New York, New York, It's A Wonderful Town

And Marko Perković Thompson probably thinks so after a remarkably positive write-up of his New York concert in the Washington Post.

Unlike the New York tabloids' sensational depictions of a 'Nazi rocker', the Post went along to St Cyril and Methodius church and found:

'he sang a lot of fervently nationalistic, mid-tempo rock songs, most of which sounded like Iron Maiden doing Eastern European folk. And he harped again and again on his favorite themes: love of God, family and Croatia. Especially Croatia, which in his music sounds like a place abused for centuries and still under siege.'

Of course. maybe it depends on which diaspora group which journalist happens to talk to...

Another Rainbow Tour

Over and above the problems in New York, local papers in other cities on Marko Perković Thompson's tour schedule are also reporting protests: that now makes difficulties in Toronto (where the concert has been moved from the original venue to a secret location, due to be revealed in Croatian churches on Sunday morning), Cleveland, and Melbourne, where Thompson is supposed to perform at a football club's social on 28 December.

Thompson's management - no doubt conscious of how little English-language material on the singer is out there - have responded on his official website with English translations of 18 songs which make up the majority of his most recent set list. Only a handful of the numbers from his Maksimir concert are missing from the list, although the omissions do include his Neka ni'ko ne dira u moj mali dio svemira (Don't let anyone touch my little part of the universe), where he made his most direct response to his domestic critics.

At least the tour seems to be more successful than Croatian music's American adventure in 2006, Severina's ill-fated rainbow tour.

Hello Elections, Goodbye Maksimir

There's a month to go before Croatia's parliamentary elections - hot on the heels of the Polish version - and still no sign, as yet, of the media's usual pre-election obsession: which singers will be performing at whose election meetings.

After HDZ's star-studded rallies before the first multi-party elections in 1990, most other parties tried to keep pace, making the 'they got paid how much to sing that?' article as common in the run-up to elections as the run-up to New Year's Eve. The level of excitement in 2003, when Severina sang at ten rallies for Ivica Račan's SDP for a rumoured €200,000, certainly hasn't been matched yet in 2007. Possibly because Račan lost the election in a display of unconvincing populism, which Novi list's Jelena Lovrić described as 'Mala-je-dala politics' in a reference to one of Seve nacionale's tartier songs.

One of Croatian music's biggest draws (for better or worse) will be absent in any case. Marko Perković Thompson, once upon a time a stalwart HSP supporter, will be otherwise engaged on a tour of the US and Canada in November - unless The New York Sun, which described Thompson as a 'neo-Nazi' singer in an article yesterday, has anything to do with it.

New York aside, there's already uncertainty whether his 4 November concert in Toronto has been called off or not: Thompson's tour organiser says no, but a Simon Wiesenthal Center press release states that the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center had the concert cancelled after a complaint to the venue's owners (much the same route taken by a different group to avert Thompson's Amsterdam concert in 2003).

And it's farewell (eventually) to the Maksimir stadium in Zagreb (the venue of Thompson's largest concert this year), due to be knocked down and replaced with a 53,000-seater affair on the city outskirts in Lanište (near the future handball arena) or Kajzerica. Needless to say, the Maksimir site, now owned by Zagreb council, will be sold off for enough money that 'another football stadium could be built with it' instead.

UPDATE: Leave it to Fox News to intervene in the Thompson case as unhelpfully as possible.

The Thompson Letters

Marko Perković Thompson's reservation on a spot in the news agenda in advance of his Split concert next week has only been made firmer by Efraim Zuroff, the Jerusalem director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, who intervened in the scandal again with an open letter to the singer published in last week's edition of Globus.

In the letter (English translation), Zuroff refers to the numerous responses responses he has received from Thompson's supporters, 'reasonably intelligent people who are convinced that you are neither a fascist nor an anti-Semite' and who 'claim that your sole motivation is pure and noble Croatian patriotism and love of family and the Catholic Church.' He calls on Thompson yet again to clarify his position regarding the Independent State of Croatia (NDH):

'It is precisely because your patriotic credentials are absolutely impeccable that you must be among those who clearly and unequivocally reject the legacy of the NDH and the Ustashe. This will send a clear message to Croatians of all ages that one is not betraying his or her country by condemning the atrocities committed by the NDH and that one can be the most noble patriot by building a homeland which will be a model democracy which accepts minorities and fosters tolerance among different ethnic groups.'

