within local borders. Transitional post-communist cultures no longer ape American and Western European formats. They are early adopters; they imitate, embrace, communicate, and participate, never missing a beat. Like Valentina Hasan, popular culture is ideology-free, an empty screen on which consumers and participants together locate and inscribe meaning. But Valentina Hasan is no Cinderella. Like the many Bulgarians who headed west in search of work following Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union, Valentina Hasan lives with her husband in Spain. Her unexpected popularity on Bulgarian Idol and the video clip that made its way around the world led to an appearance on Spanish television, where she impressed with her more than competent Spanish. As a consumer of popular culture, Valentina Hasan pushed all the right buttons: in the marketplace of popular culture everyone is welcome, everyone has the right to their five minutes of fame, and this five minutes of fame is a lottery—it all depends on the very second in which millions of people, themselves just like Valentina, choose their “star.” The first time, silicon pumped lips might do it, a second, poorly pronounced English, the third time it might be exceptional talent. Valentina owes her five minutes of fame to inadvertently breaking the rules (her mangled English), to the jury who appointed themselves linguistic authorities (everyone in the jury began their careers like Valentina), and, most of all, to the audience who recognized this. The carnivalization of imposed values and of authority has always been a driving force behind popular culture. Valentina, “the people’s princess,” inadvertently carnivalized a body of authority (a Bulgarian television jury), inadvertently knocked a “queen” (Mariah Carey, the queen of pop) from her pedestal, and then made one final gaff: like a modern Eliza Doolittle, she knocked the English language off its pedestal.
As opposed to Valentina Hasan, Emir Kusturica is not only a representative but also a champion of “high culture.” The Drvengrad project is very similar to computer simulation games such as SimCity (a “city building simulation game”); it’s as if Kusturica followed SimCity’s promotional catchphrase—“Design, build and run the city of your dreams.” With its toys for little boys—helicopters, rangers’ jeeps, a railway park and old train—in its very realization Kusturica’s Drvengrad resembles SimCity. Kusturica, however, is not a player of emancipatory-empowering computer games. He’s a different kind of player, a transition mutant, a modern version of the communist state artist par excellence. In Serbia this position was long reserved for Dobrica Ćosić, who, known to his friends (including Kusturica) as the godfather, was in Milošević’s time briefly president of “rump Yugoslavia” (consisting of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro). Kusturica is a new, neoliberal godfather, a landowner and entrepreneur, who has bundled his entrepreneurship into a personal ideological mishmash that includes anti-globalization, anti-liberalism, Serbian Orthodoxy as new spirituality, environmentalism, and the elitism of art. Kusturica could only realize his utopia with the help of the Serbian political and “entrepreneurial” mafia. He didn’t have a choice; he built it in Serbia. The kindly hearted will intone that every state has a mafia, and this is true. But in Serbia—and the same goes for Croatia, Bosnia, and several other countries in transition—the mafia has a state. And that’s how and why Kusturica has his Drvengrad.
Post-communist cultural practice blossoms between these two poles, between “Valentina” and “Emir”; between the ever more exuberant and dominant pop culture on the one hand and cultural representatives on the other, who, although they don’t have their own Drvengrad, have heads buzzing with ideas that are similar to Kusturica’s. There are the legions of “academics,” covered in historical dust, who every now and then let out an epileptic kick in the hope of reinstating the canon. There are writers who are retouching their self-images in the hope of winning back the audiences they lost in the historical change. And there are writers who have figured out that the media is king, who successfully combine roles (as writers of newspaper columns and owners of newspapers, as publishers and owners of publishing houses, as TV personalities and TV show hosts, as bloggers and “twitterers”), having taken lessons from the media strategies of politicians and pop stars. For this reason we needn’t bat an eyelid when we see the writer T. T. appear on Russian television dressed up as Catherine the Great (cosplay!), her wig clumsily falling on her sweaty forehead. Nor should we be surprised to see the respected Russian writer L. P., in her twilight years (she’s over 70), dressed up like a cabaret singer, performing her sad Edith Piaf karaoke. Nor should we worry when other prominent Russian writers use musical accompaniment (usually drums!) to liven up their showbiz-like appearances. And the last thing to startle us should be the Croatian writer V. R. practicing cosplay on television, appearing dressed up as a nun, a “woman in mourning,” or a “beaten woman,” visually underscoring whatever she has written or said.
Within the general karaoke culture, post-communist culture also wants the right to a voice. And that’s why we really shouldn’t be surprised that—just like Valentina—the aforementioned L. P. wanted to finally have her time under the bright lights, a right which, hand on heart, she truly deserves. The old dame woke from a dream, and having cottoned on that times have changed, she chose well: she went for a—hmm—“unique” karaoke gesture.
[1]The song isn’t actually a Mariah Carey song. It was written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of the British band Badfinger, and first made famous by Harry Nilsson in 1972.
[2]Listening to a recording of the song Valentina noted down what she thought were the words. Here’s how her version of the chorus went:
Ken lee (I can’t live);
Tulibu dibu douchoo (If living is without you)
Ken Lee (I can’t live);
Ken Lee meju more (I can’t give anymore).
[3] Translator’s Note: In Croatian and related languages “drven” is the adjective for “wood,” and coupled with “grad,” which means town or city in many Slavic languages, “Drvengrad” roughly translates as “wooden town.” Kustendorf, on the other hand, pairs the (possesive) first syllable of Kusturica’s name with the German “dorf,” meaning “village.”
6.
The Fantastic
Feeling of
Overcoming
Emptiness
Gobelins
I remember my distant relative Žana as a short delicate girl with a nacreous complexion and big grey-green eyes. I remember how she would lower her head to avoid direct eye contact with the person she was speaking to. Her body movements gave her away as a person who sought out the shadows in the hope of making herself invisible. If it hadn’t been for her smile, one would have said she was a beauty. But when she smiled her mouth would contort into an awkward toothy grimace, more the imitation of a smile than an actual smile.
I met Žana again after about thirty years. She had graduated as an engineer and gotten married. She and her husband weren’t able to have children, so they had adopted a boy. At the time I met him he must have been about thirteen. Žana had packed on the pounds since I last saw her. She looked like a monk seal. But the whiteness and glow of her complexion were unchanged. I noticed that she no longer lowered her gaze, but bored it right into you like a drawing pin. At first her husband seemed like a nice guy, but his voice made me uneasy, soft and arrogant when speaking to his wife and son, condescending when speaking to me.
Žana never worked in the profession for which she trained; the home was obviously her kingdom. The dining room table was heaving with food. The way she had set out the dishes, different cheeses, and ham decorated with vegetables, was sadly magnificent. She is our artist, said her husband. Mom is a real artist, the boy repeated after his father.
Before we sat down at the table, Žana gave me a tour of the house. Apart from the bathroom and kitchen, every room in the house was covered, almost wall-to-wall, in Wiehler Gobelin tapestries.[1] The entire catalogue was there: the Mona Lisa,