Yu-Mex
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Yu-Mex (
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordspopular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
in the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...
which incorporated the elements of traditional Mexican music. The style was mostly popular during the 1950s and 60s, when a string of Yugoslav singers began to perform traditional Mexican songs. Yugoslavia did not have much of a film industry, and in the immediate post-war period, the majority of the films shown in Yugoslavia were from the Soviet Union. After the
Tito–Stalin split The Tito–Stalin split or the Yugoslav–Soviet split was the culmination of a conflict between the political leaderships of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, under Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, respectively, in the years following World W ...
of 1948, Soviet films were no longer shown in Yugoslavia. At the same time, Yugoslav president
Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his death ...
did not want American films shown in Yugoslavia. As a result, he turned to importing Mexican films. The fact that many Mexican films glorified the
Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, depicting ordinary Mexicans rising up against the oppressive Mexican state, made Mexican films "revolutionary" enough to be shown in Yugoslavia. Many parallels were drawn between the struggle waged by the Partisans in World War II and the Mexican Revolution. The first Mexican film to premiere was the 1950 drama ''Un día de vida'' (''One day of life''), which become a huge hit when it was shown in Yugoslavia in 1952. The plot of ''Un día de vida'' dealing with an execution of a rebel in the Mexican Revolution brought many audiences to tears in Yugoslavia, who saw a parallel with their own experiences of World War Two. Other, more nonpolitical Mexican films, such as comedies and romances, also became popular, and it became common for many young Yugoslavs to imitate the styles of Mexican film stars, who were seen as embodying everything that was "cool". Because most of the films shown in Yugoslavia in the 1950s–1960s were Mexican, everything Mexican became very popular in Yugoslavia and many musicians started to don sombreros to perform Mexican music, either singing in Serbo-Croatian or in the original Spanish.


Literature and film

Slovenian writer
Miha Mazzini Miha Mazzini (born 3 June 1961 in Jesenice, Yugoslavia) is a Slovenian writer, screenwriter and film director with thirty published books, translated in ten languages. He has a PhD in anthropology from the Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis and h ...
renewed the interest in Yu-Mex music after publishing his novel Paloma Negra. During the research for the novel, Mazzini recorded the stories told by protagonists and made a TV documentary Yugoslav Mexico (YuMex).


References


Articles

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External links


YuMex or Yu-Mex: Mexican music in fifties Yugoslavia
Yugoslav music Mexican folk songs Mexican styles of music Mexico–Yugoslavia relations {{yugoslavia-stub