Security Question”. Serbo-Croatian composer Goran Bregovic was refused entry to Moldova on Sunday for this reason. The country, bordering Ukraine, has strongly tightened its controls since the start of the war. According to the local press, his pro-Russian positions probably played a role in this decision, while the 73-year-old star “openly supported the annexation of Crimea”, where he had given a concert in March 2015, “and the invasion of Ukraine”.
“We are sorry to inform you that Goran Bregovic and his troupe will not be able to perform tonight, for reasons beyond the control of the organizers or the artists”, announced the Gustar Music Festival, one hour from the capital Chisinau. “Unfortunately, they were not allowed to enter the Republic of Moldova, although they had already landed at the airport,” according to a message posted on Facebook.
In a reaction broadcast by the festival, Goran Bregovic said he was “very disappointed” to have been turned away “without any official explanation”. “I go on tours with my musicians across Europe and I have never encountered any difficulties,” he added.
The Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra, winner of Eurovision 2022, was also scheduled this Sunday. In a press release, the border police explained that they had “denied access to 29 foreign nationals”, including Goran Bregovic, “in the last 24 hours”.
“The organizers had been informed in advance of this ban, taken from 2022” in the context of “security measures” decided in cooperation with the intelligence services and international partners, underlines the same source. The authorities of the former Soviet republic are on alert against a background of heightened tensions with Moscow, accused of wanting to destabilize the pro-European power to install a government won over to its cause.
Born in Sarajevo in 1950 to a Serbian mother and a Croatian father, Goran Bregovic was a rock star in the former Yugoslavia of the 1970s/1980s at the head of the group Bijelo Dugme (“White Button”). The guitarist then turned to a career as a composer, signing the music for several films by Emir Kusturica (Le Temps des gypsies or Underground) or La Reine Margot by Frenchman Patrice Chéreau in 1994.
