The “unbearable lightness” (of the subversion) of nationalism: Bodies on estrada in postsocialist Serbia

Abstract

This paper analyzes the cult of the nation and Orthodoxy in popular music of postsocialist Serbia in gender perspective. First I present historical revisionism regarding gender roles and the construction of gender identities in the nationalist discourses of postsocialist Serbia. I locate this issue into the register of neofolk music, i.e. the so called estrada (music show business). Following a diachronic recapitulation of a female singer’s role in popular folk music, through a case study of the icon of Saint Ceca, but also referring to other examples, I analyze the interconnection of national, religious and class factors in the construction of gender identities of body in estrada. The purpose of this analysis is to indicate how these bodies assert discourses of nationalism and Orthodox religiousness as its core, but also to map the points of their potential subversiveness in relation to these discourses.

Keywords

• gender identities
• body on estrada
• neofolk music
• nationalism
• Orthodoxy
• icon
• spectacle