Rustic obsessions: The role of Slovenian folk pop in the Slovenian national imaginary

Abstract

The article explores the relationship between Slovenian national identity and popular music. A substantial empirical research (150 interviewees from 4 different Slovenian regions) has been conducted to find out what kind of music Slovenians themselves perceive as typically Slovenian and what are for them the defining characteristics of these music acts or styles. The results show that the vast majority of interviewees understand as typically Slovenian just one music style, Slovenian folk pop (narodno-zabavna glasba). The key features that make Slovenian folk pop Slovenian are for them its content (beauties of Slovenia), its contribution to Slovenian national awareness, Slovenian lyrics, etc. Various possible reasons for such uniform and even self-referential answers are discussed. Among them are cultural re-traditionalisation of former Yugoslavian republics (now independent states) after the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991, recent modernisation of Slovenian folk pop, and the need for a country as culturally, historically, geographically, etc. diverse as Slovenia to organise its symbolic imaginary around simple and understandable signifiers.

Keywords

audiences imaginary national identity popular music Slovenian folk pop

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

(1991) Imagined Communities. London: Verso Books.

Baily

(1994) The role of music in the creation of an Afghan national identity, 1923–73. In: Stokes

(ed.) Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Constructions of Place. Oxford: Berg, pp. 45–61.

Bohlman

(2004) The Music of European Nationalism: Cultural Identity and Modern History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.

Degirmenci

(2006) On the pursuit of a nation: the construction of folk and folk music in the founding decades of the Turkish Republic. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 37(1): 47–65.

Gellner

(1983) Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Koleva

(ed.) (2012) Negotiating Normality: Everyday Lives in Socialist Institutions. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Kvale

(2007) Doing Interviews: The SAGE Qualitative Research Kit. London: Sage.

Lacan

(2002) The mirror stage. In: du Gay

Evans

Redman

(eds) Identity: A Reader. London: Sage, pp. 44–50.

Lovšin

. (eds) (2002) Punk je bil prej: 25 let punka pod Slovenci (Punk Was Before: 25 Years of Punk Under Slovenians). Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba and ROPOT.

10.

Schierup

(1995) Beyond modernisation: the retraditionalisation of ex- and post-Yugoslavian society. In: Grancelli

(ed.) Social Change and Modernisation: Lessons from Eastern Europe. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 155–180.

11.

Scrugg

(1999) ‘Let’s enjoy as Nicaraguans’: the use of music in the construction of a Nicaraguan national consciousness. Ethnomusicology 43(2): 297–321.

12.

Sivec

(2002) Slovenija – zibelka narodnozabavne glasbe (Slovenia – a cradle of folk pop music). In: Sivec

(ed.) Tisoč najlepših besedil (One Thousand of the Most Beautiful Lyrics). Kamnik: ICO.

13.

Stanković

(2012) A small cinema from the other side of Alps: a historical review of Slovenian films. Film History 24(1): 35–55.

14.

Stokes

(1993) Introduction: ethnicity, identity and music.In: Stokes

(ed.) Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Constructions of Place. Oxford: Berg.

15.

Sultanova

(2005) Music and identity in Central Asia. Ethnomusicology Forum 14(2): 131–142.

16.

Štefančič

jr. (2005) Na svoji zemlji. Zgodovina slovenskega filma (On Our Own Ground: A History of Slovenian Film). Ljubljana: UMco.

17.

Vodopivec

(2006) Od Pohlinove slovenice do samostojne države. Slovenska zgodovina od konca 18. stoletja do konca 20. stoletja (From Pohlin’s Grammar to the Independent State: Slovenian History from the End of the 18th Century to the End of the 20th Century). Ljubljana: Modrijan.