Re-enacting the Trauma: Ritualising Turbo-Folk
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5429/2079-3871(2023)v13i3.4enKeywords:
Turbo-Folk, Canonisation, Collective Trauma, Ritual, Nnational IdentityAbstract
Turbo-folk, a popular music genre originating in 1990s’ Serbia, still enjoys an immense popularity among Viennese residents with origins in the former Yugoslavia. The pilot study outlined here attempted to determine why a 25-year-old repertoire of songs is of such central importance to many listeners in the Austrian capital. As the research showed, informants view the interaction with turbo-folk as an experience outside their everyday lives requiring a particular time and space in order to unfold. To channel and express the strong emotions elicited by turbo-folk, actors employ a variety of strategies, one of which is singing along to the music. This practice is interpreted here as a ritual aiming to process the collective trauma constituted by a double loss of home. This ritual results in the construction of a collective “Yugo” identity that at the same time enables and ensues the process in a circular manner.References
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Videography
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Interviews
Interviewee 01. 2021. Interviewed by AUTHOR, Vienna, 04 March (conducted via phone).
Interviewee 02. 2021. Interviewed by AUTHOR, Vienna, 25 October.
Interviewee 03. 2021. Interviewed by AUTHOR, Vienna, 03 November.
Interviewee 04. 2021. Interviewed by AUTHOR, Vösendorf (Lower Austria), 13 November.
Interviewee 05. 2021. Interviewed by AUTHOR, Vienna, 10 December (conducted via Skype).
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