Far Away (Tamo daleko)

Music piece by:
Djordje Marinkovic. Chilean adaptation of traditional Serbian song, originally composed in 1916.
Testimony by:
Eduardo Ojeda
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, 1973

At Compingin Camp on the island, Mario started telling us about the Spanish lyrics of the Yugoslav song 'Tamo daleko'. The song was not Croatian: it was Serbian.

It brought back many memories to the Yugoslav emigrants. This song was sung in the Río Chico camp on Dawson Island, which was an enormous, Nazi-style camp.


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Published on: 16 October 2015

Ex-political prisoners of Dawson Island in 2007. Filmed by documentary maker Jorge Grez Leuquén, who recorded stories of the dictatorship's detainees.

Tamo daleko
daleko kraj mora
tamo je selo moje
tamo je ljubav mojaTranslation from Serbian:
Over there, far away
away by the sea
there is my village
there is my love..

Far, far away
there along the seashore
is my beloved sweetheart
and is my beloved hometown.

My Punta Arenas
city of dreams and love
when I come back to your beaches
my heart will be reborn.

Let’s toast, brothers
let’s toast to love
for never again in our lives
will we be younger than we are today.






Related testimonies:

  • They Say the Homeland Is (Dicen que la patria es)  Sergio Reyes Soto, Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, 1973 - 1974

    This song, like so many others, was not at all “captive”. The revolutionary songs we sang behind bars imbued us with a sense of freedom. Rolando Alarcón, and later Quilapayún, introduced “Dicen que la patria es” (or “Canción de soldados”) to Chile.

  • National Anthem of Chile  Eduardo Ojeda, Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, September 1973

    We arrived at Dawson Island on the afternoon of 11 September. All we knew was that we had been arrested in the morning - nothing else.

  • Let’s Break the Morning (Rompamos la mañana)  María Soledad Ruiz Ovando, Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, 1973 - 1974

    Music was very important for us (my mother Sylvia, my sister Alejandra and myself) while my dad, Daniel Ruiz Oyarzo, 'el Negro Ruiz', was imprisoned during the dictatorship, when Alejandra was seven and I was four.

  • Go Tell It to the Rain (Ve y díselo a la lluvia)  Eduardo Ojeda, Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, 1973

    We had a comrade who sang beautifully. He was called Peye and was a student at the State Technical University.

  • Balderrama  Eduardo Ojeda, Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, 1973

    We arrived at Camp Compingin on Dawson Island on the afternoon of 11 September. We knew that we had been arrested that morning, and we knew nothing else yet.

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