Maybe Zuroff's next letter will be going out to Jadranka Kolarević, the member of HRT's programming council who vigorously defended the broadcaster's decision to show the concert (one of Zuroff's causes for complaint in his original statement on the matter) at the last council meeting (to the discomfort of the council president Zdenko Ljevak):

'Zuroff is forgetting at the same time that his country's army kills Palestinians on their own land almost every day, devastates Lebanon [...] Why did he not protest when the Četniks entered Vukovar? [...] Zuroff is forgetting that the creator of the idea of camps in the NDH was Eugen Dido Kvaternik, a Jew on his mother's side, that the wife of the Poglavnik [Leader] was of Jewish origin, that of 42 NDH generals 8 of them were Jews, that the NDH's artillery commander was a Jew, that Hitler's main investigator for the Near East was a Jew, that in 1945 of the 6 officers at the talks in Bleiburg only three had pure Croatian surnames, while it has been proved for one of the other three that he was a pure Jew.'

Thompson International

Two weeks after Marko Perković's stadium concert, the promised article has appeared in The New York Times (mirrored at the International Herald Tribune) - where the real targets don't seem to be Thompason's music itself so much as the 'insensitivity to Holocaust issues' that could lead Croatia's education minister Dragan Primorac to tell the NYT's reporter that 'You can't see any antisemitism here' and that only four to five people had been giving Ustaša salutes.

Just as shocking, from the NYT's point of view, is the Croatian state broadcaster HTV's decision to endorse Thompson by broadcasting the concert on Sunday night (which did at least spare Croatian viewers from the Concert for Diana) without any sort of editorial comment. (Of the sort, for instance, that always surrounds talk-show clips of Serbian pop/folk music so as to make it clear that the channel isn't actually expecting viewers to enjoy it.)

Večernji list, meanwhile, is standing by Thompson - as well it might, being among the media sponsors of his current tour. Thompson's response to the criticisms from the NYT and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre:

'I've had enough of these unjustified attacks. I'm a musician, not a politician. At my concerts I sing about love, God and the homeland, only about that and nothing else. I and the members and my band didn't see anyone among the 60,000-plus people at Maksimir [stadium] with Ustaša iconography. [...] All well-intentioned people could read the message we sent with this concert and the songs we sang that night, and that is that Croats above all love their country and respect genuine moral values. [...] I can-t stand my concert being called a fascist rally, because whole families come to it. That means that my seven-month-old daughter Diva Marija, who was at the concert, is a fascist, according to the statements of those who are against my concerts. That's really too much. Why has nobody come to the defence of those wonderful people, the entire families who came to my concert?'

The saga continues on the summer coastal concert circuit, including a date in Split at the end of this month; the city's Poljud stadium will host the climax of a forthcoming leg of the tour.

Feral, Thompson, And Some Czechs

Feral Tribune is back on its feet after a month of uncertainty - not independently, but as a member of the EPH press group, which already owns Jutarni list, Globus and a variety of other publications including the family/showbusiness magazine Arena. Feral's managing editor Zoran Erceg has cosily told JL that the satirical weekly will continue to be editorially independent, although broader coverage and a graphic redesign are likely now that Feral is financially secure.

Meanwhile, some showbusiness ethnopolitics from further north than usual: the lustration debate in the Czech Republic is spreading into entertainment after the singer Václav Neckář, formerly a member of the late 1960s Golden Kids trio with Marta Kubišová and Helena Vondráčková was accused by Lidové noviny of reporting on his colleagues (including Kubišová, a Charter 77 signatory) to the Czechoslovakian secret police between 1978 and 1987.

Radio Prague reports that Neckář's participation at the annual Trutnov festival (the oldest and largest Czech open-air festival) is now in question unless he provides a written explanation of his conduct at the time, according to a statement by its organiser Martin Vechet:

'Trutnov festival has a very specific tradition which is unusual in western countries. The festival began on the basis of police persecution in communist Czechoslovakia, when police broke up gatherings and illegal concerts, held secretly on various farms. Young people met at such concerts and were dispersed by the police. It would be crass for anyone who even indirectly supported the regime to play at a festival like this one.'

