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
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
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
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
Whether you are EU-phoric or EU-phobic, joining the EU is no panacea for Serbia’s problems. Continue reading Serbia needs to look beyond EU accession
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
the truth behind the true Serbian mentality. Continue reading My Quest for Serbian Mentality and “true Serbs”
Western governments could learn a lot from their eastern rivals on how to make a small nation feel special. Continue reading Russian and Chinese Dazzling Charm Offensive in Serbia
With normal life suspended during the chaos and wars of the 90s, Yugoslavs turned to the paranormal for hope and protection. Continue reading Magic in the Twilight of Yugoslavia
The figures for Serbia’s tech sector look great, but there are major challenges ahead. Continue reading Lack of Cash Stifles Serbia’s Innovation Drive
Why do some nations have ‘interests’, while others are stuck with ‘ancient hatreds’? Continue reading Let’s Stop Irrationalising the Balkans
Being openly out and out of the limelight is still a matter of courage in Serbia. Continue reading The Audacity of Being Out in Serbia
Is living in Serbia really the thing that is making our lives miserable? Continue reading Toxic Dump, Serbia
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
Alongside greater political freedoms, Serbs would also really enjoy more freedom from politics. Continue reading Can Political Get Less Personal in Serbia?
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
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
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
When pundits look for a culprit for instability in the Balkans, their fingers often point to history, or rather the great fondness the people here have for it. Visitors to Serbia are often baffled by Serbians’ tendency to explain contemporary actions and attitudes by referencing events that happened several centuries ago. For example, it is not uncommon for somebody to explain Serbia’s awkward teetering between … Continue reading Serbia’s paradoxical affair with history
Twenty years ago, while the embers of war in Bosnia and Croatia were still smouldering, Bulgarian historian Maria Todorova published “Imagining the Balkans”. In this seminal work, she detailed the ways in which the Balkans have been perceived and documented for centuries both home and aboard – most often as a somewhat brutal and uncivilised forecourt of Europe. Todorova called this discourse “Balkanism” as homage … Continue reading Westsplaining the Balkans
