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 ]
It is not enough to say: "It wasn't me"
Well-known journalist Danica Vucenic asks herself how she should bring up her daughter. "Not only what I'll tell her, but if I'm going to teach her to bravely ask questions one day. I'm not sure that the generation Slavenka Drakulic talks about is ready for that." [ more ]
Running a fever while waiting for my visa
"If all Serbs are to blame for what one Serb did, how are we to treat 'tough but fair' Europe, which, according to Slavenka Drakulic, rightly punishes Serbian students for the politics of their parents' contemporaries?" asks playwright and slam poet Milena Bogavac. [ more ]
The games people play
Not all Serbs are the same, writes painter and actor Uros Djuric. Slavenka Drakulic uncritically reduces the problem to one self-explanatory category and is an exmple of a "culturally racist matrix". [ more ]
She stands a good chance of catching up with Mir Jam
Slavenka Drakulic's article is "sickly sweet, sentimental, nauseating talk coloured by propaganda", writes the Serbian painter Ljuba Popovic. She should look for "diligent" and "creative" Serbs so that she can "learn the truth". [ more ]
The Principality of Belgrade
Belgrade has in the last years stoically accepted the attacks from various provincial intellectuals who deliberately forget that nations and cities are not guilty, writes publisher Natasha Markovic. "Someone who doesn't know cannot be held responsible." [ more ]
History as private property
The fact that Slavenka Drakulic has agitated the local public, proves only that the conspiracy of silence is widely accepted, writes translator and essayist Mirjana Miocinovic, defending Drakulic against her critics. [ 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 ]
From the archives
The phantom of justice
2006 When dealing with Serbian war guilt, narratives focusing too much on individuals should be treated with caution. The international community is faced not only with the problem of holding state leaders accountable, but also with legitimating the way that new nation-states were created in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. [ more ]
Memory of war crimes: Can victims speak?
2006 The editor of the Belgrade Circle Journal writes that Milosevic was guilty not only because he led a collective criminal enterprise, but also because he demanded that ethnic justice nest in sovereign national law, which he turned against international law. [ more ]
The memorandum: Roots of Serbian nationalism
An interview with Mihajlo Markovic and Vasilije Krestic
2005 Left- and rightwing intellectuals collaborated on a document that formulated the ideology of Serbian nationalism in the 1980s and 1990s. Two of its authors talk about their involvement. [ more ]
Invention and in(ter)vention: The rhetoric of Balkanization
2003 Vesna Goldsworthy looks at how Western commentators romanticize the Balkans' history of alleged bloodshed, feudal hatreds and perpetual war. How can these myths be debunked? [ more ]
The Past, Responsibility and the Future
2001 Can a single Serb national be held responsible for the crimes of the Serbian nation on the whole? What is the correct way to approach the issue of "our" responsibility? [ more ]
The Future in a Triangle: On Guilt, Truth and Change
On Guilt, Truth and Change
2001 How does one deal with the concept of "collective guilt"? How does a nation then attain the necessary knowledge of itself to stand up and apologize - and thus be able to overcome the past? [ more ]


















