Floating Images of Yugoslavism on the Pages of Family Music Albums

For scholars of Serbian nationalism in the early twentieth century Yugoslavism remains a perpetual conundrum. Many cultural practices, discourses and artefacts produced in the decades that preceded and followed the First World War are germane to a study of Serbian nationalism, but are at the same time connected to the ideology of Yugoslavism, thus making it hard to distinguish where Serbian nationalism ends and Yugoslav nationalism begins. Furthermore, the ultimate triumph of the Serbian nationalistic project resulted in a Kingdom of Yugoslavia (initially known officially as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), ruled by the Serbian royal dynasty of Karađorđević, coincidently ending the history of the Kingdom of Serbia and for the first time unifying the purported extent of Serbian national territory.This book has been published thanks to the financial support of the Ministry of education, science and technological development of the Republic of Serbia

Socialism or Art: Yugoslav Mass Song and Its Institutionalizations

The genre of the mass song is one of the fundamental phenomena in aesthetics and practice of socialist realism. Mass songs are supposed not only to be accessible to the lay audience, but also to be composed in a way that invites the participation of amateurs. Importantly, the institutions which have been disseminating the mass song under state socialism, such as various institutions of education, culture and art, have also served as mechanisms for the normalization of its ideological content. This article summarizes important aspects of the concept of the mass song in general and offers a multifaceted exemplification, before proceeding to discuss the history of mass songs in socialist Yugoslavia (including, by and large, what is usually referred to as partisan songs), with emphasis on the institutional framework through which they were practiced and disseminated, and on specificities that the genre had accrued within the Yugoslav framework. This historical framework of practicing mass songs in Yugoslavia provides a platform for opening the question of intrinsic incompatibility between the project of a classless society and the institution of art. In regards to this, article discusses contemporary practice of Yugoslav mass songs as practiced by self-organized choirs and their new political potential

Socialism or Art: Yugoslav Mass Song and Its Institutionalizations

The genre of the mass song is one of the fundamental phenomena in aesthetics and practice of socialist realism. Mass songs are supposed not only to be accessible to the lay audience, but also to be composed in a way that invites the participation of amateurs. Importantly, the institutions which have been disseminating the mass song under state socialism, such as various institutions of education, culture and art, have also served as mechanisms for the normalization of its ideological content. This article summarizes important aspects of the concept of the mass song in general and offers a multifaceted exemplification, before proceeding to discuss the history of mass songs in socialist Yugoslavia (including, by and large, what is usually referred to as partisan songs), with emphasis on the institutional framework through which they were practiced and disseminated, and on specificities that the genre had accrued within the Yugoslav framework. This historical framework of practicing mass songs in Yugoslavia provides a platform for opening the question of intrinsic incompatibility between the project of a classless society and the institution of art. In regards to this, article discusses contemporary practice of Yugoslav mass songs as practiced by self-organized choirs and their new political potential.   Article received: May 6, 2017; Article accepted: May 14, 2017; Published online: September 15, 2017 Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Atanasovski, Srđan. "Socialism or Art: Yugoslav Mass Song and Its Institutionalizations." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 13 (2017): 31-42. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i13.18

Kosta P. Manojlović and Narratives on “Southern Serbia”

In this article I will discuss interwar narratives on “Southern Serbia” in the context of music practices, specifically referring to the activities of Kosta Manojlović as music scholar, collector of folk songs, and composer. I will firstly show how narratives on “Southern Serbia” connect with prewar narratives on “Old Serbia” and what their role was in establishing new modes of governing in the territories which were annexed by the Kingdom of Serbia in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars. I will then analyze Manojlović’s writings – articles on ethnography and folk music analysis – which spanned a decade (1925–1935) and contributed to this discourse.This collective monograph, titled Kosta P. Manojlović and the Idea of Slavic and Balkan Cultural Unificaton (1918-1941), is the result of research by fourteen scholars from Russia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Portugal, Great Britain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, which were partly presented at an international conference organized by the Muzikološki institut SANU (Institute of Musicology SASA) in November 2016

Последице "заокрета ка афекту": истраживање музичких пракси изнутра и споља

In this paper I explore the challenges of the “affective turn” and map new avenues of music research in this direction. I discuss four paths of enquiry, in deviation from the semiotic models: the discovery of the non-signified materiality and its potentiality to generate affects, the potentiality of affect to de-signify, the ability of sign machines to catalyse the production of intensities and, finally, the power of social machines to overcode the produced affect through non-discursive mechanisms. I argue that the affective turn in musicology can provide a different structuring of a view from without and a view from within, calling both for finely tuned “close reading” and for the ability of the researcher to grasp the performative contextУ овом раду истражујем изазове које такозвани „заокрет ка афекту” у културалним студијама поставља пред постојеће моделе истраживања музичких пракси и мапирам могућности његове примене у музикологији. При томе полазим од становишта да се „заокрет ка афекту” може тумачити у опозицији према ономе што се може означити као стандардни (или трансцендентални) „семиотички модел”, а који је, отворено или прећутно, прихваћен као опште мњење у сфери студија музике и културалних студија уопште и који се преобразио у својеврсну „зону комфора” савремених истраживача. Како бих формулисао критику семиотичких модела истраживања, позивам се на списе теоретичара који су били активни током седамдесетих година XX века – Анрија Лефевра (Henri Lefebvre), Жилa Делеза (Gilles Deleuze) и Феликса Гатарија (Félix Guattari) а који су били изражено критични према семиотици већ у њеној конститутивној фази. Сагледавајући поље студија афекта указујем на предности оне гране ових студија које афект виде као неозначени интензитет, постављен у координатама онтолошког система Жила Делеза. Ово нас води к разумевању процеса произвођења значења као процесу који се одваја на разини иманенције, у којој оперишу како материјалности означитеља, тако и токови афекта. Како потенцијалне последице теорије афекта често остају неразјашњене, верујем да би било посебно плодно размотрити четири усмерења истраживања која се њоме отварају, а која одступају од стандардног модела семиотичких анализа: откриће неозначене материјалности и њеног потенцијала да генерише афекте, потенцијал прекомерног афеката да разозначава, способност знаковних друштвених машина да у својој пуној материјалности делују као катализатор у производњи интензитета, и, коначно, потенцијал друштвених машина да наткодирају произведене афекте кроз механизме који нису ни лингвистички ни репрезентациони. На основу овога изводим тврдњу да заокрет ка афекту у студијама музике може пружити другачије моделирање како погледа изнутра, тако и погледа споља. Наиме, да би се спровела наведена истраживачка питања, с једне стране су неопходни специфично разрађени модели „блиског читања” музичког и звучног догађаја, а с друге разумевање ширег перформативног и друштвеног контекста.The paper was written as a part of the project Serbian Musical Identities within Local and Global Frameworks: Traditions, Changes, Challenges (no. 177004 /2011–2014/)funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia

Questions of Yugoslavian symphonism and its institutions: the case of Belgrade open competition of 1934–1935

Taking an open competition for new symphonic composition organized in Belgrade in 1934–1935 as the focus of my enquiry, I wish to investigate complex questions of institutional networks, critical discourse on music and interpersonal relationships that shaped production and reception of symphonic music in the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The competition was organized by Society of Friends of Art Cvijeta Zuzoric with an ostensible aim of promoting modern art and supporting young artists’ endeavours