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Half a Million Voices: Mainstreaming the Ustaša Legacy at Thompson’s Zagreb Concert

by Katarina Damčević

In Zagreb, half a million people cheered on the controversial singer Thompson while Ustaša slogans echoed through the crowd. In her blog post, Katarina Damčević analyzes how Croatian politicians legitimized the concert, definitively bringing fascist symbols into the societal mainstream.

In 2013, after winning a World Cup qualification match against Iceland, Josip Šimunić, a Croat from Australia who played for the Croatian national football team, celebrated the victory by chanting the salute of the Nazi-aligned, fascist Independent State of Croatia (NDH – Nezavisna Država Hrvatska). Za dom spremni (“Ready for the Homeland”) echoed in front of an audience of thousands, who chanted in response. Šimunić’s act triggered a backlash from the local and international community, ultimately resulting in a fine for the player and a ban by FIFA for the subsequent ten matches.1 At the time, political scientist Florian Bieber wrote about the growing banalization of Ustaša symbols in Croatia, highlighting their gradual normalization into the mainstream.2

More than ten years later, on 5 July 2025, Marko Perković performed before an estimated half a million spectators at Zagreb’s Hippodrome.3 Known by his stage name ‘Thompson’ – taken from the American submachine gun he famously posed with early in his career – Marko Perković reportedly sold over 400,000 tickets for the concert, making it the largest ever held in Croatia.4 Due to the enormous expected turnout, preparations for the event included closing most streets in the capital’s city center to traffic and deploying approximately 6,000 police officers.5 But beyond the numbers and logistics, the event epitomized a long trajectory of memory politics in Croatia, where the symbols and narratives of the World War Two Ustaša legacy are not only resurrected but legitimized and repackaged into consumable spectacle.

The Ongoing Normalization of Za dom spremni

Za dom spremni—the official salute of the Independent State of Croatia—was banned in socialist Yugoslavia. It resurfaced in Croatia during the 1990s War of Independence, when it was appropriated by right-wing politicians and groups to evoke the legacy of the NDH and fuel nationalist mobilization.6 The salute was relativized by various political actors and remained unregulated during the war, which contributed to its appropriation by right-wing politicians and groups as an alleged symbol of the 1990s’ war, prompting concerns about nationalist hate speech and historical revisionism.7

Marko Perković ‘Thompson’ is perhaps the most influential nationalist in Croatian popular culture today,8 having become famous during the war with his song Bojna Čavoglave (“Čavoglave Battalion”). This hit starts with the Za dom spremni salute. In it, he sings that Serb enemies will not enter his village as long as Croats are alive. Thompson’s concerts have been banned in several European countries, including Switzerland and the Netherlands, due to his use of Ustaša symbols and his role in promoting the rehabilitation of the Ustaša regime, which committed genocide against Serbs, Roma, and Jews between 1941 and 1945.

Despite repeated complaints and calls to action by human rights groups and NGOs, the High Court of Misdemeanors in Zagreb ruled in the summer of 2020 that Thompson did not violate public order or breach the peace by chanting the Ustaša salute during his performances of Bojna Čavoglave.9 Regularly causing controversy in the region, Thompson’s concerts attract a far-right audience openly chanting the salute and waving or wearing Ustaša iconography. In 2015, during a concert marking the twentieth anniversary of the Croatian Army’s Operation Storm (a 1995 operation by the Croatian Army to reclaim areas held by separatist Serb troops) many attendees not only chanted the salute but also shouted slogans such as “Kill a Serb.”

Journalist Viktor Ivančić aptly describes the growing relativization and normalization of the Ustaša legacy as he unpacks how legal loopholes and strategic silences serve to protect powerful figures who promote historical revisionism. There is always a group that serves as an alibi—one the government feels it cannot oppose. In the case of the salute, it is often the veterans of the 1990s’ war, particularly former members of the Croatian Defense Forces.10 In Thompson’s case, it is Croatian sports figures.11 Ivančić’s framing of Thompson as both a performer and ideological entrepreneur captures the dual role Thompson has assumed—a performer and mythmaker, protected by institutional hesitancy and complicity, helping push the salute into the social and media mainstream, thereby banalizing the crimes of the NDH.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and his party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), have significantly contributed to the relativization of the Ustaša salute by supporting the flawed argument that it carries “double connotations”—allegedly linking it to the “patriotism” of the 1990s war.12 Moreover, in Croatia’s Law on Misdemeanors Against Public Order and Peace, neither the Ustaša salute nor other Ustaša insignia are explicitly listed or banned;13 a sad reality and a long-standing failure by the government. The approval of Thompson´s concert by Zagreb´s left-leaning mayor Tomislav Tomašević—also a leading figure in the national We Can! (Možemo) party—together with the support of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP), is particularly troubling given that Thompson’s glorification of the Ustaša legacy is well known.

