Pop-rock music and changing attitudes to the personality cult of <PERSON> · Global Voices
In 2012, the right-wing populist regime in North Macedonia erected a new monument to <PERSON> in the center of Skopje, indicating he had more admirers than haters within the electorate. Photo by <PERSON>, CC BY 3.0
Today, the number of declared Yugo-nostalgics who nurture the personality cult of <PERSON> is rather small. However, judging by the backlash against recent statements by Bulgarian politicians who described him as a totalitarian dictator, one can infer that many people consider the long-gone Yugoslav leader a generally positive historical personality in North Macedonia.
While Macedonian officials (with exception of the Mayor of Skopje) took the high road and didn't directly react to the provocative statements, they were discussed at length on social networks and in cafés (allowed under lax COVID-19 protocols).
Arguments against the idea that <PERSON> was an evil dictator are rooted in perceptions about the fundamental differences between him and <PERSON>, though the differences between the political systems they led resulted in different kinds of personality cults. However, public debate on these issues, as well as academic research on actual beliefs about the legacy of Federal Yugoslavia, are sorely lacking.
From my experience, the generations of children born in Yugoslavia in the 1970s reacted to the break-up of the value system that put <PERSON> on a pedestal with a growing dose of cynicism. 739
Despite official propaganda (which gradually decreased after his death in May 1980) Yugoslav teenagers of that era were more interested in rock songs that challenged the established image of <PERSON>.
These were the children who as babies had been exposed to patriotic songs like “You can count on us” (“Računajte na nas”) by <PERSON> from 1978, and “Comrade <PERSON> we swear to you” (“Druže Tito mi ti se kunemo”) by pop star <PERSON> from 1980.
In “You can count on us” the singer-songwriter <PERSON> said he “made these lyrics as a pledge to <PERSON>,” assuring that his increasingly Westernized generation (“in the name of all of us born in the 1950s”) would not betray the ideals of the anti-fascist revolution which created Yugoslavia during World War II, “as the blood of partisans flows through our veins”:
Sumnjaju neki da nosi nas pogrešan tok
Jer slušamo ploče i sviramo rok
<PERSON> negde u nama je bitaka plan
I kažem vam, šta dobro znam
Računajte na nas
Some people doubt that we are misled
Since we listen to [vinyl] records and play rock [music]
But somewhere within us the flame of the battles still glows
And I tell you what I know well
Count on us
The lyrics of <PERSON> song were actually a version of a somber patriotic anthem from the 1942 battle of Kozara, whose headline lyrics became an official state/ruling party slogan: “Comrade <PERSON> we swear to you that we will not stray from your path.” <PERSON>'s song was released as a single record, and the B-side “On Tito's path” (“Titovim putem”) was also popular.
<PERSON> su prošle pune muka.
<PERSON> se za slobodu nijemo
ili s pjesmom umesto jauka,
<PERSON> mi ti se kunemo.
The years have passed full of torment
One died for freedom in silence
or with a song instead of a moan,
Comrade <PERSON>, we swear to you.
A few years later, those born during <PERSON>'s lifetime could identify with at least two-thirds of the song “The Three Times I Saw Tito” (“Triput sam video Tita”). Its author was again <PERSON>, who more than anyone reflected the Yugoslav zeitgeist. <PERSON> shared his childhood experiences as a participant in a mass rally when the president visited his city, then an occasion when <PERSON> came to his concert, and at the end, the outpouring of grief across the country around <PERSON>'s funeral. The song concludes that <PERSON> lives on in all the good things that have been built around Yugoslavia, its freedom and peace. 260