Expressing Vojvodina Hungarian Identity Through the Music of the Sógor Együttes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/ahea.2026.625Keywords:
Vojvodina Hungarians, music, civic nationalism, ethnic nationalism, cultural hybridityAbstract
This article analyzes the music of the Vojvodina-based Sógor Együttes, active between May 1986 and the end of 1990 in both Yugoslavia and Hungary. The innovative musical fusion that became known as “sógorism” blended Hungarian folk songs and popular music (“sláger”) from different periods, Hungarian rewrites of American rock’n’roll and Balkan folk songs with original compositions by band members. This blend became an immense success in the final decade of multinational and multiethnic Yugoslavia. The authors argue that the music of Sógor Együttes was an expression of the Vojvodina Hungarian minority’s unique and hybrid identity, which is defined in this article as a tripartite identity. In a time of rising ethnic nationalisms both in Serbia and Croatia, when even music became ideologically manipulated along ethnic division lines, the music of Sógor Együttes promoted the fading ideals of Yugoslav civic nationalism (Ignatieff) based on inclusion and equal rights while debunking any claim of ethnic and cultural purity. The violent breakup of the Yugoslav state in the early 1990s sadly coincided with the end of the band’s activity, yet the legacy of their music lives on.
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