Case
study 2
As in most of
Europe during the past century, the
everyday life of the majority of the
population in both Yugoslavias was
taking big strides toward change.
Shorter and traumatic periods of
high mortality rates and destruction
(during the wars) alternated with
long peaceful periods, and the
initial and final results of both
Yugoslav half-times pointed to an
increase in the quality of life.
This was especially felt among those
strata of the population – workers
and most peasants – whose initial
position was low and unenviable and
their basic material safety
uncertain over both the short and
long term. After two wars, social,
economic and cultural circumstances
were guided by the idea of shaping a
better environment and significant
leaps towards moderization, which
was especially pronounced during the
second post-war period, when the
society was shaped according to the
principles of socialist
modernization, based on rapid
industrialization, electrification
and urbanization. New everyday
practices and customs were permeated
with new conceptions, shaping
different identities and gradually
changing long-established
mentalities.
Due to the
initial, predominantly agrarian,
structure of the population, the
village-city relationship is the
paradigm within which it is possible
to consider the complexity of social
change since the place of residence
implied a slower or faster movement
towards modernization. The quality
of this movement was also determined
by distinct regional differences
within the country. Moving from one
environment to another meant
breaking up the centuries-long
structure of social relations –
usually patriarchal and sometimes
even feudal – and entering the world
of a more distinct individuality
that was integrated, on a different
basis, into the collective, ranging
from the nuclear family to the
broader community. Strict parental
authority within the extended family
or cooperative community was fading
away, while new supportive social
networks, like those of neighbors,
friends and colleagues, as well as
extended family and homeland
networks, were taking shape. Within
these communities women and
children, the group to which the
20th century brought emancipation,
were becoming increasingly
independent, so that their role in
the everyday life of their community
was increasingly pronounced, their
successes increasingly important and
their defeats increasingly hard to
accept. The new role of woman who
was now entering the world of the
labour force and public life, took
shape simultaneously with the new
role of man, who was more clealry
turning to his family and becoming
emotionally engaged in it. Social
upheavals could mean the loss of old
traditions and the adoption of new
ones, transition from old rituals to
new collective public events, the
weakening of religious feelings and
the acceptance of secularism, or a
different understanding of
religiousness. At the same time,
literacy and the educational level
of the population were on the rise,
thus creating conditions for a
greater openness of society and the
mitigation of class differences. In
the 1980s, the grandchildren of
illiterate grandparents could play
computer games. After growing up in
fields or pastures, they could spend
their youth working on an assembly
line or at an office desk. The
transition from peasant clothes to
civilian clothes and blue jeans,
from the woman's more or less
covered head to coloured hair and
perms, from sleeping on straw to
sleeping on a comfortable mattress,
was very fast. The participants in
all these changes included adults
and their children who were, for
example, mostly called Vesna,
Snežana, Ljiljana, Zoran, Dragan and
Goran in Belgrade in the 1960s, and
Snježana, Gordana, Branka, Željko,
Tomislav and Mladen in Zagreb at the
very beginning of the 1970s. In many
respects, their everyday life, like
that of their parents and
grandparents, has so far been
studied historiographically,
including related disciplines, but
it is still necessary to deal with
those processes and practices for
which there exist only rare data and
general notions handed down orally
or in print.
Apartments, Household Appliances, a
Better Diet...
During the past
century, the housing situation
improved for the majority of the
population. In the inter-war period,
the housing infrastructure outside
cities was either poor or
non-existent, lacking electricity,
water and sewage connections. Living
conditions in municipal workers' or
peripheral settlements were poor.
