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Homosexuality inYugoslavia was first decriminalized in theSocialist Republics ofCroatia,Slovenia,Montenegro and the Socialist Autonomous Province ofVojvodina in 1977.[1] In other regions anti-LGBT legislation was, to varying degrees, progressively not implemented. The capital city ofBelgrade, together withZagreb andLjubljana, became some of the first spots of an organized LGBT movement in theBalkans.
Following the violentbreakup of Yugoslavia some authors analyzed regional cooperation and networks informer Yugoslavia as a form of conscious rejection of nationalism representing important features of contemporary LGBTQ activism inSouth East Europe.[2]
In the first post-medieval Criminal Code of thePrincipality of Serbia, named "Kaznitelni zakon" (Law of Penalties), adopted in 1860, sexual intercourse "against the order of nature" between males became punishable by from 6 months' to 4 years' imprisonment. As typical for the time, homosexual relations between women were excluded.[3][4]In 1937,Belgrade-based daily newspaperPolitika published news about a young man fromCentral Serbia who arrived in Belgrade with his brothers tochange his gender.[5]
In theNazi Germanypuppet stateIndependent State of Croatia (NDH), homosexuals were persecuted and sent toconcentration camps such asJasenovac, regardless of their nationalities or ideological orientations.[6] Very little research has been done on the experiences of homosexuals during theWorld War II in Yugoslavia; only a small insight was given by the Croatian authorIlija Jakovljević in his textKonclogor na Savi (English:Concentration Camp onSava), in which he mentioned that in prison onSquare N16 inZagreb he met a "lover of the male body", referring only to the man's identity and not whether he was imprisoned for his sexual orientation.[7]
There are two accounts about homosexualYugoslav Partisans duringWorld War II in Yugoslavia. One known death sentence was issued by a Croatian detachment of the National Liberation Army for the commander of theCroatian Partisans' communication network,Josip Mardešić, after he was discovered to have had affairs with his male subordinates.[8] The other account was given byMilovan Djilas in his war memoirs, where he tells a story fromSandžak where "oneMuslim, a good soldier and a zealous communist" was exposed ashomosexual by other soldiers to the Regional Secretary, Rifat Burdžović.[9] The Regional Secretary in doubt asked Djilas if he should "execute [the] freak?", while Djilas remained in doubt, admitting that, at the time, he neither knewCommunist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) practice nor anything said on such matters byMarx andLenin.[9] At the end, he concluded that "from such vices sufferproletarians, and not onlybourgeoisie decadents" and that it cannot be tolerated for homosexuals to have any party functions, nor to be among the leaders of the partisan movement.[9] Djilas said that he only later learned that "that homosexual, who in appearance was sheer manhood, was very brave and courageously fell in battle".[9][10]
In the postwar period, there were more examples of persecution and inhumane treatment of homosexual individuals. One of the cases took place in 1952 inDubrovnik, where members of Communist Party arrested homosexuals, put bags withpejorative inscriptions on their heads and led them through the city.[11] When theSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was formed, it adopted the Yugoslav Criminal Code of 1929, a previous law of theKingdom of Yugoslavia which forbade "lewdness against the order of nature" (anal intercourse). In 1959, male homosexuality was officiallycriminalized inYugoslavia, with a penalty of imprisonment for one year.[9][12][13] Around five hundred male homosexuals have been imprisoned between 1951 and 1977, about half of which served probation, and others served shorter sentences. For comparison, many Western European countries (such asWest Germany,United Kingdom andItaly) convicted several tens of thousands of homosexuals during the same period.[14]
In the 1970s, following thesexual revolution in much of Western Europe, the legal and social sphere of Yugoslavia started to liberalize towards LGBT rights. In 1973, the Croatian Medical Chamber removed homosexuality from thelist of mental disorders.[9] In 1974, a law professor at theUniversity of Ljubljana, Ljubo Bavcon, urged thedecriminalization of homosexuality as one of the members of the Commission for the Adoption of Criminal Law of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia.[9] TheLeague of Communists of Yugoslavia held debates on the topic at least three times until 1976, when it requested decriminalization in all republics subject to each party branch approval. Federal units of Yugoslavia that decriminalized homosexuality were the Socialist Republics of Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in 1977.[1] Other parts of the Federation made this move only after thebreakup of Yugoslavia:Serbia (excludingVojvodina) in 1994,Macedonia in 1997 and finallyBosnia and Herzegovina (both theFederation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and theRepublika Srpska) in 1998.[9]
The first six-day long festival of gay culture in Yugoslavia was organized in April 1984 inLjubljana.[15] In the same year, the firstgay organization Magnus was founded in Ljubljana and in 1987, the first lesbian organisation founded was Lezbijska Lilit (LL).[15] The first regular radio broadcast that, amongst other marginalized groups, dealt with gay issues was the 1985 Zagreb-basedFrigidna utičnica (English:Frigid Socket) onOmladinski radio, whose host Toni Marošević was openly gay.[7] Because of disapproval fromVečernji list and theVečernje novosti program, it was quickly removed from the station programming.[7] In its 1986 proclamation, the organization Magnus demanded the introduction of prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation in theYugoslav Constitution, decriminalization of homosexuality in the whole of Yugoslavia, the introduction of curriculum that would present homosexuality andheterosexuality on equal terms and demanded a protest of the Federal Government of Yugoslavia against theSocialist Republic of Romania, theSoviet Union,Iran and other countries where homosexuality was still criminalized at that time.[15] In 1990 inHotel Moskva in Belgrade, which was a popular gay gathering place in the 1970s, one gay and lesbian group began to organize meetings and, in January 1991, they founded the organizationArkadija.[7]
Arguably the first LGBT-themed song on theYugoslav popular music scene was the early 1970s song "Nisam htjela nju" ("I Didn't Want Her") byart rock bandPorodična Manufaktura Crnog Hleba; although the band performed the song live, their record label refused to include the song on their 1974 albumStvaranje (Creation).[16] In the second half of the1970s first songs that deal with issues of lesbian and gay population appeared on albums by Yugoslav artists.[17] They were very different in genre, fromrock,new wave,post-punk,electropop to the traditionalfolk music.[17] Some of the most popular songs withLGBT themes are "Neki dječaci" ("Some Boys") byPrljavo Kazalište, "Balada o tvrdim grudima" ("Ballad About the Rough Chest") byŠarlo Akrobata, "Retko te viđam sa devojkama" ("I Rarely See You With Girls") byIdoli, "Moja prijateljica" ("My Friend") byXenia, "Ana" byVideosex, "Javi mi" ("Notify Me") byZabranjeno Pušenje, "Preživjeti" ("To Survive") byKUD Idijoti, and "Modesty Blaise" byBel Tempo.[17]
Za protivprirodni blud između lica muškog pola, učinilac će se kazniti zatvorom do dve godine.
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