Croatian Diva Shrugs off Attacks on Montenegro Concert

Tereza Kesovija

When the legendary Croatian chanteuse Tereza Kesovija broke 20 years of silence in Montenegro by agreeing to hold a concert there, she surely had no idea that her appearance would provoke such outrage among opponents of the ruling elite, some of whom have accused her of singing to “warmongers”.

Kesovija, appearing in Montenegro for the first time in 20 years, told Balkan Insight that she was delighted with her reception by the Montenegrin government, which organized the concert on September 30.

The diva long had insisted she would never sing again in Montenegro after the Yugoslav People’s Army, the JNA, attacked Dubrovnik in 1991 and when Montenegrin soldiers burned down her house in nearby Konavle.

Media at the time reported that they robbed her house before torching it and that some soldiers had had pictures taken of themselves in her pool, wearing her underwear. After burning the house, the words, “It could be worse bi…h!” were also daubed on the fence.                                                                 

But today Kesovija says she has reached the point of closure. “I had a really good time in Podgorica and my message to all Montenegrin people is that we should look at the future,” she told Balkan Insight.

A life in song

Kesovija was born in Dubrovnik on October 3, 1939, and first appeared on the stage 50 years ago in Zagreb. Over those years she won many national and international festival awards and recorded over 20 albums. Apart from Croatian, she has sung in eight different languages.

“This concert would never have happened if I had only thought about the war [in Croatia] and I will definitely return to Montenegro,” she added.

She described her move as “the outstretched hand of reconciliation and forgiveness”, noting that 20 years was a long period. “I think enough time has passed,” she said.

The cream of Montenegro’s public life turned out for the show, including President Filip Vujanovic, government ministers, senior officials of various parties, MPs and businessmen. Of the 380 tickets printed for the concert only 25 actually went on sale.

At Kesovija’s last appearance in Podgorica in 1989, she donated her fee towards a fund to rebuild the state theatre in Podgorica, which had been burnt in a fire.

Actor Zef Dedivanovic, who attended the concert, said that gesture had saved Montenegro the equivalent of 100,000 euros.

“I would like to have paid her that amount just to bring her here to Podgorica to sing with us,” he said. “This was a meeting of old friends, which is why this concert was necessary,” he added.

Zarko Mirkovic, director of the Music Centre of Montenegro, one of the sponsors of the concert, recalled that the concert had been planned for the summer but was delayed for technical reasons.

“It is needless to explain why Tereza Kesovija was singing in Montenegro. This was certainly much more than a concert,” Mirkovic said.

But not everyone has been moved to tears by the singer’s belated return in the small Adriatic republic. Some Montenegrins have roundly condemned her for appearing before what they called an assembly of old war criminals.

Slavko Perovic, former leader and founder of the Liberal Alliance of Montenegro, the only party in the country that opposed the siege of Dubrovnik in 1991, sent a public letter to Kesovija saying she should have been “ashamed to agree to sing for warmongers.

Slavko Perovic

“Filip Vujanovic, before whom you sang, was then minister of police, and together with his comrade, Milo Djukanovic, was trying to kill your country, Croatia, and capture it for his boss, [former Serbian leader] Slobodan Milosevic,” he wrote.

“All Croatian songs, including yours, were then strictly forbidden in Montenegro, which is something that you certainly didn’t know,” Perovic added.

He described the concert as a mockery of the suffering of victims of the war in Croatia.

Marko Milacic, columnist of the daily newspaper Vijesti, based in Podgorica, was even more scathing. “It’s as if some famous Jewish singer was performing in front of the leadership of Hitler’s Nazis in Berlin,” he told Balkan Insight.

“Had Kesovija held a concert for the whole people and said ‘This is for you and not for those who have destroyed my house and my Dubrovnik’ that would have shown the great heart of Tereza Kesovija,” he added.

Marko Milacic

“Unfortunately she’s become just another washer of the dirty wartime biographies of the ruling establishment,” he opined.

Boris Dezulovic, a Croatian writer, also added a hostile note, describing the concert in Podgorica as a carnival of hypocrisy in which various political and entertainment interests were intertwined.

The timing of the concert was certainly sensitive. It took place on September 30, just a day before the 20^th anniversary of the Montenegrin attack on Dubrovnik.

For the shelling of the city that the poet Bryon once called the “Pearl of the Adriatic”, the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, sentenced in February, 2005 Montenegrin General Pavle Strugar  and Admiral Miodrag Jokic to seven years’ prison in March 2003.

In the siege from October 1991 to May 1992, about 400 Croatian soldiers and nearly a hundred civilians died. Nearly 30 per cent of the old city suffered serious damage.

Responding to the criticism, Kesovija said that as the Montenegrin government organized the event she could hardly have shut them out of the show.

“People need to recognize that this concert was sponsored by the government of Montenegro, so it was OK for them, above all, to be represented there,” she told Balkan Insight.

Kesovija added that she would hold another concert when the concert hall in Podgorica was completed, so that more people could fit in. “Next time, when I come, there will be place for everybody who’s interested,” she promised.

This article is funded under the BICCED project, supported by the Swiss Cultural Programme.