Life in the villages located in the
northern part of the country was
better, but in other regions those
who had a bed of their own were
rare. In the underdeveloped parts of
the country, the bed was usually
reserved for the head of the
household, grandfather, sick person
or small children, while numerous
other housedhold members slept on
the floor, together with the animals
in winter and outdoors in summer. A
great wave of urbanization took
place in the second half of the
century when settlements with larger
residential buildings and
skyscrapers were built. New cities
or larger urban complexes, such as
New Belgrade, New Zagreb, New
Gorica, Velenje and Split 3, were
also built. From the aspect of urban
planning, the reconstruction of
Skopje after the disastrous
earthquake of 1963 was especially
successful. These new settlements
were based on contemporary urban
planning and architectural concepts
such as residential buildings with
social amenities, surrounded by
green areas and having no direct
access to major roads. Kindergartens
and schools, parks, health centers,
trading and small-scale craft
facilities were also built according
to plan. The provision of additional
amenities was often delayed, so that
such parts of the city were often
called dormitories: “People go home
to the settlement only to eat and
sleep, while for everything else
they must go into town”. However,
due to a higher percentage of young
families and a greater number of
children, their life was far from
the usual notion of alienated urban
life. Each year, from the early
1960s through the 1980s, 100-150
thousand apartments were built and
one third of them was built by the
socially-owned sector. These
apartments were given to workers on
the basis of their occupancy right
acquired in the enterprises and
institutions where they were
employed. A survey shows that in the
years of peak housing construction,
that is, during the late 1970s and
early 1980s, all three-member worker
households had electricity, almost
of them had water and sewage
connections, one third had central
heating and eight out of ten had a
bathroom and toilet in the
apartment. These above-average
results were contributed to by
certain rural areas and,
occasionally, illegally built
peripheral urban settlements.
Namely, the state tacitly allowed
the illegal construction of entire
individual housing complexes in
order to mitigate the housing
problem among the fast-growing urban
population. The state did not
succeed in meeting the demand for
telephone line connections fast
enough. It often took years to get
one, so the arrival of the telephone
was a reason for celebration and
calling up all and sundry to spread
the happy news.
Until the mid-20th
century, shifts in equipping
apartments and houses with furniture
and household appliances were
modest. In 1938, the price of a
kitchen table was equal to 70
percent of a salary on the first and
second pay scale, which was received
by every tenth worker. An enamelled
stove cost as much as the monthly
salary on almost the highest,
eleventh pay scale, which was
received by every twentieth worker.
Laundry was washed by hand and
washing was often part of the social
life of women who would take this
opportunity to get together. Over
time, cleanliness standards
improved. Home and personal hygiene
became increasingly important,
especially in the 1960s when there
appeared an automatic washing
machine that cost as much as three
times the average salary. Sales
increased rapidly and by 1973 every
third Yugoslav household had an
automatic washing machine and by
1988 – two out of three households.
This machine greatly facilitated
housework, so that housewives could
also do something else – pay more
attention to their children or enjoy
leisure time. It was increasingly
supplemented by TV sets, record
players and tape recorders. By 1973,
every second household owned a TV
set. In 1978, its price was equal to
the average salary, and byl 1988 a
black-and-white or colour TV set was
owned by 96 percent of
non-agricultural households and 58
percent of agricultural households,
which otherwise lagged behind in the
purchase of household appliances.
The TV set brought the greatest
number of changes into family life;
it assumed a central place in the
living-room and became the most
accessible source of entertainment
in leisure time. The light of the TV
screen brought together household
members as the fireplace had done
before.. Other appliances also found
their way to users, but at a
different pace. Up to the end of the
1980s, a vacuum cleaner was used by
two out of three households and a
refrigerator by nine out of ten; an
electric or gas stove was owned by
all households and only a very few
still used wood-burning stoves.
During the same decade, meat
shortages and purchases of larger
amounts of meat through trade unions
or from private sources enhanced the
importance of freezer chests and
drawers: “I cook a larger amount and
then divide it into daily portions.
I put everything in the freezer and
everyone will reheat their portion
later on. If it weren't for this
aid,I don't know how we would eat.
The freezer chest is of the greatest
help to me. I would sacrifice both
washing machine and vacuum cleaner,
but I couldn't give this up.”.
