Marko Perković Thompson
A rock singer and presently one of the major names in
Croatian music. He strongly associates himself with Croatian nationalism, a source of some controversy among Croatian liberals and even, when the foreign press take any notice, abroad.
Thompson was born in
1967; his father was one of many Croat
Gastarbeiters who emigrated to Western Europe in search of work, and lived for many years in the West German city of
Munchengladbach, only returning to
Yugoslavia at Christmas and Easter. Young Marko's first experiences as a performer were with the
electric guitar brought back by his father on one of his visits home.
Like many young Croatian men, Thompson served in the Croatian army during
the wars in Yugoslavia, and he also released his first album during the conflict.
Moli, mala (
Pray, little one,
1992), contained the song which almost launched his career on its own.
Bojna Čavoglave (
Berets of Čavoglava) praises his comrades defending Croatia from the
Serbian army, and opens with the slogan of the Croat volunteers,
Za Dom spremni - ready (to give their lives) for the Homeland.
Thompson's thumping rock numbers are typically overlaid with motifs from folk music, so that many of his songs, for instance, are played in with one of the region's traditional flutes. From time to time he rearranges existing folk songs, such as his
2000 release
Moj Ivane (
My Ivan), a tale of a village boy off to join the army.
Thompson released two more albums during the 1990s, and was married for a time to winsome singer
Danijela Martinović, the princess of
Dalmatian
schlager - suggesting a Christmas family singsong to which one could surely have sold tickets. More than anything else, he believes in God, the family and Croatia, and is now always pictured wearing his trademark medallion of
Saint Benedict.
He made his real breakthrough in
2002 with his fourth CD,
E, moj narode (
O, my people), from which more than half the tracks have been hit singles. The macho image he carefully cultivates - appearing in military fatigues in the video for
Stari se, a duet with the rising
Bosnian Croat singer
Tiho - does not appear to have been dented by his incongruous adaptation, on one of
E, moj narode's biggest hits, of the chorus of
ABBA's
Super Trouper.
Thompson does not shy away from politics, although he describes himself as an ordinary Croat above all. He is an open supporter of the nationalist party,
HDZ, which governed Croatia until early 2000, and has joined the chorus of musicians and sportsmen (including tennis star
Goran Ivanišević and footballer
Zvonimir Boban) who are opposed to the large-scale arrest and extradition on war crimes charges of soldiers who had fought for Croatia.
His concerts have become nationalist fixtures, an association he consciously invites. In September
2002 a judge presiding over the case of eight alleged war criminals who had served as prison guards at the
Lora camp was sharply criticised after attending one, in the stadium of
Hajduk Split FC, while the trial was in progress.
In February
2003 the eyebrows of Zagreb's mayor,
Vlasta Pavić, were raised after Thompson performed at a victory party welcoming home the Croatian
handball team, newly crowned world champions. After he had launched into
Bojna Čavoglave with the shout
Za Dom spremni, a few dozen onlookers among the crowd of 50,000 answered him with salutes used by the soldiers of the
NDH, the fascist regime which ruled Croatia during
World War II.
Many in the Croatian media were alarmed, only a few weeks after skier
Ivica Koštelić had appeared to identify himself with a German soldier in a newspaper interview. The centre-left Prime Minister
Ivica Račan, who came to power after the death of President
Franjo Tudjman and HDZ's subsequent collapse, strongly condemned the extremists' behaviour, emphasising that Croatia had long ago broken with its Nazi past.