Trutnov first took place as an underground event broken up by the secret police in 1987, and thus celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, with headliners including the Boban Marković Orchestra.

Lastly, Večernji list reports that a New York Times journalist interviewed Marko Perković Thompson after his Maksimir stadium concert. Not that it sounds as if Thompson told us anything we didn't know:

'We talked about my songs, the Maksimir concert, and he was also interested in the iconography. I said that I and my audience, who are people from 7 to 77 years old, are patriots, not fascists. I also mentioned that on several occasions before the concert I said that those who want to wear uniforms ought to wear the uniforms of the victorious Croatian army which won the Homeland War.'

Not that they ever seem to listen...

Once Upon A Time In Maksimir

The first leg of Marko Perković Thompson's concert tour to promote his Bilo jednom u Hrvatskoj (Once upon a time in Croatia) concluded at the weekend, in front of anything between 35,000 and 50,000 people at the Maksimir stadium in Zagreb. Not that one can be sure of the exact attendance: with the concert delayed for 24 hours after a thunderstorm, many attendees from outside Zagreb or Croatia were thought to have gone home, so the gates were thrown open to ensure a full house for the event extensively billed as 'the concert of Thompson's career'.

Thompson's most famous concert to date, at Split's Poljud stadium in 2002, was always going to be a tough act to follow. Poljud came at the height of protests against the indictments of Generals Ante Gotovina and Mirko Norac for war crimes (not to mention the Hague Tribunal's demand that Croatia extradite its former chief of staff Janko Bobetko, made only a few weeks before the concert), and during a thriving movement of Homeland War veterans opposed to the centre-left government of the late Ivica Račan's SDP - a situation which may or may not have been ripe for political manipulation, depending on which magazines you read.

What really elevated Thompson to the status of a social problem was the behaviour of young audiences at Poljud and elsewhere on the 2002 tour, wearing clothing with the Ustaša logo or pictures of Ante Pavelić (the leader of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during the Second World War) and performing raised-fist salutes. A scandal in 2004 when Thompson himself was accused of performing a Pavelić-era song in the diaspora didn't help matters, so over and above presenting a new album, the Bilo jednom u Hrvatskoj project has an ulterior motive: to show that Thompson represents all patriotic Croats, rather than a political faction.

To this end, concert organiser Miljenko Ćurić announced before Maksimir that Ustaša insignia were banned by law, although enough U-logo caps slipped through for press photographers to come back with the expected pictures - and in a crowd of howevermanythousand people there's not much one can do about spontaneous chants of the best-known Ustaša song Evo zore, evo dana, evo Jure i Bobana ('Here comes the dawn, here comes day, here come [Crna Legija commanders] Jure and Boban') without causing a more serious incident. (How honoured the said Jure and Boban would actually have been is another question. The average Evo zore-quoting teenager seems to know enough about it to understand that it seriously winds up adults, but struggles with the lyrics as soon as s/he gets into the second couplet.)

Part of the problem is defining what should and shouldn't be thought of as 'an Ustaša symbol'. Evo zore, evo dana, referring to the NDH's elite Black Legion, is pretty unambiguous, but Pavelić's recourse to Croatian history in developing the iconography of his state makes some of the classifications problematic. For the Jewish community in Zagreb, which put up the most resistance to the Maksimir concert, the slogan 'Za Dom spremni' ('Ready for the Home') is unequivocally Ustaša thanks to its adoption by the leader of the Independent State of Croatia, Ante Pavelić. For Thompson, the slogan has legitimate historical precedents in the battle cries of earlier leaders, and it opens his breakthrough hit from 1992: Bojna Čavoglave (The Čavoglave platoon), with which he described his front-line experience with his fellow villagers at the start of the Homeland War.

Thompson's stardom since has been inseparable from his persona as a veteran (an authenticity which surely helped him capture the moment during 2002), and his appeals to respect the memory of fallen soldiers are still prominent throughout Bilo jednom u Hrvatskoj.

