Last Songs: Music in Serbia during Yugoslav Disintegration

Title: Last Songs: Music in Serbia during Yugoslav Disintegration

Authors: Ivana Miladinović Prica and Laura Emmery

Publisher: Faculty of Media and Communications / Cultural Cener Parobrod

Year: 2026

ISBN: 978-86-6126-035-3

Abstract:

Mining archives and oral histories to reveal previously untold stories, and richly illustrated with photographs and other neglected documents, this book uncovers the compelling story of art music in Serbia during the disintegration of Yugoslavia. It focuses on the period leading up to 1991—when the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars brought artistic life to a sudden halt—and traces the turbulent transition from the self-managed socialism of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the emergence of independent states. The authors examine the political, social, and cultural forces that fostered the flourishing postwar avant-garde music scene and trace the rise and development of Yugoslav cultural programs that turned the republic into a hub of international cultural exchange, before their sudden and violent collapse alongside the state itself. Yet even under these harsh conditions, artists demonstrated extraordinary courage and integrity, using music as a powerful form of resistance.