State Endorsement, Symbolic Alignment

Following the concert, Croatian Prime Minister and HDZ party leader Andrej Plenković dismissed concerns, stating that Marko Perković Thompson´s performance at the Hippodrome does not represent any form of historical revisionism or promotion of the Ustaša ideology.14 Yet as usual, his words rang hollow: alongside Interior Minister Davor Božinović and Minister for Croatian Veterans Tomo Medved, Andrej Plenković visited Thompson during the rehearsal, posed for photographs, accepted commemorative medallions marking the concert, and shared the moment on social media.15 In doing so, he offered precisely the kind of symbolic endorsement that transforms a musical performance into a political statement. Their presence confirmed what has become obvious over the past decade: the state no longer distances itself from Thompson’s symbolism—it openly embraces it. In previous controversies, Plenković often positioned himself as a moderate voice trying to balance between Croatia’s anti-fascist foundations and the dignity of all veterans of the 1990s’ war. At the Hippodrome, that balancing act was replaced by full legitimization, making Thompson mainstream.

At the concert, the Ustaša salute echoed from the crowd, while related iconography appeared on T-shirts, scarves, and flags.16 And yet, the response from police and state authorities was strikingly muted. This event did not merely tolerate the salute—it enabled its performance on a mass stage fully knowing that it would happen. For the first time since 1945, the Ustaša salute was chanted by the crowd at a large-scale public event—attended by approximately 500,000 people and amplified by loudspeakers. The police looked on, and government officials stayed in place. Any misdemeanors related to the use of banned symbols will supposedly be subsequently analyzed by the police based on available recordings and by filing misdemeanor reports afterward.17 Describing this as nonsensical hardly captures the extent of its absurdity.

Firstly, while certain uses of the salute are formally punishable, enforcement is inconsistent and politically contingent. The authorities have historically refrained from prosecuting figures like Thompson, despite clear breaches of legal norms and the fact that the salute is unconstitutional. This reveals a pattern of symbolic appeasement rather than actual enforcement. Secondly, the mere idea that the police will “analyze recordings” after the event is legally evasive and practically unfeasible. In a crowd of approximately 500,000 people, identifying individual misdemeanors based on recordings is neither resource-efficient nor genuinely intended. This “after-the-fact” strategy signals institutional tolerance cloaked in procedural language—a discursive deflection of responsibility. While the state offered political cover, the concert’s performative core revealed something even more ideologically potent.

War and Myth

Thompson did not merely entertain—he mythologized.18 This was not the past on stage—it was a reimagined past, emptied of ambiguity and refilled with glory, divine purpose, and national purity. This performance space functioned as an instance of enclosed autocommunication:19 a closed-loop of meaning-making where the message is crafted not to inform outsiders, but to reaffirm the in-group’s collective identity and worldview. Symbols like Za dom spremni are not simply revived—they are stripped of historical accountability and recharged with heroic sentiment, legible only within the internal logic of the nationalist narrative. In this setting, semiotic ambiguity is not a problem to be resolved but a tool of cohesion: it allows for a shared affective experience that resists external critique, reinforcing a vision of the nation that is righteous, wounded, and indivisible. Thompson’s concert marked the culmination of a long process of normalizing the Ustaša legacy under the banner of patriotic entertainment. It also demonstrated that the move toward a polished, selective, and state-sanctioned narrative of the past has become more explicit than ever.

Still, what should not be overlooked in this sea of symbolism and state complicity is the audience itself. This is not to claim that every person in the audience subscribes to what Thompson is selling. But that, perhaps, is precisely the point. Normalization does not necessarily require conviction—only repetition. A friend recently told me that his acquaintance’s teenage son decided to go to the concert simply because his whole class did. He barely knows any of Thompson’s songs –except Bojna Čavoglave. I doubt this is an isolated case and it raises important questions. To what extent has our educational system failed to provide critical historical knowledge? To what extent is participation mere adolescent rebellion – and when, if ever, does rebellion stop being harmless? Either way, we’ve arrived at a place where one of the most controversial figures in Croatian public space is at the center of the stage. With VIP catering.

