After immersing herself for over a decade in the participant observation research mode in the former Yugoslavia, Ana Hofman provides a compelling narrative on several amateur choirs who self-organized and took part in the 2011 anti-government protests across the region. These choral groups, described as an expression of “trans-Yugoslav solidarity” and “new cross-border alliances,” (1) sprang up in Belgrade, Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Vienna’s diaspora. Hofman presents a dialogical and self-reflective examination of the choirs’ activities and their pro-socialist and anti-capitalist messaging, drawing on extensive and varied literature supplemented by informative footnotes and references to musical examples.
The book has six chapters. Chapter 1, “Singing Socialism Now,” and Ch. 2, “Singing (as) Activism,” set the theoretical framework for close examination of the ethnographic material. Chapter 3, “Sounding ‘All in One Voice,’” explores the choirs’ singing styles and performance strategies; Ch. 4, “A Repertoire of Revolution,” details the origin and circulation of the song repertoire; and Ch. 5, “Strategic Amateurism and the Politics of Leisure,” offers a dense critical reading of the negative effects of neoliberal policies across the region. Chapter 6, “Socialism Reimagined for Now,” summarizes the ideas presented earlier, and calls for the socialist project to be reconceived in the context of capitalist domination.
Throughout, Hofman critically addresses the exploitative methods of post-Yugoslav managerial elites, including the relentless privatization of once socially-owned enterprises and the neglect and abuse of the entire public culture infrastructure, from fine arts museums to the national network of Houses of Culture that had mandated bottom-up access, education, and leisure for all. The concept of amateur work and its inherent social value was at the core of Yugoslavia’s post-WWII building a new society. “Strategic amateurism” is what Hofman calls this key line of inquiry. It is devoid of professionalism and commercial sponsorship, and strong on engagement with communities seeking to promote and restore values of the Yugoslav brand of socialism: equality, workers’ rights, and social benefits.
The singing choirs draw their inspiration from the song repertoire of the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Struggle movement. In their performative acts and publicity, the choirs tackle an array of contemporary issues: rising fascism, climate change, immigration, urban gentrification, racism, LGBTQIA+ rights, and violence against women. In a richly detailed “Repertoire of Revolution” chapter, we learn a great deal about the historical trajectory of songs selected by these choirs. Russia supplied many of the songs adopted by Yugoslav partisans, which become staples of public events, education, and collective memory to this day. Other songs of choice come from the international revolutionary repertoire; for example, the Spanish “¡Ay, Carmela!,” French/Spanish “¡No pasarán!,” and, of course, the Italian “Bella Ciao” and “The Internationale.” Harmony, an important aspect of group singing, receives only cursory attention; however, singing styles are discussed extensively in terms of members’ positionality around the amateur vs. professional voice debates. Citing the case of “Bella Ciao,” Hofman critically addresses the commodification and co-optation of cultural products born out of revolutionary movements. Such processes, I argue, could be viewed against the backdrop of globalization since the 1990s, which gave us World Music. The recent appropriation of “Bella Ciao” by amateur singers and media conglomerates alike simply shows that “meanings” are performatively mediated by artists and negotiated between corporate and consumer interests. As choir members’ insightful observations suggest, there is a fine line between purity of intent—singing authentically revolutionary songs na sav glas (belting with one voice)—and historical contingency, that is, singing activists’ inability to galvanize a real movement in opposition to what is seen as wholesale imposition of neoliberal capitalism on the former Second World.
Hofman’s activist passion, intellectual rigor, and sheer stamina go against the odds. Remarkably, the allure of socialism remains across the generational divide: both among the senior anti-nationalist citizenry of former Yugoslavia and those born after the 1990s, caught in the upheavals of continuing “transitions.” Hofman’s noble call for “reclaim[ing] socialism as a relevant platform today” (143) and for re-imagining socialism to counter neoliberal “exhaustion,” articulates the desires of significant population struggling daily to have a decent life. According to this reading, the utopian dimension of a socialist alternative in the twenty first century might be as politically potent as any politics of “hope.”
This fine work invites conversation and will be of interest not only to supporters of post-Yugoslavian studies, but also to scholars interested in intersections of socialism, community, and global engagement.