Nonetheless, between Poljud and Maksimir the singer has experienced another masculine archetype, fatherhood, and family relationships are a stronger theme on the current album than on any of his previous ones, which were more concerned with relations between grown men (not least comrades in arms). This time around, commemorations of the dead are balanced with songs in honour of Thompson's grandfather, his sons, and his daughter (this last a song in praise of 'Diva Grabovčeva', a Herzegovinan princess remembered for dying in a state of grace when murdered by the Turks) - completing Thompson's triad of values, 'God, the family and the Homeland'.

For the first time in Thompson's career since his 1998 comeback with Prijatelji (one of the first Croatian songs to articulate veterans' resentment), the memory of the war isn't the only aspect of his image, although it remains essential. The concert's organisation itself seemed to point to a subtle reorientation, breaking the tradition of opening the set with Bojna Čavoglave (which was still the plan as late as Thompson's cancelled Sarajevo concert in May) and replacing it with the first track from the new album, the appropriately-titled Početak (Beginning), a song which deals with peace and God's love. Meanwhile, official concert T-shirts have been produced for the first time in green (matching the new album's cover) as well as the traditional black, although unofficial vendors have stayed faithful to the old colour scheme.

(Of course, the most emphatic thing to do would be to drop Čavoglave and the black outfits entirely, but for the sake of consistency it might be a step too far.)

Whether Maksimir reflected Thompson the mature father or Thompson the corporate edition, Sunday's concert seems to have lived up to its billing as a landmark in his career. The evening was just as significant for Tomislav Bralić and Klapa Intrade, who confirmed their place on Croatia's patriotic showbusiness A-list by appearing in the only guest spot to perform their unavoidable hit Croatijo, iz duše te ljubim (Croatia, I love you from the soul) - the cornerstone of the current klapa revival.

No report of the concert was complete without at least one picture of audience members (usually teenage boys) playing up to the camera with Ustaša salutes, although Jutarnji list at first took the trouble to take a wider-ranging look at the crowd - such as a 67-year-old woman who enjoys Thompson's 'national folklore', or a younger woman who has no problems reconciling her Croatian patriotism with her intention to vote for SDP. The most emphatic thing to do might be to deny the Ustaša-cap-wearing types the satisfaction of a photograph rather than framing them with sanctimonious captions about 'the unwanted images' and the like.

Except that then there'd be no scandal to be made, which for the Croatian media (or anybody else's) would probably be a step too far.

UPDATE>: Lupiga and Balkan Baby have been to the concert too.

In Lieu Of A Proper Post

Croatia's Social Democrats have a new leader: Ivica Račan's foreign policy expert Zoran Milanović, who impressed on his talk-show debut with Aleksandar Stanković, put the wind up PM Ivo Sanader, shows every chance of bringing some West Wing-style gravitas to the Croatian left - and, perhaps most importantly for many SDPites, isn't the populist mayor of Zagreb Milan Bandić.

Marko Perković Thompson's concert in Zagreb's Maksimir stadium in two weeks' time, ending the first leg of the promotional tour for his 2006 album, is being positioned as the domestic concert spectacular of the year (hence the 30-metre swords transferred from his album artwork to the set design). A future leg may well culminate in a similar extravaganza at the Poljud stadium in Split, the site of Thompson's most famous concert in 2002.

Anthropology blog Savage Minds has been watching Eurovision from Finland, in what's presumably the last word on that show this season. Not that one should ever speak too soon.

Thompson In Sarajevo: Off After All

Despite numerous assurances earlier in the year that Marko Perković Thompson's concert in Sarajevo tomorrow would go ahead, the event has now been cancelled with less than 48 hours' notice - Ivica Bikić from the organising committee blaming insufficient security provision for the controversial concert in the face of unspecified threats and an advertising boycott.

Bikić hopes to reschedule the concert for September, although it would then lose its rationale as a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's visit to Sarajevo - which, in the eyes of the various Franciscan officials reported by Jutarnji list as having reservations about such a commemoration, might be all to the good.

