We Are Drowning in Red Beetroots as We Try to Plug the Holes in the Red Curtain”: The Punk Scene in Ljubljana in the Late 1970s and Early 1980s
Abstract
In this article, the Slovenian author merges the perspectives of the history of popular culture and of the history of social movements. At the turn of the 1970s/1980s, the little town of Ljubljana, the capital of the communist-ruled Slovenia, became the centre of Yugoslavian alternative culture, which run parallel to the official culture but was completely independent from it. Alternative culture constituted a protest against the realities of the last years of Josip Broz Tito’s rule. As such, it provoked hostile reactions of the state. The rulers of Yugoslavia did not take into account the fact that the punks only constituted a kind of “cultural opposition”, and not a viable political force. The punk culture was an attempt to create a new mode of expression and a new lifestyle, and its power as an inspiration in Europe, including Poland, was unprecedented. As a sui generis social movement, the punk paved the way for the emergence of civil society.
Keywords
popular culture; the punk; social movement; Yugoslavia
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