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In the world inter-wired through social media and AI, cultural reinterpretations and appropriations receive ever increasingly new meanings. Frequently cultural (re)interpretations and reshaping of historical memories go hand-in-hand forming a dangerous mode for societal discourses and enabling on-screen and off-screen platforms for their expressions. Cultural appropriations and interpretations shape new historical narratives and realities, challenging collective memories, and cultural identities by fostering new meanings rooted in modern, often populist, perspectives. The danger of this phenomenon lies in challenging the roots of the cultural identities enabling the negotiations and often perversion of historical truth.
In other cases, the re-appropriation of historical – cultural heritage and its implication in contemporary political expressions, while resembling social experiments, results in the citizens’ uprisings and formation of new movements, which sometimes cannot be strictly aligned with either ‘left’ or ‘right’. This depends on the context, for although the world is globally wired it is also at the same time fragmented into represented and unrepresented cultures and communities whose visibility, even in social media, will depend on political climate. In order to assess the ways in which cultural and historical re-interpretations influence senses of identity, memory and meaning Academia ought to provide novel unbiased case studies of different cultural contexts.It is important to note here that cultural heritage must be distinguished from cultural reinterpretations to ensure authenticity, originality of cultural and historical heritage significant for communities’ identity, while allowing and distinguishing creative and artistic appropriations, interpretations and re-imaginations. The last cannot replace the authenticity of tangible and intangible cultural heritage and history, as much as modern re-interpretation cannot compete with historical accuracies. While in specific cases it can challenge them it is important to preserve the awareness of the authentic cultural – historical heritage which shapes identities, memories and places in order to assess and understand the significance of their evolving creative, and often, challenging contemporary implications.
In this article let us focus on the Balkan Peninsula and consider it as one of the most important places in Europe where a dynamic processes through which communities reshape history, memory and culture takes place. Our quest is sharpened by focusing specifically on music. While music in theological traditions holds more significant sacred meaning[2], where hymnography is aligned with hesychasm, artistic, and popular music become vehicles for self-expression often politically fuelled. Music indeed, as scholars extensively researched serves as one of the artistic forms of political expression[3] and its public performance often sends political message, while simultaneously reshapes the societal values, collective identity and collective memory. It varies from the original works of ethnic minorities to popular culture, and includes appropriation of transnational elements, with more global significance.
The events in Serbia, some specifically considered in the previous texts (https://rat-blog.univie.ac.at/?p=4395 and https://rat-blog.univie.ac.at/?p=4171 ) , mainly the students’ blockades and protests, which include ecological and political uprising against the infamous Lithium Project, has received new connotations by the means of music. Previous protests and blockades had the undertone of the national anthem, anthems devoted to Saint Sava, the First Serbian Archbishop and Patron Saint, over folk songs to rock classics of the 1980s.[4]
The most recent development circulating is that the students in blockades produced a video with the song from the 2012 film Les Misérables: “Do you hear the people sing?” The author at the time of writing of this text had no access to it and had to re-visit the original of the film. With or without such video, the possibility of the potential appropriation of this song from the film that hit the global audience in the contemporary Serbian context would bear a strong and clear political message. Although at this point limited to speculation, as the song at question may contain different verses, its existence undoubtedly signifies the resistance to the political landscape and demand for its radical change (for particular students’ demands see https://rat-blog.univie.ac.at/?p=4395 and for the details on Ecological Uprising see https://rat-blog.univie.ac.at/?p=4171).
By radical change that such song would suggest the author considers a complete systemic change of society and its values, restoring the strength of institutions and cleansing structures of corruption, respecting the will of the people, with full respect for human rights but also the obligations of all citizens, putting a legal system into practice, and of course protecting the country from abuse and exploitation by both foreign and domestic individuals, oligarchs, companies, or institutions that could cause ecological or other forms of harm.
On the other hand, scepticism toward the EU and global politics does not indicate a loss of confidence in justice. As reflected both in the visual and music forms from earlier events, justice remains firmly tied to historical memory and the people’s perception of themselves (народ) as the bearers of justice and radical transformations. Whether this view is romanticized, an existential struggle, or perhaps both -or neither – history will determine. The song “Do you hear the people sing?” embodies the spirit of political determination and resistance. Perhaps the solution resides within Serbia’s borders, a non-EU country and some sort of Europe’s stepchild, seeking a peaceful path to restore the lost values and foundations that can serve as its enduring cornerstone.
Let us now consider Europe’s “child” – neighbouring Croatia. Although the events in Serbia and Croatia discussed here are uncompromisingly and fundamentally different – where Serbia is experiencing nine months of student protests, while Croatia faces a single though recurring and politically significant incident expressed through a concert, both highlight contrasting forms of society in crisis. This crisis occasionally conveyed through music (as in the case of the students’ protests), in Croatia has been entirely encapsulated in a music event: its reckless partying raised some eyebrows (not enough, and not sufficiently) and sparked the anger of both some of the local and international observers.
One of them is Efraim Zuroff whose article (https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-859979 ) on this concert and a popular Croatian singer (in social media orbit labelled by his fellowmen either as war-hero or war-profiteer) dissects the danger of this music paired with equally perilous imagery that glorifies the Holocaust, reshapes historical memory and re-interprets cultural identity – specifically by tightly linking it to the WWII genocide carried out by the Nazi puppet state of Croatia (NDH). The concert(s) that allegedly aimed to glorify the 1990s war for the independent state of Croatia, incorporated not only visual imagery from World War II but also lyrics that praise genocide[5], sites of atrocities, and some of the most notorious concentration camps. They steer the audience toward an anti-partisan sentiment, depicting NDH bandits as anti – Communist martyrs rather than Nazis responsible for some of the most horrific atrocities on European soil. In other words, the music concerts seem to be re-writing history by appropriating the cultural-historical symbols of the Nazi state into the 1990s context, that now ‘gone into historical archives’, only circles back to strengthen WWII sentiments.