Operation Bljesak Anniversary

Today Croatia marks the twelfth anniversary of Operation Bljesak (Flash), with which Croatian forces liberated western Slavonia in 1995. President Mesić, PM Ivo Sanader and parliamentary speaker Vladimir Šeks have laid wreaths and lit candles in Okučani, while a Zagreb HDZ delegation led by veterans' minister Jadranka Kosor held their own ceremony in Mirogoj ceremony at the Defenders' Cross (a memorial to Homeland War soldiers) and the grave of their party's founder Franjo Tuđman.

The Bljesak anniversary was presumably the occasion for Marko Perković Thompson's concert this evening in Sisak as part of an event organised by the local HSP. (HSP Sisak already introduces its website with a midi of Thompson's first hit on the theme of veterans, Prijatelji (Friends). It remains to be seen whether any Sišćani will use the occasion to express the kinds of sentiments about the late Ivica Račan that one wouldn't write in a condolence book.

Talking of anniversaries, it's also the 300th of the United Kingdom. Any takers for a bet on reaching 350?

UPDATE: courtesy of Neretva River, a proper lowdown on anniversary politics in Sisak.

Thompson, Insignia And The War

Coincidence being what it is, who knows whether the beginning of Thompson's tour in Vukovar on Friday or the escalating controversy over its Sarajevo leg prompted the singer to give an interview to Jutarnji list at the weekend.

Needless to say, the opening exchanges relate to the Sarajevo concert, regarding which Thompson emphasises that 'the most important reason for me going to Sarajevo is the charity concert whose profits are intended for the construction of a Croat Catholic Home, at the invitation of the Croat Catholic Society and Father Ante Jelić' - and that the rumour that 'they are even calling on Sarajevans, Bosniaks, to come to the [concert venue] Zetra and demonstrate' is an unneccessary 'invitation to conflict'.

As regards the Ustaša merchandise often seen among sections of the audience at his concerts, Thompson argues:

'As far as iconography is concerned, on stage I've often said that everyone who feels the need to wear military insignia ought to wear the insignia of the victorious Croatian army from the Homeland War. I always emphasise that, but again, I repeat, I can't dictate what people wear. Moreover, if there's anything illegal there, services exist which are responsible for dealing with that.'

There's a fair point here: why has 1990s military iconography failed to resonate with young people (or with the people who order and sell the merchandise in the first place) in the way that Ustaša imagery has done, for all the short-lived cult status which attached to various contemporary army brigades in 1991-92? Where are the T-shirts, caps and football scarves commemorating the 1st Guard Brigade (Tigers), the 4th Split Guard Brigade, the 101st Zagreb or the 204th Vukovar? Why should it be so much easier to find Jasenovac i Gradiška Stara on the internet than the briefly famous anthem of the 101st?

Talking of Jasenovac, which Thompson was infamously accused of performing in 2004, he'd be glad to clear that up as well:

'I have my own official repertoire, and that song has never been in it. Of course, I didn't even write it either, I've never recorded it nor do I stand behind those lyrics. Those aren't my principles, nor are they any sort of human principles. My songs are about love of God, the family, the homeland and man. There's no way I'll allow people to attach things to me which are nothing to do with me.

--But there were still occasions when you used to sing that song too.

--Those weren't occasions, that was a time when everyone sang all sorts of things. The Honmeland War wasn't just a physical fight with the Četniks, but also a psychological war. We know what all the Četniks sung and how people sang to them. Dragging all that out of the context of that time isn't fair. All that was a crazy time. But, I say again, I won't allow people to burden me with that. Only a sick mind could have done what Denis Latin did when he played that song on his show edited with footage of corpses floating down a river and then asked his guests "What do you think of this Thompson video?". I still have lots of problems because of that today.'

That would be that for the Thompson interview, if the interviewer himself hadn't dedicated his regular column in the same newspaper today to a post-mortem of it, reflecting particularly on Thompson's defence of the 'Za dom spremni' slogan (used as the introduction of his wartime debut hit Bojna Čavoglave (Čavoglave Platoon)) and going on to lament that:

'there are few people who can and will express with equal strength both their love for their homeland and disgust at every sort of crime which has ever been committed under the mask or in the name of that love. Just as there are terribly few people who are prepared to defend the principles of antifascism and, with the same bitterness and with no excuses, reject and condemn all the hideous crimes committed under the mantle and insignia of that civilisational and human commitment.'

