Category: Politics

Culture, Politics

We love you, our Fatherland: Yugoslav and Serbian Popular and Official Anthems

The past two centuries of Serbian and Yugoslav national movements might have produced a lot of pain and suffering, but they also did create some cool music. Here are my favourite official and unofficial anthems of Serbia and Yugoslavia, which can still bring a tear to my eye. 9. Zemljo moja (To my country) – Ambasadori, 1975 Apparently one of Tito‘s favourite songs, “Zemljo moja” … Continue reading We love you, our Fatherland: Yugoslav and Serbian Popular and Official Anthems

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Politics, Uncategorized

Inventing Illyria for Gain and Glory

Being an ambitious and accomplished sailor in 16th century Spanish Empire could only get you so far. Despite being a hero of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 against the Ottomans, saving two ships in the failed attack of the Invincible Armada on the English in 1588 and sailing the world over, Petar Grgurić might have been an admiral but he faced a glass ceiling: … Continue reading Inventing Illyria for Gain and Glory

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Guide to Belgrade, Politics, The Belgradist

Belgrade’s Lost Monuments

As a city which went through significant turmoils in its modern, post-Ottoman history – from brutal occupations in WWI and WWII to major political changes in 1903, after WWII and in 2000 – Belgrade has had its fair share of monument destructions, however mostly at the hands of its occupiers. Unsurprisingly, removal of monuments to the recent past happened most immediately after the Partizans took … Continue reading Belgrade’s Lost Monuments

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Politics, Serbia, The Belgradist

An African-American Star in 1920s Yugoslavia

In April 1929, Josephine Baker was the first African-American star to visit Belgrade, while she was on her tour around Central Europe on the Orient Express. The visit came during her peak popularity in Paris, just before she made her hit „J’ai deux Amours”, and while she was still shunned in her native US, despite entrancing everyone with her dance and skimpy exotic outfits. She … Continue reading An African-American Star in 1920s Yugoslavia

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Balkans, Life, Politics, Travel

Warrior Posing

Ever since the debates about current or imminent “fascism” and “antifascism” (or Antifascism™)  became popular again, I came to think about my grandad, who as a committed communist before WWII and then a partisan during it would probably have more to say than those engaging in these debates now. He was a bit of an oddity as a bourgeois lawyer/communist in Nikšić, a town in … Continue reading Warrior Posing

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Politics

All is Fair in Love and “Hybrid War”: How “Russian Interference” and “Fake News” Narratives Are Used to Further Stalinist Causes in an EU Candidate Country

A dispute involving a church and government in a mountainous European country of 600,000 people, is hardly the stuff that is normally deemed relevant  in the context of global politics. However what has been going on in Montenegro in the past two months should be an indicator of how governments, in their attempt to cling on to power, can and will weaponize their legal systems … Continue reading All is Fair in Love and “Hybrid War”: How “Russian Interference” and “Fake News” Narratives Are Used to Further Stalinist Causes in an EU Candidate Country

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Culture, Politics

Abramović, Žižek and Milanović: Yugoslavia’s First and Last Global Public Intellectuals

For a country that’s been dead for almost thirty years and whose contributions to the world, according to the Western prestige-press range from German Nazism to  Islamophobia in Australia it may be surprising that in the past few years, a number of Yugoslav intellectuals seem to have charmed their Western peers, and to be giving their fair share of insights into the current malaise that … Continue reading Abramović, Žižek and Milanović: Yugoslavia’s First and Last Global Public Intellectuals

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Politics, Serbia

Escaping Tito’s Long Shadow

In Serbia and most former-Yugoslav republics, May, it seems, was, is and will be, at least for another few decades, the month of Tito. Not only does it start with the International Worker’s Day,  but Tito was born, celebrated his official birthday, and died in May. He was born on 7 May 1892 in Kumrovec, Croatia, to a Croat farmer father and a Slovene mother. … Continue reading Escaping Tito’s Long Shadow

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Politics, Serbia

Serbia and Albania: Know Thy Neighbour

In October 2017, I went to Tirana for a conference about relations between Serbia and Albania, jointly organised by the Albanian Institute for International Studies and the European Movement in Serbia. One of the topics of the conference was the public perception of the relationship between the two countries, which made me instinctively shudder. Despite the recent displays of friendship between the Albanian Prime Minister … Continue reading Serbia and Albania: Know Thy Neighbour

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Politics, Serbia

“Serbsplaining” the West

From the early days of modern Serbia, and arguably before, Serbian perceptions and expectations of ‘the West’ were in many ways inextricable from how Serbians perceived themselves. Serbian uprisings against the Ottomans were from the outset imagined as a way for Serbia to re-join and catch-up with its Christian brethren from the West, who were expected to embrace it with open hands. After the last … Continue reading “Serbsplaining” the West

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Politics, Serbia

Poverty and Politics in Serbia

I only became aware of inequality and class division once I moved to a country which is almost synonymous with them: the UK. At both university and work, my British friends frequently dissected levels of “posh-ness” in themselves and others, assessing how appropriate it was to play rugby or vote Conservative, given their background. I was, of course, dumbfounded. In Serbia, discussing “class” and inequality … Continue reading Poverty and Politics in Serbia

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