Food supply
problems, shortages and hunger were
not only the result of wartime and
post-war circumstances; they also
depended on weather conditions and
the situation in the countryside,
which was the only or main source of
supply. However, the problems also
included overpopulation,
fragmentation of land holdings,
technological backwardness and the
burden of debt. In the 1920s and
1930s as high a percentage as 75-80
of the population earned their
living exclusively from agriculture.
The years 1935, 1950 and 1952 were
especially dry. During the first
drought, hundreds of children from
Lika, the Croatian coast, Dalmatia
and Herzegovina were sent to regions
north of the Sava. The wave of
droughts in the early 1950s
coincided with the already
aggravated food supply and decline
in agricultural production. Post-war
hunger would have been even more
pronounced if it had not been for
shipments from the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration (UNRRA). From 1945 to
1952, the government resorted to
rationed or guaranteed supply,
dividing the consumers into
categories and restricting the
availability of goods, so that they
could only be obtained by presenting
a ration book. Thereafter, food
supply was normalized, but the
average food consumption and the
energy values of foods were not
satisfactory until the 1960s.
According to the statistical data,
consumption reached its maximum in
1982. Thus, per capita consumption
included, for example, 149 kg of
wheat products, 61 kg of potatoes,
96 kg of other vegetables, 52 kg of
meat and meat products, 3.8 kg of
fish, 101 l of milk and 187 eggs.
Accordingly, daily consumption
included about 16 dag of fruits and
15 dag of meat, as well as an egg
every second day. The food industry
gained great momentum in the second
half of the century, while a
modernized diet also included packet
soups and cooking in the pressure
cooker. Numerous cookery books were
published; there appeared TV shows
giving cooking instructions, and
recipes for the preparation of
various dishes and cakes were
exchanged. Travel and migration
within the country contributed to
the establishment of culinary
linkages, the permeation of
different tastes, the mixing of
traditional cuisines and the
formation of new food habits.
Despite the existence of numerous
restaurants and cafes, workers'
canteens, school cafeterias, the
first pizzerias and fast food
restaurants, the main cooked meal
was most often eaten at home with
the family where the womenfolk were
still in charge of food provision
and cooking.
A Rise in Consumption
Nutrition and
hygiene greatly influenced the
health of the population. In some
parts of the country the rural
population did not go to the doctor,
at least not until the mid-century.
They preferred to turn for help to
quacks, herbalists and medicine men.
Health culture and the availability
of doctors in the first Yugoslavia
were not sufficiently developed, so
significant steps were taken towards
changing people's understanding and
modernizing the system, with the
emphasis on prevention and hygiene
activities, as well as the
development of social medicine. In
the late 1930s, 7.5 percent of the
population was covered by social and
health insurance, but the state
succeeded in developing a system of
two hundred or so hospitals and over
five hundred social-medicine
institutions, including institutes
of hygiene and public health
centres. However, the masses still
remained without regular health care
and were exposed to epidemics of
tuberculosis, malaria, trachoma and
other diseases.
The post-war
development of medicine and health
institutions made possible a greater
availability of doctors and an
almost fivefold increase in the
number of hospital beds (in 1986
there were about 143,000), while all
services were covered by mandatory
health insurance. Regular medical
check-ups and mandatory vaccination
of the population were also
organised. Occupational medicine and
an occupational safety system
provided greater security for the
employed. Pensions and homes for the
elderly instilled confidence in
end-of-life care. Thanks to better
health and hygiene as well as
improved socio-economic conditions,
the estimated life expectancy for
those born in the early 1980s was 68
years for men and 73 for women, that
is, twenty or so years longer than
that for the generations born in the
1940s. For the same reasons, infant
mortality declined from 143 per
thousand in the 1930s to 27 per
thousand in the mid-1980s, ranging
from 12.6 per thousand in Slovenia
to 54.3 per thousand in Kosovo. In
the mid-20th century, Yugoslavia
underwent a demographic transition:
the birth and death rates declined
to 15 and 9 per thousand
respectively. In the early 1950s,
the higher level of development
brought about family planning and
expansion of the right to abortion.
