Popular Culture and Cultural Policies and Narratives in Interwar Yugoslavia

Abstract

In the second half of the nineteenth century, diverse forms of Western popular entertainment, sociability, and leisure started to expand to the urban centers of Southeast Europe. The peak of this process was reached in the decades following the end of the First World War. As it unfolded simultaneously with attempts at political and cultural integration in so-called first Yugoslavia, it captured the interest of the elites who openly expressed concerns about its possible negative impact on the creation of a unified national character and cultural space. This chapter discusses the presence and significance of popular culture in the everyday life of Yugoslav urban centers. The focus is on the cultural transfer of modern dance and dance music, including the important role of cross-border trade relations in the film and publishing industries, and the impact of imperial legacies and migration on this process. A further point of investigation are the critical reactions to the spread of popular culture by the country's political and intellectual elites manifested in the narratives and cultural policies that they publicly promoted. Despite their reservations, the integrative potential of transnational popular culture in interwar Yugoslavia cannot be denied given that, in a highly culturally differentiated environment, it often represented the only form of a commonly shared culture.