Imagining Interwar Sound and Space: Film Music and Cultural Memory in the Post-Yugoslav Context

Marija Golubović

doi:10.51191/issn.2637-1898.2025.8.15.166

Authors

Marija Golubović Institute of Musicology SASA, Belgrade, Serbia Author https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1039-8748

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51191/issn.2637-1898.2025.8.15.166

Keywords:

Montevideo, film music, cultural memory, collective identity, interwar period, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, post-Yugoslav context, Dragan Bjelogrlić, Robert Pešut (Magnifico)

Abstract

In recent decades, the interwar period has emerged as a fertile ground for artistic imagination, inspiring a growing body of works across literature, visual arts, and film. Global and regional cinema plays a compelling role in reconstructing and reinterpreting this historical era. Given the centrality of music to everyday life in the interwar years, it naturally becomes an important element in shaping cinematic representations of the past. This article examines how music in Dragan Bjelogrlić’s films Montevideo, God Bless You! (2010) and See You in Montevideo (2014) contributes to the evocation of life in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at the very juncture of the 1920s and 1930s. By focusing on the deployment of musical genres and their stylistic connotations, the study situates the soundtrack at the intersection of film music and everyday life studies, collective identity, cultural memory theory, thanatopolitics and post-Yugoslav cultural discourse. Rather than merely treating music as a decorative or atmospheric element, the paper explores how sound actively constructs historical imagination, reinforces collective identity, and shapes affective engagement with the past.

Author Biography

Marija Golubović, Institute of Musicology SASA, Belgrade, Serbia

Marija Golubović graduated in piano performance from the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, and earned her PhD in history at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. She is currently employed as a Research Associate at the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Her research focuses on the cultural and musical legacy of Russian émigrés in Belgrade and the Kingdom of SCS/Yugoslavia, the development of interwar popular culture, and the piano repertoire of Serbian and Yugoslav composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. In 2025, she published her first book, which examines the impact of Russian émigrés on the development of musical life in interwar Belgrade. She currently serves as Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Muzikologija–Musicology, published by the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She is a member of the Serbian Musicological Society, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), and the Board for the Protection of Serbian Musical Heritage within the Department of Arts of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

References

Aćamović, Bojana. 2023. „Vavilon Berlin i Senke nad Balkanom – dve ’tvrdo kuvane’ istorijske drame.” Književna istorija 55 (179): 83–104. https://doi.org/10.18485/kis.2023.55.179.5. (cyrillic)

Assmann, Aleida. 1992. Cultural Memory and Western Civilization. Functions, Media, Archives. Cambridge University Press.

Babović, Jovana. 2018. Metropolitan Belgrade: Culture and Class in Interwar Yugoslavia. University of Pittsburgh Press.

Bakić-Hayden, Milica. 2006. Varijacije na temu ‘Balkan’. Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju i I. P. “Filip Višnjić”.

Belingar, Boris and Boško Mijatović. 2018. Ilustrovana istorija beogradskih kafana. Od Turskog hana do Aero kluba, second edition. Arhipelag. (cyrillic)

Bohlman, Philip. 2002. World Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Bribitzer-Stull, Matthew. 2015. Understanding the leitmotif: from Wagner to Hollywood film music. Cambridge University Press.

Ceribašić, Naila, Dora Dunatov and Jelka Vukobratović, eds. 2025. Rana domaća diskografska industrija: Edison Bell Pekala, Elektroton i Jugoton. Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku and Založba Univerze v Ljubljani – Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete.

D’Amado, Lorenzo Jalabert. 2020. “Montevideo 1930: reassessing the selection of the first World Cup host.” Soccer & Society 21 (8): 848–860. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2020.1793621.

Golubović, Marija. 2024. “The Role of Popular Music in the Modernisation of the Society of Interwar Yugoslavia.” Mūzikas akadēmijas raksti 22: 95–110. https://dais.sanu.ac.rs/handle/123456789/17329.

Golubović, Marija. 2025. Ruska emigracija u muzičkom životu međuratnog Beograda. Akademska knjiga and Muzikološki institut SANU. (cyrillic)

Gonzales, Florencia Faccio. 2023. “The Spread of Football in Latin America, the First FIFA World Cup in Uruguay (1930) and the Role Mass Media Played.” In Latin American Sport Media. The Making of A Political History of Sport, edited by Bernardo Buarque de Hollanda and Luiz Guilherme Burlamaqui. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15594-9.

Gorbman, Claudia. 1987. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Indiana University Press and British Film Institute.

Jelača, Dijana. 2016. Dislocated Screen Memory. Narrating Trauma in Post-Yugoslav Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan.

Jović, Dejan. 2009. Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away. Purdue University Press.

Kassabian, Anahid. 2001. Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music. Routledge.

