In Ljubljana there were a few things that were guaranteed to come up without any prompting in any conversation that went on long enough. Most people I talked to were of the camp that was concerned about the return of a far-right government with a grievance agenda. Ninety percent of the conversations I had took this turn to ruminating on the unsolvable political problem they were facing. Would the new government of the far right, Slovenia for the Slovenes and all that (National Front Disco, anyone? For years I thought Morrissey was just taking the piss with this song, until it came out that these really are his politics. Sometimes we invest artists who are good at one thing with more of our own depth than they deserve. I still love this album, though. I still enjoy it as a concept album about a silly nationalist soccer yob. What are you gonna do?) dismantle all the alternative programming and funding that was the backbone of Slovenia’s national cosmopolitan identity? How serious was the rallying around the political demobilization delimiting public space to real Slovenes?
In Ljubljana there also frequently arose the observation that what they had as part of Yugoslavia was probably better than what they have now- a shared cultural space of mutual respect that supported the development of real alternative cultures across the federal republic whose supporting audience was now atomized and disinterested, looking inward or elsewhere for culture.
On the train to Rijeka this topic also returned. In my cabinmate’s nearly stream-of-consciousness and sleep-deprived holding-forth after a marathon out-and-back trip to Budapest to see Metallica, he also acknowledged that what Yugoslavia had culturally and in terms of industry and influence was much better than the isolated position in which Croatia found itself today as part of the EU. My hosts also lamented the shrinking of the once-mighty industrial center of Rijeka by almost half, as birth rates plunge, and EU citizenship prompts a new wave of the gastarbajter phenomenon, wherein young people opt to simply move to Western Europe rather than stay in their home country. And in Rijeka, also, the revival and reopening of some legendary clubs that hosted important regional bands from the rock to punk to new wave eras points to an attempt to revive, or at least preserve, a period of explosive creativity in this region that forms an important part of the identity of at least a section of the people who live there.
The house beer of Club Palač, with it’s somewhat flippantly brutal label, named for the student who committed self-immolation in 1969 in protest of the Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of Prague to put down the Prague Spring. Ri Rock is “Rijeka Rock,” commemorating also the alternative spirit of of the city’s musical heritage.
In both countries thus far, however, like everywhere, conversations tended to acknowledge that the new young generation was in some measure playing host to a growing right-wing contingent, which was baffling.
By the by, some bands launched by Club Palač were Denis i Denis, Laufer, Fit (the Croatian Replacements), Paraf, and more.
Here’s another Zagreb microbrew that I had after my meeting yesterday:
The Witch of Grič (a character from a cycle of novels), “Strong dark beer” from Zagreb