Song of Brotherhood, Dance of Unity: Cultural-Entertainment Activities for Yugoslav Economic Emigrants in the West in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

The article deals with the ways in which the ‘cultural-entertainment activities’, organized by the Yugoslav government for Yugoslav economic emigrants in the West, were imbued with the patriotic propaganda and shaped by the socialist modernization discourse. In the 1960s, the Yugoslav state, together with national radio stations and Matica iseljenika institutions, supported large and financially lucrative music tours based on folk music, the content and staffing of which were in accordance with the federal and multiethnic structure of the country. However, in the early 1970s, the state support shifted towards smaller-scale activities, in order to fight accusations of commercialization and to facilitate migrants’ amateurism as a form of Yugoslav self-management being transplanted to a capitalist soil, presenting it as an inherently transnational phenomenon. Although the principle of inter-ethnic reciprocity and republics’ quotas remained as an imperative, the Yugoslav state now concentrated on the ‘cultural’ events rather than on folk-inspired ‘entertainment’, in order to elevate the intellectual status of migrant workers and bring them closer to the ideals of an emancipated working class.