Which was the First Disco Club in Croatia?

The term disco is derived from the French word discothèque, meaning ‘library of phonograph records’…

The first real disco was opened in 1953 in Paris, when as a cost-cutting measure, a club owner decided to replace the band and play gramophone records.

The first real disco, meaning a venue where people would gather, usually late into the night, to listen to music from records being played, in this part of Europe was opened in Croatia at the start of the 1960s. The trend started in Paris and spread. When Croat Pero Ivušić returned to Croatia from France in the early 1960s, he opened the discotheque ‘Amfora’ in Jelsa on the island of Hvar.

Tourism was starting to boom in that period on the Adriatic coast and a number of bar owners decided to follow this new trend out of the west, although the police at the time were reluctant to issue permits for them.

Amfora – Hvar (photo/screenshot)

However there is a debate as to which is the first disco in Croatia as ‘Klub ’57’, in Opatija, carried the name discotheque before that. Another club in the running is ‘Husar’, where gramophone records were played when it opened in 1957 in Rijeka.

Discos started to boom in the 1960s in Croatia

The ongoing debate as to which was the first real disco in Croatia is the theme of a new film which hits cinemas today in Croatia. Director Zvonimir Rumboldt traces the history of disco in Croatia in his film ‘Half a Century of Disco’.

The film will be shown at Kino Grič in Zagreb before being shown across the country.