Second Kontakt: Thompson In Sarajevo

The ongoing row over whether the Croatian patriotic singer Marko Perković Thompson should be allowed to perform in Sarajevo to mark the 10th anniversary of the papal visit to the Bosnian capital has now made its way on to Nova TV and Hloverka Novak-Srzić's Kontakt talk show. Kontakt's last musical excursion, into the question of whether the Folk revija concert ought to be allowed in Zagreb, achieved swift results, with the event being cancelled less than 24 hours later. Judging by the outcome of the Kontakt phone-in vote (viewers were asked whether they considered Thompson a 'rocker-patriot' or an 'Ustaša', 77% of them opting for the former), the majority of its audience won't be hoping for the same effect in this case.

This time out, Novak-Srzić hosted Senad Avdić (editor of the newspaper Slobodna Bosna), Boris Kožemjakin (president of the Sarajevo Jewish community, and one of the first to protest against Thompson's planned concert), and Ante Jelić, president of the Croatian charity which had invited Thompson in the first place.

However, Jelić's determination that the concert will go ahead unless actually banned by the Bosnian authorities may now be tested by the government of Sarajevo canton and its culture minister Emir Hadžihafizbegović, who considers that the case has been escalated into a political scandal and that no contract has yet been signed for the use of the advertised venue, the Zetra arena. While the local authority certainly plans to commemorate the Papal visit, Thompson's appropriateness for the anniversary is another question, the local authority's attitude being that 'xenophobic messages of the kind there are at Marko Perković's performances do not belong in this city, which has much experience of the consequences of national misanthropy.'

UPDATE:: Reuters has now picked up the Sarajevo story - and there's an extensive interview with Thompson in Jutarnji list this weekend. (Thanks Shaina and Observer!)

Surrealist Hit Parade

A heavyweight of retromaniac ex-Yugoslav TV (re)launches tomorrow on Bosnian federal television and Croatian RTL: a revival of the 1980s Sarajevan sketch show Top lista nadrealista (Surrealist Hit Parade), renamed Nadreality show for noughties use. Most of the original nadrealists have been reunited for the thirteen-episode occasion, although the new series is without Branko Djurić (acting in Slovenia) and Nele Karaljić (who moved to Belgrade on the outbreak of war in Bosnia).

However, another Croatian-Bosnian showbusiness axis is a little strained at the moment - specifically, the one relating to Marko Perković Thompson's upcoming concert in Sarajevo, scheduled for 10 May to mark the tenth anniversary of the Papal visit to the Bosnian capital and organised by a Croatian Catholic charity organisation. The Sarajevan Jewish community has protested against the concert on the grounds that Thompson represents fascism and, in the words of Sarajevo Jewish president Boris Kožemjakin:

'Sarajevo and BiH nurture centuries-old religious tolerance, and so we're sure that neither this city nor this state needs a concert like that.'

The concert's organiser, Father Anto Jelić, has replied that he never heard Thompson sing a nationalist song, so Bosnian portal 24sata.info, with the assistance of YouTube, has offered him the opportunity to find out. Indeed, 24sata also reports that the Bosnian Jewish community, the Veterans' Union and the League of Anti-Fascist Combatants are promising an anti-fascist counter-concert if the Thompson event goes ahead.

(In its time Thompson's debut wartime hit, Bojna Čavoglave (Čavoglave Platoon), also acquired a Sarajevo-themed version performed by persons unknown, but that isn't quite the point.)

And lastly, to complicate the transnational web of ex-Yugoslav showbusiness even further: factoring in the Montenegrin side of the polygon is probably overdue. Leo Miler's overview of Montenegrin pop for T-Portal concludes that 'Montenegrin showbusiness is closer to Split than Belgrade', focusing on the ballad-dominated repertoires of Vlado Georgiev, Sergej Cvetković and Bojan Marović:

'Their lyrics and music, arrangements, and the choice of instruments itself, has no folk elements whatsoever. There's no sign of the (folk-style) accordion, let alone the leading instrument, various sorts of pan pipe.