Although in the last year there has been an attempt to dilute the aggressive WWII exclamations and ‘invitation’ to hatred, with seemingly peaceful messages and even prayers accompanied by the projected images of the Virgin Mary in the night sky, a lingering bitterness persists drawing Croatia’s cultural landscape to the abyss of the clero-fascist ideology. While the politicians may benefit from the Vox populi as well as the music machinery, what is truly concerning is that such concerts not only expose a lack of values, an identity crisis, and profound societal turmoil but also serve as platforms for hate speech, sometimes justified in the name of God, always in the name of the state, and essentially act as an open invitation to violence, persecution and murder.
Hence the questions the scholars (and citizens) must ask are: How do such concerts reshape the memory of genocide to affirm the executioners and to fabricate historical memory? In what ways do they influence the contemporary re-interpretations of history and culture and how do they shape new senses of identity, both individual and collective? Finally, one needs to ask: what these events tell us about the cultural shifts and socio-political and economic climate in the Balkans? Perhaps the concert in Croatia is a fall into oblivion and will remain a dark stain that will eventually fade and as such should not be given much thought. Perhaps it is a ‘red flag’ on the European map. In the heated social media debates, the Churches generally remained silent, apart from the isolated incidents of a bishop’s poetic picnic at the abovementioned concert. It is at such times when silence and incidents cannot be tolerated as they dangerously close society to its demise.
In revolutionary Serbia, however, one can only hope that the students’ protests will do more than just a challenge, they might initiate the grassroot transformations (bottom-up) and foster greater unity within and outside its borders. Perhaps all these conflicting events will eventually reshape the future of the Peninsula. Analysing the dynamic processes of cultural (re)interpretations will shed light on new and complex understanding of identity and memory and the place of heritage and historical truth within the new narratives. Even though, as Jonathan Ritter argues, “the “meaning” of a song, even in an overtly political context, can rarely be reduced to its lyric content…the powerful impact of participatory music experiences is possible only when movement activists are physically present in the same space.”[6] Case in point are the two opposing examples discussed here, begging the attention of the scholars to the pertinent question of what music expresses and accomplishes in political and cultural arena, and in what way “music activism” finds new forms in the twenty-first century.
By Ch1902 – Own work, Public Domain
This endeavour requires “listening”, but the real political question partially lies with Europe that must finally reevaluate its position and its core values. We should then start with some simple questions: ‘Who’s singing over there’[7], Europe? ‘Do you hear the people sing’[8], Europe (or have you gone deaf from the sound of the aircrafts)? And if you do hear the music, what does it tell you? Perhaps the lack of trust in the European values in the discussed areas produced the crisis which might be the result of Europe’s ignorance or turning a blind eye to what is perceived as injustice. If this is the case, then one must ask oneself: have we not learned (Europe) that turning a blind eye to such events can only lead to bitter consequences whose fruit is the “culture of Thanatos,”[9] in which, paradoxically, there might not be culture left neither to evaluate, (re)interpret nor – hear.
The Rape of Europa, Francesco Zuccarelli
Footnotes:
[1] Les Misérables, Tom Hooper, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q82twrdr0U&list=RD1q82twrdr0U&start_radio=1
[2] “The eye and the soul must be kept free from distraction and pay attention to nothing else but the psalmody and the reading and, as far as possible, to the meaning of the words of the divine scripture that are being sung or read” (St Symeon the New Theologian 1980: 275). See: Ivan Moody: “Music and Orthodox Theology”, University of St Andrews: St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, 2024; Jeremy Begbie: “Music in the Western Theological Tradition”, University of St Andrews: St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, 2024.
[3] Professor Marco Martiniello and Dr Jean Michele Lafleur: “Ethnic Minorities’ Cultural and Artistic Practices as Forms of Political Expression: A Review of the Literature and a Theoretical Discussion on Music” in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Volume 34, 2008 – Issue 8: Ethnic Minorities‘ Cultural Practices as Forms of Political Expression, Taylor & Francis. See also: Eyerman, Ron and Jamison, Andrew: Music and Social Movements, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
[4] This is the matter for a separate study. See: Beard, Danijela, and Ljerka Rasmussen. „Made in Yugoslavia”, Studies in Popular Music, New York: Routledge, 2020: 1-286.
[5] https://kids.kiddle.co/Jasenovac_i_Gradi%C5%A1ka_Stara
[6] Jonathan Ritter: “Music, Politics, and Social Movements in Latin America”, Latin American Perspectives, 50(3), 3-18. SAGE, 2023.
[7] Who’s Singin‘ Over There? (Ko to tamo peva) Slobadan Sijan, 1980. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z076lhsQiHI
[8] Les Misérables, Tom Hooper, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q82twrdr0U&list=RD1q82twrdr0U&start_radio=1
[9] Θάνατος (Greek: Death). The culture of death.
Photocredits: Title Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Les_Mis%C3%A9rables_-_Qui_cherche_le_mieux.jpg; Image 1: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11591746; Image 2: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_Zuccarelli_-_The_Rape_of_Europa_-_WGA26018.jpg
RaT-Blog Nr. 13/2025