The Past is Now:

In view of a broad resistance from politics and society against "unwanted memories": Does politics of remembrance that does justice to the victims’ memories and names those responsible for atrocities, have any chance at all?

More than three decades after the start of the wars that accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the 2023 issue of “Perspectives Southeastern Europe” addresses the politics of denial, dealing with the past, and the culture of memory in the Western Balkans. The issue takes stock of the current situation in the post-Yugoslav countries and shows how the wartime past still influences the present in the affected societies.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation's offices in Belgrade and Sarajevo invited more than twenty authors from across the region to take a hard look at our shared past, and contribute to our understanding of it today. The results of their work comprise the latest edition of the “Perspectives Southeastern Europe” magazine entitled “The Past is Now: Politics of Denial and Dealing with the Past in the Western Balkans.”

We have invited several of the authors to an expert talk to Berlin to discuss the state of official memory politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

With

• Selma Korjenić, sociologist, head of Program in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Trial International, Sarajevo
• Dr Srđan Milošević, historian and legal scholar, Union University School of Law (UUSL) Belgrade
• Dragan Markovina, historian, writer, Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina & Split, Croatia
• Boris Mijatovic, member of German Parliament (Alliance 90 / The Greens), Berlin

Chair Nino Lejava, head of office Heinrich Boell Foundation, Belgrade

Language English

Perspectives Southeastern Europe is a cooperation of the Heinrich Böll Foundation offices in Belgrade and Sarajevo.

Contact
Katja Giebel
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
E giebel@boell.de