Some people complain they sound too like each other, but one could say the same about, for instance, [Dalmatian singers] Giuliano or [Goran] Karan on first listening.'

Seems Montenegro has coped pretty well with the absence of the doyen of Yugoslav-Mediterranean pop, Oliver Dragojević...

Hard Rock Domovina

Last year's winning Eurovision song Hard rock hallelujah has been given a somewhat tongue-in-cheek new lease of life by Croatian pop DJ Zlatko Turkalj - as a band-aid get-together encouraging listeners to choose domestic music. According to the text that rolls Star Wars-style over the introduction to the song's video:

'In an age of general globalisation we need to stay our own, to give more appreciation to what we Croats are musically recognisable for: from unrivalled klapa song, indomitable and inspirational tamburica, brilliant schlagers, high-quality pop [zabavne] music with a long tradiion, to rock, pop and dance which recently get more recognition in the [rest of the] world than at home.'

Turkalj's version of the song, premiered on his Turki party show as part of his Slušaj hrvatsko (Listen Croatian) campaign and titled To je tvoje (It's yours), involves cameos from various well-regarded Croatian singers, mainly at the respectable pop end of the pop-rock spectrum - so that's names like Mišo Kovač, Tereza Kesovija, Gabi Novak, Arsen Dedić, Tony Cetinski, Vanna, Nina Badrić, Boris Novković and Indira Vladić, rather than the patriotically-preoccupied singers who might have come up with the idea off their own bat. (To be fair, Miroslav Skoro figures in the To je tvoje line-up too, but that can generally be said for any band-aid.)

Indeed, it's perhaps a wonder that Marko Perković Thompson didn't take it into his head to make free with Hard rock hallelujah (Lordi being one of the rare acts who make more of an on-stage spectacle than him) - especially since he has previous rock-schlager form with his cover version of Abba's Super trouper five years ago. (Iza devet sela (Behind the nine villages) is a charming fable of 'vuci, vile i hajduci' (wolves, fairies and bandits) and why one should always turn right instead of left, even at the crossroads.)

Thompson has other business on his mind this week, though: his promotional visit to a Frankfurt record shop to sign copies of his Bilo jednom u Hrvatskoj (Once upon a time in Croatia) album was called off, possibly because of threats from diaspora Serbs, possibly because of fears that local teenagers from both diasporas might conduct a re-enactment of the brawl at the Australian Open, or possibly because organisers realised that the shop simply wouldn't be big enough to accommodate demand.

Still, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good; he still found time for lunch with Mate Bulić.

Uzmi Stipe...

Croatia's Index portal has previous form for uncovering public figures discussing the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in terms they'd rather have kept quiet about: in 2003, Marko Perković Thompson received the unwelcome New Year's Eve gift of discovering that a recording of his performing Jasenovac i Gradiška Stara had been released on to the internet courtesy of the Indexovci.

Now they've done it again - this time with the Croatian president Stjepan Mesić, who is said to have given two speeches at a Croatian club in Sydney in May/June 1992 (partially transcribed in Večernji list thanks to an enterprising Sydneysider) in which he described the Croats as having 'won twice' during the Second World War:

'The Croats won in 1941 when on 10 April they proclaimed a Croatian state. Because the Croats did not proclaim that state because they were fascists, but because they had a natural and historical right to a state. But the results of the Second World War are well-known, but it is also well-known that the Croats won in that war on a second occasion too because they found themselves together with the allies at the victors' table.'

The second speech involved an exposition of the current war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in which 'we are fighting for our own territory, and they are fighting for other people's', then headed off along the same lines, including the rhetorical instruction to those who disagreed to 'go and kneel down at Jasenovac'.

Neretva River has been following this assiduously all weekend, including reactions from Žarko Puhovski (Croatian Helsinki Committee), Vesna Pusić (leader of HNS, to which Mesić belongs), prime minister Ivo Sanader, and Mesić himself - plus the controversy over two Croatian Television journalists who have been suspended for their coverage of the story.