If shouting Za dom spremni in a crowd of half a million now passes as patriotism or teenage mischief, then the loudest thing at the Hippodrome wasn’t the sound system – it was the silence of accountability.


  1. See Dario Brentin’s article Ready for the homeland? Ritual, remembrance, and political extremism in Croatian football, Nationalities Papers. The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity 44(6), 2016. []
  2. Ready for the Homeland? Simunic and a bit of normal fascism []
  3. Thompsonov tim objavio broj ljudi na koncertu: Ipak ih je više od pola milijuna?. Located in Zagreb’s Kajzerica neighborhood, the Hippodrome was built between 1947 and 1950 as a horse racing venue, modeled after the Longchamp Racecourse in Paris. Spanning 47 hectares, it has since evolved into a major concert venue, having hosted international acts such as the Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, and Ed Sheeran. It was also the site of large public masses during the visits of Pope John Paul II in 1994 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2011. https://www.sportskiobjekti.hr/hipodrom-zagreb-1373/1373 []
  4. Procurio točan broj prodanih karata za Thompsonov koncert, kupaca je bilo i u Srbiji []
  5. Država zbog Thompsonovog koncerta osnovala poseban stožer, Ovo su sve mjere: 6500 policajaca, 5000 redara []
  6. See Velimir Veselinović Hrvatska stranka prava od 1990. do 2011. Na izvoru desnoga radikalizma i populizma []
  7. While examples abound, see, e.g., Croatian Election Campaign Haunted by Anti-Serb Rhetoric, Croatia Charges Six over Anti-Serb Banner in Zagreb, Croatia Must Stop Downplaying the Genocidal Crimes of the Ustasa, Paving the Way to Denial. []
  8. See Catherine Baker’s book Sounds of the Borderland: Popular Music, War and Nationalism in Croatia since 1991, published in 2010. []
  9. Croatian Court Rules ‘Thompson’ Song Did Not Break Law []
  10. Croatia’s 1990s Paramilitaries: From Government Critics to Collaborators []
  11. Grupa traži rupu Regarding the role of sport in wartime and postwar Croatia, see Dario Brentin’s article ‘A lofty battle for the nation’: The social roles of sport in Tudjman’s Croatia, Sport in Society 16(8), 2013. []
  12. See, e.g., On Memory Politics and Memory Wars: A Critical Analysis of the Croatian Dialogue Document, Croatian Political Science Review, 55(4): 109-146, 2018, by Hrvoje Cvijanović, and Cultural texts, enemies, and taboos: autocommunicative meaning-making surrounding the “Ready for the Homeland” Ustaša salute in Croatia, Social Semiotics, 33(3): 470-496, 2023 by Katarina Damčević. The document discussed in both articles was adopted in February 2018 by the Council for Dealing with the Consequences of Undemocratic Regimes, under the full title Dialogue Document: Postulates and Recommendations on Specific Normative Regulations of Symbols, Emblems, and Other Insignia of Totalitarian Regimes and Movements. However, its recommendations were never formally enacted by the parliament or any other legislative body. Dialogue Document in English []
  13. https://www.zakon.hr/z/279/zakon-o-prekrsajima-protiv-javnog-reda-i-mira []
  14. Javio se Plenković: “Thompsonov koncert nije promocija ustaštva” []
  15. Plenković doveo i djecu na Thompsonovu generalnu probu, slikali su se s pjevačem i dobili autograme. Pali i pokloni []
  16. HDZ-ov župan objavio fotografije s koncerta Thompsona. U prvom planu ustaška zastava, Obožavateljica na Hipodromu privukla pažnju natpisom na šalu koji je držala u rukama, VIDEO / Ustaški pozdrav “Za dom spremni” ori se i Bundekom []
  17. 2 ZAGREB SE TRESE Thompson: ‘Želim poručiti cijeloj Europi…’ []
  18. See Rat i mit, a 2017 book by political scientist Dejan Jović. []
  19. See Katarina Damčević: Cultural texts, enemies, and taboos: autocommunicative meaning-making surrounding the “Ready for the Homeland” Ustaša salute in Croatia, Social Semiotics, 33(3): 470-496, 2023. []

OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Katarina Damčević (9. Juli 2025). Half a Million Voices: Mainstreaming the Ustaša Legacy at Thompson’s Zagreb Concert. ostBLOG. Abgerufen am 17. Februar 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/14aye


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