During the 1960s, Yugoslavia also
experienced a sexual revolution,
while a more liberal attitude toward
homosexuality led to its
legalization in some parts of the
federation.
Trade
modernization and the spread of
consumer culture were largely
changing the consumer's purchasing
behaviour and attitude towards
goods. Traditional trade at fairs
and markets – implying direct
buyer-seller relationships,
negotiating prices, occasional
exchanges of goods and an inevitable
backdrop of noises, smells and
colours – were preserved in rural
and urban environments, but were not
the only methods of purchasing
goods. Green markets were the
meeting place of the urban and
rural, or industrial and
agricultural worlds, which
supplemented each other well since
urban citizens needed goods from the
immediate vicinity on a daily basis.
In big cities there were department
stores, which had been known as
temples of consumer culture since
the 19th century. They represented
both selling and exhibition spaces
and usually attracted
middle-to-upper class customers.
However, there were even more
smaller and technically ill-equipped
shops. In the 1920s, there were more
than 100,000 shops of this type,
while in the 1930s their number
remained at about 86,000, which
meant that there was one shop per
182 inhabitants or, more precisely,
one food shop per 277 inhabitants.
These ratios were two times better
in comparison with only 40,000 shops
in the post-war period. Due to
reorganization and nationalization,
their number decreased to 35,000 in
1955, but thereafter began to
increase, reaching 100,000 in the
late 1980s. Being used to
communication with the seller who
would show them goods, put them on
the counter and collect payment,
buyers were faced with an unknown
and quite new method of sales when
self-service shops appeared. The
first such shop was opened in 1956,
in the town of Ivanec in northern
Croatia. Thus, strolling around the
aisles, picking up
industrially-packaged goods within
close proximity and spending more
time on shopping were becoming part
of everyday life. In Yugoslavia,
less than ten years after the
opening of the first self-service
shop, there were almost a thousand
shops of this type, while in the
second part of the 1980s there were
seven times more. During the same
period, the number of department
stores increased at the same rate
and exceeded the figure of 700.
Modernization of the trade network
and methods of sale formed part of
the development of consumer culture,
whose key features, especially among
the upper and middle strata of the
population, were already present in
the inter-war period. However,
consumer culture was only embraced
by all strata during the period of
higher economic growth and living
standards, so that in the late 1950s
and during the 1960s one could speak
about the formation of a Yugoslav
consumer society. At the popular
music festival in Opatija in 1958,
the winning song Little Girl, better
known for its refrain Papa, buy me a
car... buy me everything!, marked
the beginning of the consumer
revolution.
Daily shortages
did not lastingly characterise
Yugoslav trade. However, between
1979 and 1985, due to an economic
crisis, there were shortages of oil,
detergents, coffee, chocolate, corn
cooking oil, citrus fruits, hygiene
items and the like. For the first
time since the immediate post-war
period, citizens waited in line and
coped with the situation in various
ways. Whatever could not be found in
the country between the 1960s and
1980s came through private channels
from abroad: people would travel
usually to Italy and Austria, and
make purchases within a day. Goods
were also brought in by Yugoslavs
working abroad and tourists. Customs
officials at border crossings
sometimes met women wearing fur
coats in the summer heat, or men
wearing several pairs of trousers.
The earnings of about one million
Yugoslav workers temporarily
employed abroad flowed into domestic
banks. In addition,, these workers
were also bringing new life habits.
However, an even stronger engine of
consumerism was tourism.
Transport Development and Population
Mobility
Population
mobility in this territory was poor.
Life mostly unfolded in the vicinity
of one's place of birth. The culture
of travel began to develop only in
the second half of the century. Up
to then, the rural population would
most often go only to a fair or for
pilgrimage, usually on foot, or
emigrate to European and overseas
countries, or move within Yugoslavia
as part of land reform and
colonization. During the 1920s and
1930s, the number of rail passengers
doubled and reached over 58 million.