Kassabian, Anahid. 2013. Ubiquitous Listening. Affect, Attention, and Distributed Subjectivity. University of California Press.

Kovačević, Ivan. 2017. “Montevideo, Bog te video – ideološki švedski sto kao osnov blokbastera.” Etnoantropološki problemi 12 (4): 965–983. https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v12i4.1

Kuljić, Todor. 2006. Kultura sećanja: teorijska objašnjenja upotrebe prošlosti. Čigoja štampa.

Kuljić, Todor. 2014. Tanatopolitika: sociološkoistorijska analiza političke upotrebe smrti. Čigoja štampa.

Marković, Predrag J. 2025. Beograd i Evropa (1918–1941). Evropski uticaji na proces modernizacije Beograda. Društvo za urbanu istoriju.

Matoz, Zdenko. 2013. “Magnificova filharmonična oda nogometu.” Delo, October 11. Accessed October 1, 2025. https://old.delo.si/kultura/glasba/magnificova-filharmonicna-oda-nogometu.html.

Milanović, Biljana. 2008. “The Balkans as a cultural symbol in the Serbian music of the first half of the twentieth century.” Muzikologija–Musicology 8: 17–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/MUZ0808017M.

Mitrović, Andrej. 2008. Kultura i istorija. Arhipelag.

Nikolić, Mirjana. 2012. „Pamćenje javnih medija: od istraživanja prošlosti do oblikovanja identiteta.” Zbornik radova Fakulteta dramskih umetnosti 21: 401–416.

Nikolić, Mirjana. 2015. “(Re)konstrukcija sećanja u narativima TV serija Više od igre i Montevideo Bog te video.” In Media Archaeology: Memory, Media and Culture in the Digital Age [Medijska arheologija: sećanje, mediji i kultura u digitalnom dobu], edited by Nevena Daković, Mirjana Nikolić and Ljiljana Rogač Mijatović. Faculty of Dramatic Arts.

Savanović, Dunja and Vladimir Đorđević. 2022. “Pevati špansku verziju ‘Pukni zoro’ za mene je potreba: Svetska zvezda Luz Kasal ekskluzivno za Telegraf.rs.” Telegraf, July 9. Accessed October 2, 2025. https://www.telegraf.rs/pop-i-kultura/muzika/3524475-pevati-spansku-verziju-pukni-zoro-za-mene-je-potreba-svetska-zvezda-luz-kasal-ekskluzivno-za-telegrafrs.

Smith, Anthony D. 1991. National Identity. Penguin.

Stokes, Martin. 1994. “Introduction: Ethnicity, Identity and Music.” In Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, edited by Martin Stokes, 1–27. Berg.

Todorova, Maria. 2009. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford University Press.

Tokin, Boško. 2015. Terazije. Ultimatum.rs.

Tomašević, Katarina. 2008. “Musical Modernism at the ‘Periphery’? Serbian Music in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.” In Rethinking musical modernism / Muzički modernizam – nova tumačenja, edited by Dejan Despić and Melita Milin, 83–103. Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts – Institute of Musicology of SASA.

Tomašević, Katarina. 2009. Na raskršću Istoka i Zapada. O dijalogu tradicionalnog i modernog u srpskoj muzici (1918–1941). Muzikološki institut SANU and Matica srpska. (cyrillic)

Simeunović Bajić, Nataša. 2012. “Narativne matrice i diskurzivne prakse filma Montevideo, Bog te video – prostor, vreme, kolektivni identitet.” Kultura: časopis za teoriju i sociologiju kulture i kulturnu politiku 134: 141–151. https://doi.org/10.5937/kultura1234141S.

Stanković, Vladimir. 2010. Montevideo, Bog te video! Intermedia Network; second edition. Laguna, 2014.

Velikonja, Mitja. 2009. “Lost in Transition: Nostalgia for Socialism in PostSocialist Countries,” East European Politics & Societies 23 (4): 535–551. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325409345140.

Vesić, Ivana. 2015. “The Role of Russian Emigrants in the Rise of Popular Culture and Music between Two World Wars.” In Beyond East and West Divide: Balkan Music and Its Poles of Attraction, edited by Ivana Medić and Katarina Tomašević, 103–117. Institute of Musicology SASA, 2015.

Vesić, Ivana. 2023. “Popular Culture and Cultural Policies and Narratives in Interwar Yugoslavia.” In Urban Popular Culture and Entertainment. Experiences from Northern, East-Central, and Southern Europe 1870s–1930s, edited by Antje Dietze and Alexander Vari. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003247401.

Zec, Dejan. 2016. „Kratak osvrt na pojavu fudbalskih navijača u Kraljevini SHS/Jugoslaviji.” Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU LXIV (2), 217–238. (cyrillic) https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI1602217Z.