Spring 2024: Beyond War and Peace: Rethinking Balkans for Ukraine

Southeastern peninsula of the European continent, more recognizable under

its loaded term the Balkans, is a region of stunning ethnic and religious
diversity and rich history. Neglected and exoticized at the same time, the
Balkans remain a subject of stereotypes and generalizations, disseminated by
both ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ alike. The general aim of this course is to
challenge simplistic readings of history, culture and society of the Balkans,
especially from the 1990s onwards. Wartime violence, ethnic engineering and
post-Cold War global recomposition are analyzed through stressing local
political agency within changing global circumstances. Thereby, this course
scrutinizes this proverbial “powder keg” of Europe as complex interwoven
communities and tracks its current cultural, economical and social tendencies
as well as changing identities of its inhabitants throughout the age of
extremes toward their contemporary bid for European integration. The in-
depth study of processes of integration and disintegration in the Balkans has
relevance far beyond this region and provides valuable lessons about the
politics of identity, war and ethnic conflict as well as postwar reconstruction,
contemporary political life and international relations.

Teaching team: Aleksandar Pavlović and Olesia Marković (course leaders),

Marija Mandić (mentoring coordinator), Maksym Snihyr, Semir Džebo,
Katarina Beširević, Jelena Jovanović, Nadia Chushak, Ivana Mihaela Zimbrek
(mentors), Jana Krstić and Matija Carević (student-coordinators).

March 1, 2024: Miruna Butnaru Troncotă, “Decolonial Perspectives:

Balkanism and Europeanization”

Introduction: Aleksandar Pavlović, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory

University Belgrade, Opening address and “Balkanism then and now”

Miruna Butnaru Troncotă, National University of Political Studies and Public

Administration SNSPA Bucharest, “Decolonial Perspectives: Balkanism and
Europeanization”

Discussant: Kateryna Botanova

Moderator Olesia Marković

Even though the Balkans is constantly becoming more and more European by
losing its distinctive features such as the Byzantine and Ottoman heritage,
tribal organization and joint family households, prejudices and stereotypes
about the Balkan peoples persist. To illustrate this point, this introduction will
offer several contemporary examples, from the current anti-Albanian frenzy in
the British media.

The lecture argues that the Balkanistic discourse and Balkanism

have developed gradually in the course of two centuries and come to denote
the parcelization of large political units, as well as the tribal and the backward.
In opposition to some other parts of the world, the Balkans did not have a
real colonial experience, but coloniality is a global historical phenomena that
refers to the modern global power and knowledge matrix that we are
currently living in. How coloniality applies to the Balkans? How a critical
border thinking moves us beyond Balkanistic discourses? Is the outsider’s
view necessarily superior or inferior to the insider’s?

Suggested readings:
 Todorova, Maria (1997). Imagining the Balkans. New York, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Božidar Jezernik (2007) “Europe and its Other (i.e. The Balkans)”. Perifèria,
Number 6, June 2007

Bracewell, Wendy and Alex Drace-Francis, “South-Eastern Europe: History,

Concepts, Boundaries”, Balkanologie III/2, 1999, 47-66.

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o II March 8, 2024 Damir Kapidžić, Faculty of Political Science

University Sarajevo, “Present challenges in the Balkans”
Damir Kapidžić, Faculty of Political Science University Sarajevo, “Present
challenges in the Balkans”

Moderator: Marija Mandić

The lecture aims to examine and explain democratic decline in the Balkans by
looking at the prevalence of illiberal politics across countries, and what this
means for the European future of the region. Utilizing the concept of Illiberal
politics the lecture examines sets of policies enacted by political parties in
government with the aim to remain in power indefinitely. By tracing
democratic decline in Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, and Croatia the lecture observes different
patterns of weakness, but also common causes arising from weak institutions
and inherited governance practices. It concludes with a reflection and
discussion on how this impacts the integration of the region into the EU.
Damir Kapidžić is a Weatherhead Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar.
At the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina he is an Associate
Professor of Comparative Politics at the Faculty of Political Science.

His research examines how democratic and authoritarian politics are

institutionalized in the context of ethnic conflict, power-sharing, and
democratic innovations. He focuses on the processes in Southeast European
countries with comparative perspectives from Southeast Asia, East Africa, and
the Middle East. He is a consultant on deliberative processes for the Council
of Europe, a member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group,
principal investigator of the EU Horizon CONNEKT project, and editor of the
book Illiberal Politics in Southeast Europe (2022).

Suggested readings:
 Bieber, Florian (2018). “The Rise (and Fall) of Balkan Stabilitocracies”. Horizons:
Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development, (WINTER
2018), 176-185.

Kapidžić, Damir (2020). “The Rise of Illiberal Politics in Southeast

Europe”. Southeast European And Black Sea Studies, 20(1): 1–18.

