ABSTRACT
In the early spring of 1971 Yugoslav television viewers were able to hear actor Boris Dvornik expressing what was to become one of the most well-known lines from the series Naše malo misto (Our Small Town). In the role of a hotel director named Roko, in an episode set in the late 1960s, he offered the guests in his living room French champagne and Russian caviar, concluding this was a combination in which ‘capitalism and socialism get along best’. What was the background of this expression, and what did it mean to the audience? What was the intention of the authors, and how did they present the society which surrounded them? Were the two offered products merely symbols of conspicuous consumption? During the 1960s Yugoslavia was rapidly turning into a consumer society, while at the same time an effort was made to keep a balance between communist ideals and openness to market principles. The year 1958 could even be considered the birth year of the consumer society in socialist Yugoslavia (Duda 2005: 60–1, Duda 2010: 17). 1 In spring 1958 the Yugoslav League of Communists adopted its new programme guaranteeing ‘the maximal satisfaction of personal and collective people’s needs’ (Program 1965: 30) by, inter alia, raising the level of consumption and adjusting this to the tempo of more rapid economic development, as well as emphasising the need for ‘widening the network of shops’ and thus satisfying ‘the need for a better supply of consumers with goods’ (Program 1965: 187, 194–5). This was to be a contribution to the general idea of progress because socialism was seen as ‘a constant motion, a constant reckoning with ideological conservatism and tendencies of any kind of stagnation’ (Program 1965: 240), while ‘the person’s personal happiness’ was elaborated as ‘socialism’s farthest reaching aim’ (Program 1965: 132). In the autumn of the same year the song ‘Moja mala djevojčica’ (‘My Little Girl’), best known for the first line in the refrain ‘Tata, kupi mi auto’ (‘Dad, would you buy me a car’), was the winner of the Opatija festival of popular music. In the song, a father and his daughter are window shopping during a walk through the city during which the little girl lists a number of wishes – from sweets, oranges and cakes to teddy bears, prams and bicycles. This song’s victory marked society’s willingness for a consumer revolution but indirectly also signalled the political elite’s readiness to help in fulfilling these wishes.