The maximum number was reached in
1965 – 236 million. Before the
Second World War, there were more
than 900 buses providing public
transport services on almost 500
intercity lines. In the early 1950s,
there were about 15 million bus
passengers, while 30 years later
there were even 70 times more – over
one billion. The bus was absolutely
the most popular form of public
transport. For example, according to
relevant data for the late 1970s and
early 1980s, maritime transport
services were used by up to about 8
million passengers each year, while
air transport reached its peak in
the second half of the 1980s,
exceeding 6 million passengers. At
that time, the Yugoslav fleet
operated about 250 routes with 50
planes. Most of the credit for these
figures should be given to Yugoslav
Airlines (JAT) which, as the key air
carrier, connected 53 cities on five
continents. Domestic passengers were
attracted by such slogans as “The
shortest route to the sun”, or
“Turning a trip into a vacation”.
The beginnings of the first
scheduled passenger airline service,
Aeroput, were much more modest.
During the ten years of its
existence, until the late 1930s, it
increased its fleet to 14 planes and
carried a modest number of more
affluent passengers – about 13,000.
Down on the
ground, roads still bore the burden
of the greaterst number of
passengers, but during the inter-war
period there were still no larger
infrastructure investments.
According to statistics, unpaved
roads were prevalent until the early
1980s, although the first highway
sections were constructed in the
early 1970s. The country's
development level and way of life
were unable to make possible
anything more than a rather slow
development of automobile culture.
In 1938, only 13,600 cars and 7,700
motorcycles were registered, which
means that horse carriages and
occasionally bicycles were still the
dominant modes of personal
transport. After the Second World
War, up to the 1960s, people most
often drove motorcycles. In 1955,
however, there appeared the Zastava
750, popularly called “Fićo”, “Fića”
or “Fičko”, the first Yugoslav
passenger car and the first product
of cooperation between the Zastava
factory in Kragujevac and the
Italian Fiat, which were to roll
down down the assembly line for 30
years. The importance of this first
car in the country's motorisation
was not even overshadowed by
Zastava's later basic models:
Zastava 101 or “Stojadin” produced
in 1970, or Jugo 45 produced in
1980. While the price of more
expensive Western car models was
equivalent to 40 or more average
monthly salaries, a Fića and
Stojadin cost 13 and 20 monthly
salaries respectively in 1971.
However, money was found and the
country embarked on a fast
motorization process in which the
car was becoming a status symbol. In
1970, one newspaper printed a
photograph of a man from Sandžak
with his car in front of a
dilapidated shack after deciding to
invest money first in a Fića and
then in his home. It was also
written about the residents of a
Macedonian village on Mount Šar who
kept their forty or so cars in the
neighbouring town of Tetovo because
their village had no connection to a
road. In 1972, butcher Štef Galović
told journalists that owning a car
was not a luxury; it was his right
after so many years of service. Many
people were guided by precisely this
principle. In 1961, there were as
many as 238 Yugoslavs per passenger
car, 10 years later – 24 and in the
late 1980s – seven on average; in
Kosovo there were as many as 23
persons per passenger car and only
four in Slovenia. After being
considered a luxury, owning a car
was gradually becoming the sign of a
common standard of living. However,
it was still viewed as a striking
consumption item and the most
expensive asset kept outside one's
safe home. It enjoyed the status of
a pet or family member, so that it
could often be found on family
photographs. A car was treated with
personal or family pride. Its owner
purchased accessories for it, its
engine was maintained and its body
was polished. In return, it
faithfully served its owners,
helping them to carry out everyday
tasks, whose pace and success were
becoming increasingly dependent just
on it, as well as to conquer new
spaces during excursions and
travels. Thus, it was becoming the
symbol of freedom because one could
travel by car almost everywhere at
any time, regardless of public
transport lines and timetables.
Simply enjoying the ride became part
of everyday life.
The Rise of Tourism
If the culture of
travel had not taken hold, such
rides would not have been possible.
