On July 5th, the largest concert in European history takes place in Zagreb: Half a million tickets have been sold for the concert of pop star, right-wing extremist, Marko Perkovic "Thompson".
The Croatian capital has never experienced such tension on the eve of a cultural event. The concert of right-wing nationalist singer Marko Perkovic, also known as "Thompson", taking place on Saturday, July 5, 2025, in Zagreb, surpasses all comparable events.
This is not just about the extreme political views of the 58-year-old musician, who names himself after the machine gun ("Thompson") he used in Croatia's war for independence from 1992 to 1995.
It is also questionable how the city of 800,000 people will cope with the roughly 500,000 concertgoers who have purchased tickets in advance so far. Given this crowd, there are fears of a worst-case scenario traffic, healthcare and public safety collapse.
Even securing the concert is a challenge for Croatia, a country of four million people. Added to this are emergency services, parking and public transport.
At the same time, the debate about the reasons for Perkovic's popularity continues. It is indisputable that "Thompson"'s appearances at various victory celebrations for the Croatian national football team made a major contribution to his career.
Leading politicians from the EU's newest member state were present on several occasions - even though "Thompson" openly praises the Croatian Ustasa fascists, who were allies of Hitler's Germany during World War II, in his songs and concerts.
Acceptable right-wing extremism?
"Given the general shift to the right, not only in Croatia, but throughout Europe and the world, Thompson's popularity is not surprising," says musicologist and historian Lada Durakovic in an interview with DW.
In Croatia, the reason for the success of the right-wing extremist singer is less the war between Croats and Serbs in the 1990s than the Serbian occupation of a third of Croatia in 1992 and the country's subsequent liberation in 1995. During this period, right-wing extremism became acceptable in Croatian society - at the initiative of the country's elites.
For example, the use of the Ustasa salute "For the homeland - ready!" (Croatian: Za dom - spremni) was legalized. Thompson uses the salute in his performances, for example, as the introduction to his first and perhaps biggest hit, "Cavoglave" - the name of the village the singer comes from and which he defended against Serbian fighters during the war. Perković also openly demonstrates his pro-Croat stance in other songs, such as "Lijepa li si" (How Beautiful You Are), in which he describes a region of neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of Croatia.
Reaction to deep social frustration
"In a country where the Academy of Sciences and Arts whitewashes Ustasa iconography, Ustasa symbols at Thompson's concerts are not a scandal, but part of the process of institutional normalization of historical revisionism," says Lada Durakovic.
In this regard, Perkovic is "part of a state-sanctioned cultural policy." For at least part of the audience, Thompson's popularity is a conscious ideological decision: "These people share his narrative; they support the trivialization and relativization of fascist crimes."
But it's an oversimplification to see the far-right singer's popularity solely from a political perspective. His music is at least as important: "Hard rock or heavy metal patterns with melodic choruses and strong rhythms, simple harmonic transitions, distorted guitars, powerful drums, the use of traditional instruments and emotionally dominant, articulate vocals - that's the essence of Thompson's appeal," says Durakovic.
"Thompson offers answers to problems such as material insecurity, cultural disorientation, symbolic emptiness. Who are we? What have we survived? What have we fought for? Is this the Croatia we dreamed of? And his answers are: Your suffering is legitimate, your belonging to the Croatian people is sacred, your sacrifice is real and historic."
"Thompson" is "a lasting affective map" for many people in Croatia, Durakovic continues. "I know how you feel - and my music confirms that you're right," he says.
Therefore, Perkovic is not like "any singer, but an emotional center for thousands, a regulator of the sense of identity, a producer of a kind of collective affective cohesion that conveys a sense of order, meaning and belonging in a society with deep uncertainty."/ DW (A2 Televizion)
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