Last Songs: Music in Serbia during Yugoslav Disintegration

• Type of Material: Book
• Authors: Ivana Miladinović Prica, Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade; Laura Emmery, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2026
• Publisher: Faculty of Media and Communications; Cultural Center Parobrod
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: Copyright © 2026 Ivana Miladinović Prica and Laura Emmery
• ISBN: 978-86-6126-035-3
• Place of Publication or Presentation: Belgrade, Central Serbia, Serbia
• Keywords: Cold War music studies; music festivals; Yugoslav experimental music; Yugoslav postmodernism; disintegration of Yugoslavia; anti-war music protests; Eastern European music studies; Yugoslav avant-garde; fall of communism; Serbian experimental music; 1991
• Subject - Topics: Popular music and art music; Music
• Research Categories: Music history; Slavic studies; European studies; European history; Music; East European studies

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.