At the time of the formation of the
first Yugoslav state there already
existed a good basis for the
development of domestic tourism. It
included the Adriatic coast, spas in
the interior of the country and
regions with a tradition of
mountaineering clubs and chalets. In
1923, the Putnik Travel Agency was
established as a joint-stock company
with the aim of “preparing travel
programs and organizing tours,
instructional people's and other
tourist travel within the country
and abroad”. Four years later, it
became a state-owned company and, as
such, it restored its operations
after the Second World War. A number
of independent travel agencies
sprang up from this first seed.
Tourism did not occupy a special
place in the inter-war economy and
everyday life. During the 1930s,
Yugoslavia was visited by about
900,000 tourists, spending about
five million nights each year. In
the years preceding the Second World
War, domestic tourists constituted
the majority, while one fourth were
foreign tourists, mostly Germans and
then Czechoslovaks, Hungarians,
Italians, Britons and Austrians.
Domestic tourists included
middle-to-upper class
holiday-makers, while the other
urban population would stick to
urban resorts, and seaside and
freshwater bathing areas. In the
1920s, the sun-tanned body became
the symbol of health and well-being.
Otherwise, bathing and wearing a
swimming suit in public were not
easily accepted by the older
generations. A defining moment for
the popularisation of tourism was a
new approach taken by socialist
Yugoslavia by introducing paid
annual leave and social tourism. The
general workers’ right to annual
leave for two to four weeks was
introduced in 1946. Going on holiday
was understood as an essential part
of the standard of living and the
right of the entire population.
Social tourism anticipated
preferential accommodation and
transport rates, a holiday bonus,
and workers', children's and youth
holiday homes. Despite some remarks,
many workers were satisfied:
“Workers' holiday homes are cheaper
and make you feel more relaxed
because around here there are mostly
your friends and acquaintances. It
is more comfortable than being with
unknown people. In addition,
everything is organised, so that I
don't have to think about anything.
So you can spend comfortable and
really carefree holidays.”
In the mid-20th
century, many people traveled and
saw the sea for the first time. The
sea was the main holiday
destination. Fascination with the
sea was a frequent theme in popular
songs and media, which regularly
reported on the holidays of workers
and domestic film, music and sports
stars. One of many similar
statements published in the domestic
press was: “My most favourite
encounter is with our blue Adriatic
coast and I feel best when I swim.”
Thanks to large investments, tourism
grew rapidly until the record year
of 1986 when over 111 million
tourist nights were realised.
According to their share of tourist
nights, most domestic and foreign
guests came from West Germany,
Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, the United Kingdom,
Austria and Italy. The surveys
showed that during the period of
late socialism every second citizen
travelled somewhere on annual leave.
These were mainly smaller families,
better educated, with a higher
income, and a permanent address in
one of the larger cities in the
interior of the country. Commercial
and foreign tourism grew stronger
during the 1960s when the country
opened up to the West and when the
importance of foreign exchange
earnings from tourism was
recognized. The proliferation of
beds at private accommodation
facilities and an increasing number
of family houses exhibiting the sign
“Zimmer frei” pointed to the change
brought by tourism to the local
population, especially on the
Adriatic coast mostly in Croatia.
With their consumer goods, behaviour
and customs, foreign guests brought
their hosts closer to the
contemporary West, while
well-appointed beaches, sports
grounds, swimming pools, hotel
restaurants and congress halls found
a public purpose throughout the
year.
In contrast to
annual leave, the weekend had to
wait to fulfil its complete role of
weekly rest until 1965 when the
working week was shortened to 42
hours by law. For most workplaces
this implied five 8-hour working
days and one working Saturday per
month, or working extra two hours
once a week. A weekend was often
extended by one or more adjacent
non-working state holidays. In 1967,
every fifth citizen of Zagreb would
go on a hal-day or full-day
excursion, while in the early 1980s
every third Yugoslav used to go on
weekend excursions, at least
occasionally. People were most often
forced to stay at home due to the
lack of money or time or the habit
or need to spend their leisure time
in this way. Weekends were
inevitably associated with weekend
cottages, whose building began in
the 1950s. By the 1980s this
practice had spread among different
strata of the population. These
cottages were mostly built in the
vicinity of large cities and
industrial centres where they really
served for spending short weekly
holidays, breathing fresh, clean air
and having a barbecue. For many
people it was important to have a
summer cottage at the seaside: “We
live here 'on our own terms'. „It's
simply different from being a
tourist. It gives you a different
feeling, a different attitude. You
feel comfortable and free […] You
live life on your own terms.”
