YUGOSLAVIA: Beets for Baker

Early one evening last week the manager of the Zagreb Narodno Kazalista peeked nervously through the curtain, and noticed that the theatre was half-filled with students from the Zagreb Technical College. There was nothing surprising in this, for on the stage of the Zagreb Narodna Kazalista, usually the home of grand opera and classic drama, that slick-haired, honey-colored Harlem Negress. Josephine Baker, was due to appear. What worried the manager was the lack of welcome in the mien of the young Croatian technicians. When la Backaire, as most of Europe calls her, started to dance, her nubile body girdled with a zone of ripe bananas, the manager’s worst fears were realized.

Hurling a shower of large mangel-wurzels (cow beets) on the stage, the students cried: “This is an insult to economic distress in Croatia!” “Long live Croatian culture!” “Down with such vulgarity!”