Jug Marković: NULA

Nula (Serbian for zero) is a piece of music that speaks about repercussions of breakup of Yugoslavia–a country I was born in. It speaks about certain aspects of life in Belgrade during war in Bosnia and Croatia, some of the consequences of that war and about ex-YU nineties.

The text was set by myself and consists of two main reservoirs.

First is a very personal one and contains a list of objects, pictures, phrases, situations, smells and colours that I associate with growing up in Belgrade during that time. Some of them are entirely individual experiences while the others are nowadays  well known part of the street culture that originated in those years.

 

devize……………………………foreign currency (German Marks)

vize ………………………………visas

dizel/zeldi ……………………diesel (fuel)

popis…………………………….closed for inventory

marke……………………………german marks

diler/lerdi/ler………………dealer

super…………………………….petrol, unleaded

miris benzina………………….smell of petrol

levak……………………………..funnel

 

Word »devize« has a special place in the text. Deutsch Marks were precious during the war caused inflation and the only way to keep the money from becoming gradually more worthless was to keep it in German Marks. One could buy marks only on the street from the dealers who were promoting their service to the locals by fastly saying word »devize«, so that you could hear only a buzzing letter »z«–devize, devize, devize, dvz, dvz, dvz, vzz, vzz, vzz, vzz, vzzz. Buying at street dealers was a weekly routine I had  with my father. Mostly it was either German Marks or Fuel (Petrol, unleaded –  green was from Hungary and red from Romania) but also other products such as food or clothes. Fuel was mostly sold in 5L canister that we would then tank to the car ourselves with a funnel. The smell of Petrol was something I adored and never got tired of, a sensation that nowadays unmistakably transports me into those times. Another typical thing was inscription »popis« that shopkeepers ( ones who could not keep up with fast changing of prices) would hang on the entrance of the store. Popis meant that the shop is officially closed for inventory for but was in reality open for business. If a customer walked in, the shop keeper could quote him whatever price, without having to fill out the necessary paperwork.

 

The second portion of the sung text of »Nula« speaks of inflation and uses three denominations of  dinar banknotes as well as a list of  December 1993 daily inflation rates.

Between 1992 and 1994, the Yugoslavia experienced the second-longest period of hyperinflation in world economic history. This period spanned 22 months, from March 1992 to January 1994. It peaked in December 1993. As measured by the Dinar’s free market value against the German Mark for the month of October 1993 the inflation was 3,150% ; for November, 49,233.33%; in December, 5,000,000%. During the 116 days between October 1st, 1993 and January 24th 1994, it reached a monthly rate of 313 million %. The cumulative inflation was almost 500 trillion (500,000,000,000,000) %. When combined with data from the 8 months prior to October 1st, 1994, Yugoslavia experienced some of the most intense hyperinflation in the history of the world, higher than that of Weimar Germany. In  practical sense people were beyond poor, dinar was worthless, prices of simple products were in millions and billions.

 

During last months of 1993 some of the largest denomination banknotes in Yugoslavia were printed. These three banknotes and their endless amounts of zeros (Nula) were used as a text for this piece.

 

In addition to the three Banknotes, the sung text contains a list of daily inflation rate during December 1993.

 

 

For the sake of comparison, the price of one egg in Dec. 1993 was cca. 700.000.000 dinars, bread 4.000.000.000, Newspaper 15.000.000.000 and one cigarette 100.000.000.

*source of inflation statistics:

Lyon, James (1995). Годишњак за друштвену историју II/1; Yugoslavia’s Hyperinflation 1993–1994.

 

The piece ends with a German language sentence that describes how fast was money losing  value within hours during one day (choice of German language was made because of its obvious connection to German Marks).

 

»Morgens hast du zehn, mittags fünf, abends zwei«.

 

In Serbian: Ujutru imaš deset, u podne pet, popodne dve;

In English: In the morning you have ten, at noon five and in the afternoon two.

Apart from two main text reservoirs (a personal one and a statistical one) around the middle of the piece there is a  sentence long »quote« that belongs to neither of those:

 

»Snage haosa i bezumlja«……………………. forces of chaos and madness.

It is how Slobodan Milošević, president of Serbia at the moment, commented a series of protests  that happened during March 1991. The so called »March Protests« gathered tens of thousands of people daily, including my parents and my 4-year-old self on my fathers shoulders. The protests culminated on March 9th when more than 100.000 people gathered on the main Belgrade square–though It quickly turned into a riot and was dispersed with tanks and water cannons. March Protest were only one in the series of numerous failed attempts to oppose the warmongering government in the following years.

Ironically, while this famous sentence of Milošević was directed to the people –

It is as if he was describing himself and his criminogenic regime.

(Jug Marković)