Songs of Love and Hate: the Role of the Intelligentsia, Music and Poetry in Forging Serbian Ethnic National Identity

Abstract

The Serbian ethnologist, Ivan Ĉolović commented in his recent publication, Bordel Ratnika⁴ (1994, p. 23) that: ‘Naša politika puna je folklorika …’ (‘Our politics is full of folklore’). Given the rise of ethnic nationalism during this last decade of the twentieth century, any conference, or edited collection of papers, engaging the question ‘Why Europe?’ which focuses upon problems of culture and identity should, at some point, address the process, nature and impact of ethnic national identity upon the European scene. It is the aim of this chapter to explore further the link between politics and folklore with special reference to the music and poetry of Serbia in the formation and maintenance of ethnic national identity.

Ima jedna zemlja stara što sa nebu ima cara, Ima Cara, oj Lazara što suncem razgova, Srbija, naša majka mila, Srbija sve nas je rodila, živela Srbija.²

The reference is, of course to the song-writer and poet, Leonard Cohen, whose album Songs of Love and Hate had a considerable influence upon this writer at the tender age of 17. At the conference ‘Why Europe?’ I was particularly amused by Malcolm Crook’s reference to Cohen’s Beautiful Losers as an alternative title, although I felt that another suggestion by one of our Macedonian colleagues, that of ‘Songs of Hate and Self-pity’ might be taking the theme a little too far!