In the Rhythm of the Century
Apart from
excursions and travels during this
century, popular culture was also
increasingly penetrating leisure
time, promoted by thousands of
daily, weekly and monthly
newspapers, as well as programs
broadcast by radio stations (Radio
Zagreb since 1926, Radio Ljubljana
since 1928 and Radio Belgrade since
1929) and television stations (TV
Zagreb since 1956, and TV Belgrade
and TV Ljubljana since 1958).
Foreign radio and television
programs were also popular. Cinemas
showed domestic, Hollywood and other
foreign blockbusters; record
companies were producing records and
cassettes featuring domestic and
foreign artists; and publishing
companies were printing literary
works by domestic authors as well as
translated works by foreign ones.
Apart from actors, singers and
authors, star status was also
enjoyed by athletes. Sports events
were watched live or through the
media. Apart from professional
sports, amateur sports were also
developed, especially in the second
Yugoslavia. Young people socialized
with each other in the open, in city
centres, dance halls and, finally,
discotheques, turning evenings-out
into nights-out and behaving in
accordance with the selected
subculture. From the 1960s onwards,
leisure time was increasingly
occupied by various hobbies, which
reflected various life styles and
were an increasingly important
determinant of identity.
In 1938, the basic
living costs per person amounted to
630 dinars each month or, more
precisely, 1,500 dinars for an
average worker's family consisting
of 2.4 members. However, half of all
workers earned less than the amount
needed for only one person. So there
was enormous dissatisfaction and
strikes were frequent. In the 1920s,
the share of food costs in the
living costs of a four-member family
in Zagreb amounted to about 40
percent. In the second half of the
century, at the country level, a
worker's four-member family had to
earmark about 50 percent of its
income for food, which still
represented a high share. The lowest
share, about 40 percent, was
recorded in the late 1970s when the
standard of living and purchasing
power were at their highest level.
In 1978, the average salary was
5,075 dinars, ranging from 4,084 in
Kosovo to 5,903 Slovenia. If the
consumer basket contained 1 kg of
bread, 1 kg of sugar, 1 kg of beef,
1 kg of apples, 1 l of milk, an egg,
a pair of men's shoes, a haircut and
a movie ticket, it turned out that
in 1978 the average salary could
cover the cost of 8.4 baskets. Due
to a drop in the standard of living
ten years later, the salary could
cover the cost of 5.7 baskets; in
1968 – exactly 8; in 1958 – 4.2 and
in the pre-war year 1938 – only 3.8.
This simplified example shows that
in the late 1960s the average
purchasing power was about double
that of the pre-war year, and it
went on increasing until 1978, when
it reached highest level in the
history of Yugoslavia. This picture
of the increase in the standard of
living will become more complete if
one takes into account the achieved
level of tehnological development,
high health and hygiene standards
and higher educational level of the
population. Should the question of
progress be posed from the aspect of
everyday life, it would be reflected
in the wish for electricity, paved
roads, a comfortable apartment or
house, a marriage of love and not an
arranged marriage, fertile land, job
security, as well as the wish for
the children to be better off in the
future. It is precisely these issues
that are conversation topics in the
prize-winning feature film Train
Without a Timetable (Veljko Bulajić,
1959): “There is also electricity
and a state road over there, and you
can have a radio in the house. It
can play and sing for you all day
long! Just like in a dream...“ This
dream was part of the changes
brought by the 20th century to
everyday life, including increased
opportunities and needs. Yugoslavia
was attuning the rhythm of the
century to its own development level
and political priorities.
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