ABSTRACT
During the Cold War the cultural and political identities of the multinational federation of Yugoslavia were performed on the stage of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). Participation in the ESC presented Yugoslavia with the challenge of how to express its non-aligned, multinational, and socialist characteristics, together with the traditional and modern elements of its identities, in a musical form to a predominantly West European audience. In the 1950s, Western popular music became less politicized in Yugoslavia in the sense that the regime no longer considered it to be so much of a cultural and political threat. In the postwar period Yugoslavia derived much of its hard currency earnings from a tourist industry concentrated along its Adriatic Coast, and most of its visitors came from western Europe. Although Yugoslavia's success at Eurovision increased its prestige on the international popular music stage, it did not always transcend its internal divisions, and even served to highlight differences among the republics.
