Croatian ultra-nationalist mega-gig exposes divided society

Half a million people bought tickets to singer Thompson's July concert in Zagreb.

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Last month's mega-gig by the ultra-nationalist singer Thompson – the stage name of Marko Perkovic – has dramatically exposed the polarised divisions deep within Croatian society.

It shone a spotlight on wildly differing interpretations of both the country's struggle for independence in the 1990s, and the history of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a World War Two-era Nazi puppet state.

Nobody would argue that the concert was anything other than huge. Thompson's management claimed that more than half a million tickets for the show at Zagreb Hippodrome were sold. The actual attendance was considerably lower – but still in the hundreds of thousands.

That enormous crowd enthusiastically joined in when Thompson launched into his opening number, Čavoglave Battalion. To his cry of "Za dom" ("for homeland"), the audience roared back "Spremni!" ("ready!"). MPs from the governing HDZ party were among those chanting along.