During the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Struggle, anthems proliferated. Throughout the Yugoslav territories, The Internationale (Soviet state anthem until 1944) was widely popular. The song Hej, Slaveni (Hey, Slavs), which would become the official anthem of socialist Yugoslavia, as well as the anthems of the future republics were sung with joy. In addition, anthems to the Partisan struggle and its values, to the military units, and to significant personalities were composed during the course of the war and sung at rallies and political performances as well as in small, more private gatherings.

It is worth emphasizing Janez Kardelj’s Himna agitteatru (Anthem to the AgitProp Theatre). This one seems to be endeavoring to answer some of the key questions about the Partisan art and its role in the ongoing revolutionary transformation. The verses are as follows:

We are all here Partisan–actors,
Our home is nowhere, our stage everywhere.
We are comrades by our fighters’ side,
Now we are here, sorrow somewhere else.

Our words will not enlighten full-fed
Conceited masters in the theatre boxes,
Not in footlights but in deep forest,
They touch the heart of a fighter hero.

Green forest is now our auditorium,
The floodlight – the moon shining from the sky
Nothing is more valid than Partisans’ thanks
More than all the applause of the bourgeois world.

When the evening forest cloaks in darkness
And through it a secretive whisper runs,
Then through the night between the rocks
Echoes the free flight of our words!

And even if the distant voice disappears
Like shooting stars from the night sky,
Even then thousands sing within us
We are like the beat of one big heart.

You can hear more about the Partisan anthems and about the Partisan art in general on the WAFRUN podcast here.

Translation: Gal Kirn

Further reading:

Gal Kirn, The Partisan Counter-Archive: Retracing the Ruptures of Art and Memory in the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Struggle (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2020).