There are very few evangelicals in Croatia. It’s the Croatian branch of Catholic church, which is more right wing than the Vatican itself. Yes, I know how that sounds. Fun fact, no other country on Earth, including Poland, has signed such servile contracts with Vatican, as Croatian nationalists did in the 90’s, to win Vatican’s, and subsequently international recognition of their fledgling independent state. You know, like the Nazis did with Reichskonkordat in 1933…
Regarding the pogroms…it’s not that simple. The first pogroms were conducted by the rebel Serbs who kicked out cca 200k Croatians and occupied a third of Croatia, while also massacring Croatian civilians who “didn’t get the message”. Eventually, their military strenght disappeared and Croatian military grew massively in power. So, Croatians launched a huge offensive, but telegraphed their intent beforehand, which created a massive displacement of like 350k Serbs to Bosnia and Serbia. A small number of, mostly elderly Serbs that were left, were on some occasions, massacred. A lot of abandoned Serbian houses were intentionally looted and burned.
There was a lot of talk at the ICTY about the intent, because the secret tapes of Croatian president (unbeknownst to everyone, he recorded everything) and his cronies, revealed them basically “dog whistling” (and more) to each other about it.
Fun fact, a Croatian generals were put on stand at the ICTY for war crimes of excessive shelling of Serbian rebel cities in occupied Croatia during the offensive. This didn’t “age well” to say the least, given the present Gaza realities. Here’s Natopedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Gotovina_et_al.
Anyway, in present day Croatia, it is therefore a political suicide not to show up at the celebration of that offensive, while Serbs are each year, ofc, pissed off about it. Croatians maintain it was voluntary displacement or even forced displacement by the rebel Serbs authorities, and that absolutely nothing would have happened if they stayed fascist wink wink.
Here’s machine translated and excellent article from a Marxist Croatian politician on a very popular Croatian lib portal, who had some actual success in politics, about the songs that were sung on this concert…
AFTER calling for a ban on Marko Perković Thompson’s concert at the Zagreb Hippodrome, Workers’ Front president and former parliamentarian Katarina Peović took to Facebook to list Thompson’s songs that she finds objectionable.
Below we present her announcement:
“Is it true that Thompson promotes national, religious and racial intolerance?”
‘Say, my brother’
Does anything more need to be said about Thompson than to remember his song ‘Say, my brother’ which he sings with Škora in which there is a line ‘but God forbid, so that they need us, the thick fog will descend again’ which is a reference to the Ustasha song ‘Spustila se gusta magla iznad Zagreba’ which reads 'it was not the thick fog above Zagreb, but the brave army of Poglavnik’?
The song to which Thompson refers celebrates Ante Pavelić ‘Poglavnik’ (‘Poglavnik gave them the name of the brave Ustaše’), the battle for Kupres (‘a thick fog descended above Kupres’) in which many partisans died in 1942, and celebrates the Ustasha Rafael Boban and the Black Legion (‘the leader was the knight Boban, a real Ustaša’, ‘Poglavnik gave them the name of the Black Legija’) whose units beat prisoners with clubs, stuck needles under their nails, ordered them to lick the floor and salt, were killed, robbed. Thompson celebrates the regime that had a children’s concentration camps.
‘Pukni puško’
Thompson’s song ‘Pukni puško’ from 1998 is a dedication to the Ustasha anthem and vigil ‘Puška puca’ which reads ‘The gun shoots and the cannon roars, thunders like thunder, Now the Ustasha soldier is fighting for the Croatian home’.
‘Spicy grass on a spicy wound’
‘Spicy grass on a spicy wound’ is a 1995 song by Poglavnik Ante Pavelić, the motto under which the Ustasha were founded, ultranationalists in World War II responsible for genocide against Jews, Serbs, Roma and Croats who were their political opponents [aka communists].
‘Jasenovac and Gradiška Stara’
Around 2003, Thompson was [unofficially] recorded singing the slaughter song ‘Jasenovac and Gradiška Stara’ in front of an audience. The song reads ‘Jasenovac and Gradiška Stara is the house of Maks’s butchers’! [“Maks Luburic” was Ustaše official who headed the system of concentration camps. This is an especially sickening song as it literally describes in detail slaughter of Serbs and revels in it.]
‘Geni kameni’
The song celebrates the Ustashas and denies the anti-fascist struggle. The lyrics in the song read ‘The 45th was bad, It scattered us across the world. And now a new vine is growing, The swallows have returned home’. The song also contains the racist line ‘…blue blood, white face, new children are being born…’.
‘Bojna Čavoglave’
‘Bojna Čavoglave’ greets with the Ustasha salute ‘For the homeland ready’ which the HOS members themselves associated with the Ustashas and the Ustasha movement.
‘Lijepa li si’
‘Lijepa li si’ from 1998 is a memory of the borders from Croatia that it had during NDH. Thompson dedicates it to Herceg-Bosna, Mati Boban, the creator of Herceg-Bosna – an artificial state that sought to establish a Croatian territorial unit in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was an attempt at Croatian separatism ended with the Dayton Agreement and the establishment of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, under international pressure.
‘Pictures of Bleiburg’
The song from 2025 equates the Ustashas with the Croatian army and the entire people, even though the majority of the Croatian people joined the Partisans and were on the winning side in World War II.
‘My Ivana’
The song from 2017 is a dedication to the Ustasha units in the Battle of Kupres in 1942, in which many Partisans who defended the homeland and fought against Nazi collaborators were killed. The lyrics read ‘That damned fate took Ivana away from us, took her from Kupres, near the white world. Only one strong desire remained, to sing the song of the hero of Kupres.’"