest part of both the academic public and the pop culture media. At the time of the three albums release, the Yugoslav music press accepted the term “New Partisans” coined by Goran Bregović Despite the commercial success of Bijelo Dugme’s 1986 album, there were negative reviews coming from prominent critics. One of them was Belgrade rock journalist Dragan Kremer. In 1987, Kremer appeared as guest on TV Sarajevo’s show Mit mjeseca (Myth of the Month), a programme pitting Yugoslav rock critics against the country’s rock stars, allowing critics to directly pose questions to musicians sitting across from them in the same studio. In the case of Kremer’s appearance, however, Bregović wasn’t in the studio due to being on tour; Kremer’s taped questions were thus shown to Bregović while his reaction was filmed. Expressing his opinion about the band’s new direction, Kremer tore the album cover, which provoked Bregović to publicly insult Kremer, which became one of the larger media scandals of the time. Part of the music press accused Bregović and Lošić of hypocrisy, describing them as wealthy stars defending the socialist system out of selfish reasons. They were described by some Yugoslav journalists as “bourgeois rock revolutionaries” and “bureaucrats, hiding behind slogans calling for change, in order not to change themselves”.

The decline (1988)#

In 1988, the movement declined. Unsatisfied with low record sales of Smrt fašizmu! and half-empty halls on their promotional tour, Plavi Orkestar ended their cooperation with Malkolm Muharem, and decided to go on a discographic hiatus. At the beginning of 1989, the band went on a tour. Despite well-attended concerts, on some of the group’s performances in Croatia, the audience booed and threw various objects on stage when the band performed their pro-Yugoslav songs. After the concert in Modriča, held on 15 March, with four concerts left until the end of the tour, Alen Islamović checked into a hospital with kidney pains. This event revealed the existing conflicts inside the band, with Bregović claiming Islamović had no health issues during the tour. The tour was not continued, and Bregović went to Paris, leaving Bijelo Dugme’s status open for speculations. As Yugoslav Wars broke out in 1991, it became clear that Bijelo Dugme would not continue their activity.

Legacy#

In 1998, Duško Antonić and Danilo Štrbac conducted a poll among 70 Serbian music critics, journalists, artists and other individuals whose work has been in some way related to Yugoslav rock scene, in order to create a list of 100 Greatest Albums of Yugoslav Popular Music. The results of the poll and the list were published in the book YU 100: najbolji albumi jugoslovenske rok i pop muzike (YU 100: the Greatest Yugoslav Rock and Pop Music Albums). The list features two albums from Bijelo Dugme’s 1984–1988 period, Bijelo Dugme, polled No.28, and Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo, polled No.53. In 2015, Croatian edition of Rolling Stone conducted a poll among Croatian music critics for 100 Greatest Yugoslav Albums, with Soldatski bal appearing on the 97th place on the list. In 2000, Serbian music magazine Rock Express conducted a poll for 100 greatest Yugoslav rock songs among its readers, 120 music journalists and 100 musicians. The list, entitled Rock Express Top 100 Yugoslav Rock Songs of All Times and published in the magazine’s 25th issue, features two songs from Bijelo Dugme’s 1984 self-titled album, “Lipe cvatu, sve je isto ko i lani” (“Linden Trees Are in Bloom, Everything’s just like It Used to Be”), polled No.10, and “Za Esmu” (“For Esma”), polled No.78., and one song from Plavi Orkestar’s debut, “Bolje biti pijan nego star”, polled No.75. In 2006, Serbian Radio B92 organized a poll among its listeners for the selection of top 100 Yugoslav songs. On their B92 Top 100 Domestic Songs list, Plavi Orkestar’s song “Goodbye Teens” from Soldatski bal was ranked No.97. In 2015, Serbian web magazine Balkanrock published a list of 100 Greatest Album Covers of Yugoslav Rock. On the list, Bijelo Dugme album cover was ranked No.1, Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo cover was ranked No.3, Teško meni sa tobom (a još teže bez tebe) cover was ranked No.49 and Soldatski bal cover was ranked No.58. In Kako smo propevali: Jugoslavija i njena muzika, Ivan Ivačković wrote about the movement:

Genre family: 1980s in music, Yugoslav rock music