Those words came out of Miroslav Škora's tight throat after the magnificent concert "Croatian Night", where almost the entire first league of famous Croatian pop music and even more famous patriotic music performed in front of almost fifteen thousand people in a large hall that had been sold out a whole year earlier. - from the aforementioned Škora and his godfather Mate Bulić, through the Dirty Theatre, the Red Apple and the Golden Ducats, all the way to Mladen Grdović, Zlatko Pejaković, Jelena Rozga, Petar Graša, Siniša Vuca and Joško Čaglje of the aforementioned Popular Jola - and at which, as a special guest, Škora and the Croatian knights on stage, like Braca from Srebrenjak, were joined by the srebrena from Russia, the coach of the Croatian national football team and the Catholic charismatic Zlatko Dalić.
Who then, of course, invited the gathered "to make the Croatian nation, Croatian people and the Croatian state proud again with your help and the help of all Croats in the world, and with God's help".
The traditional, already thirteenth, magnificent "Croatian Night" on December 9 was not planned that way, but it turned out that way: as a worthy Croatian response to the aggression of the Serbian turbofolk and already a historic triumph of Aleksandra Prijović, who sold out the Zagreb Arena for five days in a row and brought about a hundred people to the pilgrimage thousands of Croats, in the middle of Zagreb as their guests, bringing on stage almost the entire first league of the famous Serbian turbofolk - from Saša and Dejan Matić, through Dejan Kostić, Željko Samardžić and Ace Pejović, all the way to Milica Todorović, Maya Berović, Tee Tairović and Nataša Bekvalac - and inviting Jelena Rozga and her own mother-in-law Fahreta Jahić aka Lepa Brena to the stage as special guests.
Just two or three days later, the triumphant "Croatian Night" arrived as an answer, and Škoro - still hot from his impressions - gave a short interview to a reporter from Slobodna Dalmacija after the concert, inevitably referring to Aleksandra's triumphant Zagreb tour that had just ended. Prijović. "What is the reason for that, we could sit down and discuss the topic phenomenologically", learned Doctor of Economic Sciences Miroslav Škoro offered a topic for the Croatian knights of the round table, and offered a ready-made solution to the Croatian variety show: "What seems to me is that we have to do more work, we have to write songs and pray to God that it becomes, in some way, a trend."
Now it seems so simple. Writing songs and praying to God that it becomes a trend. How did no one remember that before Škora? If, in fact, it helps Croatia - to "with God's help make the Croatian nation, Croatian people and the Croatian state proud again" - it should also work for Croatian music.
If, on the other hand, the Croatian troubadour sounded a little despondent for someone who had just sung in the magnificent atmosphere of a sold-out hall, in front of fifteen thousand wild patriots who were wearing Vatreni jerseys and black HOS T-shirts waving Croatian flags, it is because I told you forgot to say: just like the previous twelve, this, the thirteenth "Croatian Night" was held, namely, in the Süwag Energie Arena in - Frankfurt.
And the resigned Miroslav Škoro closed his short interview for Slobodna Dalmacija with his throat tightened with the best and most accurate thesis ever uttered about Croatia, Croats and Croatian music, pardon the music. "The question is how Mrs. Prijović would fare here tonight, in Frankfurt," Škoro offered one, as it were, "topic for a phenomenological conversation", ending with the already immortal sentence: "So, everyone has an audience in their place."
Let's go in order. So how would "Ms. Prijović fare tonight here in Frankfurt"? I'll tell you how it goes.
Fifteen years ago, on the same day in Frankfurt am Main, Croatian star Marko Perković Thompson and American icon Bob Dylan had their concerts, and the Zagreb tabloid Arena announced that twelve thousand people came to Thompson's concert in the Ballsporthalle and several thousand more in front of the hall, while barely two thousand people came to Dylan in the neighboring Jahrhunderthalle, which is why the organizers of Thompson's concert diverted the excess audience to Dylan's concert. Arena, in dead seriousness, assured readers that Dylan had asked the organizers to take him to see that, as you say, Thompson, then came out with the historical title "Bob Dylan's Jews were blown away by Thompson's concert!". After which the question was no longer "how would Mr. Dylan do tonight here, in Frankfurt", but the question was "my Dylan, my brother, was he almost a popular bijo?", as Predrag Lucić sang in those days.
