Slavenka Drakulic
is an author and journalist whose books and essays have been translated into many languages. She contributes to The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review Of Books, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Internazionale, Dagens Nyheter, The Guardian and Eurozine, among others. She was the recipient of the 2004 Leipzig Book-fair "Award for European Understanding". Her latest novel is Frida's Bed (Penguin 2008).
Eurozine Articles
A few "easy" steps towards reconciliation
Laissez faire reconciliation in the Balkans will never work, writes Slavenka Drakulic. Symbolic gestures by politicians are well and good, but a substantial change in social attitudes can only be achieved through the institutional promotion of tolerance and collaboration. [Italian version added] [more]
The tune of the future
Italy: old Europe, new Europe, changing Europe
Venice versus Lampedusa: travelling around Italy, Slavenka Drakulic observes one kind of Europe being replaced by another. Instead of attempting to conserve the cultural past, we should accept that migration will adapt much of what we consider "European" to its own image. [Hungarian version added] [more]
Buying a kidney
Thousands of Europeans die annually waiting for a new kidney, heart or liver. At the same time, the black-market trade in organs is thriving. So should organ trading be legalized? Slavenka Drakulic, herself a two-time kidney transplant patient, argues the pros and cons. [more]
The taste of grass
Is the return of Serbian nationalism to be dismissed as domestic political point-scoring in an election year, or does it pose a deeper threat to the region? And will Russia step in as the rift with the EU over Kosovo deepens? Slavenka Drakulic considers the possibilities. [more]
Who created Ratko Mladic?
What remains after a war criminal has been sent to The Hague
When Ratko Mladic asks who it was who voted for Milosevic, he has a point, comments Slavenka Drakulic. Will trading off Mladic for the EU allow Serbs to avoid the question of collective responsibility? [more]
Euroskansen
Europe as outdoor museum? Threatened with extinction by all-consuming privatization and the pursuit of endless profit, self-musealization might be Europe's only hope. Slavenka Drakulic has a scary vision of the future of the European way of life. [more]
Censorship does not do justice to victims of mass rape
Attempts to prevent the shooting of a film about mass rape in Bosnia equalled an attempt at censorship, argues Slavenka Drakulic: this kind of response perpetuates misunderstandings about war crimes and overlooks the real problems facing Bosnian victims of mass rape today. [more]
Glancing back (2009-2010)
Recalling childhood trips abroad, Slavenka Drakulic suspects Yugoslavians were corrupted by the freedom to travel. "My generation confused democratic freedom with the freedom to shop in the West. The wars that followed were the almost medieval retribution for that." [more]
Why I have not returned to Belgrade
Is it to spare her emotions that Slavenka Drakulic has not returned to Belgrade since the wars? She doesn't think so. Instead, her reasons have to do with the silence and denial of so much of Serbian society, and with a youth that is failing to ask the right questions. [more]
Tito between legend and thriller
A museum to Tito at his one-time summer residence glorifying the Yugoslav dictator is in stark contrast to a damning new biography, finds Slavenka Drakulic. Yet between the two extremes is an absence of objective history-writing in the former Yugoslavia. [more]
The false repentance of Biljana Plavsic
Bosnian Serb war criminal Biljana Plavsic was in October released from a Swedish prison after serving two thirds of an 11-year sentence. Slavenka Drakulic notes that Plavsic's "confession" in The Hague was nothing but a staged farce. [more]
Debating denial
Discussing the topic of accountability for the war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia is important for Serbian society, writes Slavenka Drakulic. Summing up a debate around her article "Why I have not returned to Belgrade" in the Serbian newspaper "Politika", she notes: "Many citizens of both Serbia and Croatia seem to believe that if they all just shut up for long enough, the problem will disappear. But it won't." [more]
We took its light for granted
In memoriam: Feral Tribune (1993-2008)
A former contributor to the Croatian weekly "Feral Tribune" writes that the paper was left to die by those who should have taken better care of it: its readers and all who cared for its lone, free, critical voice. [more]
Who's afraid of Europe?
Opening address at the 14th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Is Europe ready for a new identity? In an essay first published in 2000, Slavenka Drakulic expresses doubts about the continuing momentum of European integration. [more]
Bathroom tales
How we mistook normality for paradise
The shortage of toilet paper alone may not have brought down communism, but it's an apt metaphor for a system unable to fulfil people's basic needs. Although Slavenka Drakulic's bathroom is better stocked these days, she's still prone to doubt. Was the normality she and her fellow eastern Europeans longed for just another false paradise? [more]
The transformation of Biljana Plavsic
One of the few female war criminals on trial confesses to her guilt in The Hague. That is bad news for Karadzic, Mladic and Gotovina. [more]
Triumph of evil
Portrait of a war criminal
Slavenka Draculic on Radislav Krstic, the first war criminal to be indicted in The Hague for his role in the Srebrenica massacre. [more]


