Mesić is holding to the line that he 'never supported the Ustaša regime', separating the idea of statehood from the criminal reality of the regime itself (The League of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of Croatia, for its part, is still behind him), and that the statement - which he no longer remembers giving - must have been a product of its time when 'it was necessary to win over [pridobiti] and consolidate [objediniti] all people in the defence of Croatia from aggression.'

(And when, he could have added, Tudjman's HDZ - to which Mesić still then belonged - was conducting an intricate balancing act between emigres some of whom believed wholeheartedly in the NDH and international sympathies which certainly didn't.)

Ironically enough, Mesić was himself the butt of insults in the final verse of Jasenovac i Gradiška Stara, which called on Our Lady of Sinj to 'take Stipe away and give us Franjo [Tudjman] back' (uzmi Stipu a vrati nam Franju). Is this the first time Mesić and Thompson have actually found common ground?

Comeback of the Week: Marko Perković Thompson

There's nothing in the papers yet, but the Gazette's Slavonian grapevine reports that Marko Perković Thompson's long-awaited new album will be released on 9 December. (Surprisingly, perhaps, they've missed the opportunity to release it on the anniversary of Gotovina's arrest, which would be about twelve hours from now.)

Gotovina's arrest, in fact, was one of the excuses for Bilo jednom u Hrvatskoj (yes, that's Once upon a time in Croatia) running so late; it seems they haven't delayed it yet again to account for whatever may or may not end up happening to Branimir Glavaš.

Thompson's official site now pictures the album cover and gives a complete tracklisting for the album, and will be releasing an extra set of lyrics every day before the 9th.

Along with the three pre-released hits - Dolazak Hrvata (The coming of the Croats), Tamo gdje su moji korijeni (There where my roots are) and Lipa Kaja (Pretty Kaja) - we're in for nine more songs with the usual mix of medieval personalities (King Zvonimir making his second appearance in the Thompson repertoire after 1993's Anica, kninska kraljica), heavenly figures, and disaffected soldiers from the Homeland War.

And all in time for the Christmas market, too...

Glad Tidings: Marko Perković Thompson

Većernji list reports that Marko Perković Thompson's third child (and first daughter) is going to be called - not Jelena, as previously thought, but Diva Marija. Just like one of the songs on his next album.

No, that isn't a mash-up of Dana International's Eurovision winner and its Croatian cousin, but refers to a 'heroine from the Croatian past' who, thanks to a certain Madame Callas, is almost impossible to google. (If she'd been due any earlier, would she have been named after Thompson's summer hit Lipa Kaja (Pretty Kaja)?)

Diva Marija joins her older brothers Petar Šimun and the topically-named Ante, which brings the Gazette to a link from Neretva River. Ivo Fabijan singing in honour of Tomislav Merčep and Branimir Glavaš, anyone?

Once There Was An Album

More than a year ago, Croatian singer Marko Perković Thompson announced plans for a new album, Bilo jednom u Hrvatskoj (Once upon a time in Croatia). A title like that suggests a high dose of heroic history and mythic timelessness, which - with emphasis on the 'timelessness' - has already come true. Two new additions to the Perković family delayed recording somewhat, as did the arrest of Ante Gotovina last December, which the Gazette would happily bet inspired some new material.

In the meantime, one Miroslav Škoro has temporarily cornered the market in patriotic, semi-diasporic showbusiness, leaving Thompson with some catching up to do.

Večernji list, however, is reporting that the final work on the album may be completed by the beginning of December. Given Thompson's (controversial) star status in Croatia, such news would surely be gratefully received by his label's executives, if anybody actually knew which label it's going to be coming out on.

Thompson likes to present his guiding themes as 'God, the family and the homeland', and all three look set to be present on Bilo jednom u Hrvatskoj. Sine moj is dedicated to his oldest son Šimun, and a title like Dida i Petrovo Polje (Grandpa and Petrovo Polje) suggests it'll be harking back to Thompson's home region of Dalmatinska zagora.

It would be unprofessional to speculate what grandpa might have said/thought/done at/about Petrovo Polje, but Thompson's previous form might make many people curious about whether and how he'll touch on one of the more historically significant epochs in grandpa's life.