And Miroslav Škoro would add that "everyone has an audience in their place".
Aleksandra Prijović, for example, according to that equation has a place in the Zagreb Arena, because Serbs, that is, popular Serbian singers and musicians - if I understood correctly, and I did - have an audience in Croatia, especially in Zagreb, the capital city of all Croats, Miroslav Skori takes a place in the Süwag Energie Arena, because Croats, that is, popular Croatian singers and musicians, have their audience in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where even Bob Dylan, let alone Aleksandra Prijović, has no chance. Why - what Škora's phenomenological round table would say - is that so? Because, of course, all the best we have - everything that loves Croatia and sings Škora's patriotic songs - left the country and went to the German baustels, while only the scum who listens to Serbian turbofolk remained in the Homeland.
And Bob Dylan.
I verified empirically and indeed, the theory holds water: at both events, in Zagreb and Frankfurt, there were around one hundred and ten thousand people together, of whom about fifteen thousand watched Škora in Germany, so a sixth, or exactly that sixth of the Croats who since the establishment of the free and sovereign Croatian state, fled headlong to the West. Those other five sixths of Croats, who were left at the mercy of the Croatian state, thirty years later - you have understood now - are listening to Aleksandra Prijović.
And Bob Dylan.
Everyone, said one, has an audience in his place.
So where is the problem? If, of course, we agree to begin with that there is a problem at all, it is possible only in the fact that such a Croatia - a Croatia that loves Aleksandra Prijović, just like any Serbian YouTubers and trash-trap-tik-tok-dick-thumb stars that are hitting the Croatian charts - made by Miroslav Škoro, his godfathers and their audience. Moreover, from that perspective, Aleksandar Prijović - and Saša and Dejan Matić, and Dejan Kostić, Željko Samardžić, Aca Pejović, Milica Todorović, Maya Berović, Teu Tairović, Nataša Bekvalac and Lepa Brena herself - were sent to the Arena in Zagreb by their wife Euterpa herself, the patron music: realistically, Škorina's Croatia "tonight, here in Zagreb" fared much better than it deserved.
And if the famous Arena was still open, by God, last week, a few days before the "Croatian Night" in Frankfurt, it would have been announced that the organizers of the last, fifth consecutive concert of Aleksandra Prijović are directing the excess audience to the eastern outskirts of Zagreb, to the Šumica club on Brestovečka cesta in Sesvete, where on the same day, Miroslav Škoro presented the jubilee reissue of his twenty-year-old album "Milo moje" in front of about a hundred guests.
So, to cut a long story short, the Serbs are making hits like Sloba pare - probably equally valuable, but equally popular - while the Croats are praying to God that Škora's songs will become a trend for them, so that, with God's help, they will once again make the Croatian nation, Croatian people and the Croatian state. And while Mrs. Prijović was joined on stage by Jelena Rozga and Lepa Brena as special guests, to sing together her mother-in-law's long-ago Yugoslav hit "Let's love", Mr. Škora was joined by the former CEO of Croatia as a special guest on stage the same evening in Sesvetska Šumica. , the convicted mogul Ivica Todorić, to sing Škora's long-ago patriotic hit "Sude mi" together.
In the judicial dictionary, I rest my case.
That's it - that a hundred thousand Croats in Zagreb bow to a Serbian singer whom the rest of Croatia only heard about for the first time in his life when she sold out five Arenas in a row, while the patriotic doyen at that time bows to a disgraced oligarch in a worldwide club. fifteen thousand Croats went to Frankfurt am Main - is the most accurate and precise short illustrated history of Croatia in the twenty-first century.
Everyone has an audience in their place.
And if it really is ubi bene ibi patria, if "homeland is where the good is", the key question is not where the bene is, but where the melior is: is it better where Croatia is or where the Croats are?
Bonus video:
