Yugoslavia's Sunny Side: A History of Tourism in Socialism (1950s–1980s)

What To Do at the Weekend?Leisure for Happy Consumers, Refreshed Workers, and Good Citizens

What To Do at the Weekend? Leisure for Happy Consumers, Refreshed Workers, and Good Citizens Igor Duda One of the films presented at the 15th National Film Festival in Pula tackled the subject of family problems in contemporary urban life, albeit in an entertaining manner. A couple with two sons divorce. The husband, a company manager with close links to the authorities, marries a young wife, has a pleasant, well-furnished house, a new car, and on the whole, a good life. His first wife marries a classical musician who has no interest in the first wave of consumer frenzy, but she has notions of grandeur and is keen to compete with her first husband’s luxurious lifestyle. The film was entitled I Have Two Mums and Two Dads and the year 1968.1 At one point in the film the father, his two sons, and his new family take a weekend trip on a bright sunny day. They park the car by a river in the green outskirts of Zagreb, take out all kinds of equipment, gadgets, and toys, and pursue various activities : sun-bathing, car-washing, listening to music, and fishing. While fishing, the father shares some weekend wisdom with the younger son, who was worried about his mother’s nervous and somewhat bitter attitude : “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Socialism is here to make the clever ones feel good.” The boy just sits quietly by the water. Socialism certainly paid attention to quality of life, work, and leisure. Inspired by Marxism, the renowned final program of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in 1958 aspired to an “empire of freedom,” and declared the trade unions responsible for living and working conditions , including daily, weekly, and annual breaks.2 In pursuit of this idea, the congress documents of the Association of Trade Unions of 1 Krešo Golik, director, Imam 2 mame i 2 tate (1968). Zagreb: Jadran film. Based on the novel by Tušek (1968). 2 See Program Saveza komunista Jugoslavije (1965, pp. 228, 241). Yugoslavia pointed out the importance of well-organized daily and weekly breaks for greater productivity and improved working results.3 The republican trade unions shared this view, as did their committees for rest and recreation, whose goal was to organize leisure “in unspoilt natural environments that had a healthy climate, were peaceful and had preserved their original beauty.”4 In a period of rapid urbanization , the trade union leisure officials perceived cities as ugly crowded places where the air was polluted and people were exposed to tension and infections. Moreover, they pointed out that the number of excursion sites (izletište) on the outskirts of the cities were inadequate, and criticized some of them as scenes of boredom and excessive drinking. Therefore new sites had to be planned and constructed, provide space for sports grounds, culture, music, and other forms of leisure. The trade union’s plan was as follows: “Considering the fact that a large section of the workers is still not used to an active weekly break, it is our task to create a leisure routine through the labor organizations (radna organizacija ) by arranging various excursions, with as rich a content as possible.”5 By providing the right conditions, the officials expected “the towns to be practically empty on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays.”6 However, the role of the trade unions and other mass organizations turned out to be indecisive in the area of weekly breaks, especially after the 1960s. In 1968, the year the Zagreb family weekend trip was shown on the festival screen in the amphitheatre in Pula, the popular weekly magazine Vikend went on sale in the kiosks for the first time. It covered leisure and pleasure topics: excursions, domestic tourism, travel abroad, show business, music, literature, cars, fishing and hunting , recreation and sports, health, hobbies, do-it-yourself, and fashion. 304 Igor Duda 3 HDA (Hrvatski državni arhiv), VSSH (Vijeće Saveza sindikata Hrvatske, fond 1286), box 1588, Centralno vijeće Saveza sindikata Jugoslavije, V. kongres, Odmor i fizička kultura. Elementi zdravlja i produktivnosti rada. Materijal za diskusiju, Beograd, 1964. 4 HDA VSSH 1588, Republičko vijeće SSJ za Hrvatsku, Odbor za odmor i rekreaciju, Koreferat za Plenum RV. Polsatni, dnevni i nedjeljni odmor radnika, 1964. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. The editorial approach placed the weekend primarily in the private sphere and the realm of...