Delević, Milica and Jovana Marović (2023). “Keeping the Thessaloniki promise:
How to make Enlargement work for all 20 years later? Keeping the
Thessaloniki promise: How to make Enlargement work for all 20 years
later?” BiEPAG Policy Brief, June 2023.

o III March 15, 2024: Marija Mandić and Maja Savić-Bojanić,

"Language, Identity and Minorities in the Balkans"
Marija Mandić, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory University Belgrade,
“Language, Identity and Minorities in the Balkans”

Maja Savić Bojanić, Department of Political Science and International

Relations, Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, “Ethnic Minorities in
Bosnia and Herzegovina”

Moderator: Aleksandar Pavlović

This lecture is dedicated to ethnic minorities and languages in the Balkans,

with reference to the situation in Ukraine. The first part of the lecture will give
a brief overview of the situation in post-Yugoslav context: dissolution of
Serbo-Croatian language, establishment of new standard languages, Bosnian,
Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian, and Declaration on Common Language
(2017). The second part of the lecture is devoted to the European Charter for
Regional or Minority Languages as one of the most important European
instruments of language policy and planning. It is shown which Balkan
countries have signed the Charter, which minority languages they protect and
what challenges they face.

Suggested readings:
 Bugarski, Ranko. (2004). “Overview of the Linguistic Aspects of the
Disintegration of Former Yugoslavia”. In: Bugarski, R., Hawkesworth, C.
(eds.) Language in the Former Yugoslav Lands. Bloomington: Slavica
Publishers, 3-11.

Mandić, Marija (2023). “European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

as an instrument of European language policy”. In Panajoti, A. (ed.) The
Languages of the Balkans in the Integration Context, Vlora: University of Vlora
“Ismail Qemali”, 5–32.

o IV March 22, 2024 Dejan Jović, “From War to Peace in the Western
Balkans”
Dejan Jović, Faculty of Political Science University Zagreb “From War to Peace
in the Western Balkans”

Moderator: Aleksandar Pavlović

The lecture critically examines from a 30-year perspective the developments

in post-Yugoslav states. It places the year of the Yugoslav disintegration 1991
in opposition to 1989, and to what 1989 symbolized for most of Europe.
Different dimensions of transition are reviewed in order to explain the post-
war achievements: political, economic, statehood, identity and war-to-peace
transition. The following questions are put forward: (1) whether or not the
disintegration of Yugoslavia is now over?; (2) whether the reintegration of
post-Yugoslav states that disintegrated

simultaneously with Yugoslavia is over or not?; and (3) whether integration

into the European Union is still a viable option for all countries of the Western
Balkans.

Suggested readings:

Lampe, John R. (2014). Balkans into Southeastern Europe: A Century of War

and Transition. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, New York, 260‒308.
 Jović, Dejan (2022). “Post-Yugoslav States Thirty Years after 1991: Unfinished
Businesses of a Fivefold Transition”. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern
Studies, 24(2): 193‒222.

o V March 29, 2024 Jelena Vasiljević, “Tracing identity narratives in

postsocialist Serbia”
Jelena Vasiljević, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory University
Belgrade, “Tracing identity narratives in postsocialist Serbia”

Discussant: Oleksandra Baklanova

Moderator: Olesia Marković

The lecture aims to capture the dynamics and interplay of Serbia’s identity
narratives during the last 30 years, and to analyse their connection with
political possibilities and action. Identity narratives dominating the public
discourse of Serbia today reinforce the motifs from the 1990s, and are
articulated with the help of the same discursive strategies from that period –
particularly the strategy of ambiguity. Thus, narratives are articulated and
framed so that they are always open to different interpretations. In addition,
recent years have seen new geopolitical challenges and the emergence of
new narrative themes and topoi, which are at the same time echoing
contemporary global trends and emerging from and focusing on regional
contexts and shared political experiences. Together with the growing
environmental anxieties they are deeply affecting the social sphere and giving
birth to new political actors potentially capable of challenging the identity
narratives that have hitherto painted the country's political landscape.

Suggested readings:

Guzina, Dejan (2023). “Serbia after Yugoslavia: Caught between geopolitics

and liberal promises”. Geopolitics, 28 (4): 1589‒1610.

Radeljić, Branislav (2014). “Serbia’s EU Future: Concerns and Perspectives”, In

Wilfried. L., Pãun, N.
 (eds.), Disintegration and Integration in East-Central Europe: 1919 – post-
1989, 284‒292.

Subotić, Jelena (2013). “Stories States Tell: Narrative, and Human Rights in the
Balkans.” Slavic Review,

72(2): 306–326.

Savić, Bojan (2014). “Where is Serbia? Traditions of spatial identity and state
positioning in Serbian

geopolitical culture.” Geopolitics 19(3): 684–718.

o VI April 5, 2024 Kerem Öktem, “The Muslims of Europe: Islam in

the Balkans between normalization, marginalization, and
radicalization”
Kerem Öktem, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, “The Muslims of Europe: Islam
in the Balkans between normalization, marginalization, and radicalization”

Discussant: Ivan Ejub Kostić

Moderator: Marija Mandić

In this lecture, I will explore the multifaceted presence of indigenous Muslim

communities in the Balkans, which is surprisingly unknown outside policy and
academic circles in Europe today. Experts of the Bosnian War will of course
know about the Muslim Bosniaks as one of the conflict parties, and some may
even remember that Kosovar Albanians also have a connection to Islam, but
knowledge rarely goes further than this. I will examine why these Muslims, at
least 8 million in number, are so relatively unknown in Europe, and if at all, are
mentioned in instrumentalizing discourses that portray them either in the
context of Islamic fighters or as flagbearers of a “European islam”. I will
critically discuss to what extent the assignation ‘Muslim’ is helpful and
legitimate for analytical purposes and suggest a historical framework that can
help us to make sense of today’s Muslim communities in the Balkans and
their place in a changing Europe.
 Suggested readings:

Clayer, Nathalie and Xavier Bougarel, Europe’s Balkan Muslims (2017). A New
History, London: Hurst & Company.

Hussain, Tharik (2021). Minarets in the Mountains: A Journey into Muslim

Europe. Chesham: Bradt Guides Ltd.

Greble, Emily (2021). Muslims and the Making of Modern Europe. New York,
NY: Oxford UP.

Merdjanova, Ina (2016). Rediscovering the Umma : Muslims in the Balkans

between Nationalism and Transnationalism. New York: Oxford University
Press.

Oktem, Kerem (2011). “Between Emigration, de-Islamization and the Nation-

State: Muslim Communities in the Balkans Today.” Journal of Southeast
European and Black Sea Studies 11(2): 155–171.

o VII April 12, 2024 Enriketa Papa-Pandelejmoni, “The politics of

memory and the review of history in post-Communist Albania”
Enriketa Papa-Pandelejmoni, Historical Institute University of Tirana, “The
politics of memory

and the review of history in post-Communist Albania”

Discussant: Romina Begaj

Moderator Marija Mandić

Although decades have passed since the fall of Communism in Albania (1991),
the communist past remains a very sensitive topic in the public discourse.
Many Albanian citizens remain unaware of the enormous scale of violation of
human rights during that period, while in recent years the revision of
 communist past is on the rise, as well as nostalgic feelings. The discourse on
the communist past is still very controversial and heterogeneous, while many
feelings are involved in polarizing the remembering of communist past. In this
lecture, I give some insights in the politics of memory and the history review
process from the perspective of transitional justice. I discuss the history of
communism, decommunization, lustration, reconciliation, justice for the
victims, as well the debates on remembering the abusive past. The lecture
also presents demands for a multivocal past, commemorative events, new
museums, opening of the archives and the former secret service (Sigurimi)
files, as well the polemics on the communist legacy.

Suggested readings:

Todorova, Maria (2010). “Introduction. The Process of Remembering

Communism”. In Todorova, M. (ed.). Remembering Communism. Genres of
representation, New York: Social Research Council, 9–34.

Austin, Robert (2009). “Albania”. In Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and

the Former Soviet Union Reckoning with the Communist Past. Lavinia Stan
(ed.). Routledge: London & New York, 176–199.

Kalemaj Ilir (2020). “Transitional Justice and Democratic Consolidation in Post-

Communist Eastern Europe: Romania and Albania”. In: Transitional Justice In
Albania. A Compilation Of Papers By Young Albanian Researches,
Organizationfor Security and Co-operation in Europe, 54–74.

o VIII April 19, 2024 Vjeran Pavlaković, “Symbolic Geography in the

Balkans”
Vjeran Pavlaković, Department of Cultural Studies, University of Rijeka,
“Symbolic Geography in the Balkans”

Discussant: Oksana Dovgopolova/Yulia Yurchuk

Moderator: Olesia Marković

 Although the cultural or collective memory of a society involves the interplay
of both material and nonmaterial elements, from monuments to school
curriculums and cultural products, this lecture will focus on the memoryscapes
related to the conflict of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. I consider a
memoryscape to encompass the physical manifestations and visual
representations of past events in the form of monuments and other
memorials, public space, memorial museums, murals and graffiti, architecture,
street names, symbols, and other material traces explicitly recalling a specific
historical period. While this is primarily associated with existing objects and
sites of memory, a memoryscape of erased and obliterated sites can also exist
within archives and in photographs, drawings, films, and other media. The
lecture will emphasize some key examples of contested sites of memory, as
well as a comparative approach to digital tools (such as interactive maps) and
other international case studies.

Suggested readings:

Pavlaković, Vjeran, “Memory Politics in the Former Yugoslavia,” Yearbook of

the Institute of East-Central Europe, 18.2 (2020): 9-32

Pavlaković, Vjeran, Memoryscapes of the Homeland War (Zagreb: YIHR, 2022)

Winter, Jay. “Sites of Memory,” in Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz, eds.
Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates. New York: Fordham University Press,
2010: 312-324.

o IX April 26, 2024 Ivan Dodovski, “Identity Politics in Macedonia:

Between Antiquisation and Europeanisation?”
Ivan Dodovski, University American College Skopje, “Identity Politics in
Macedonia: Between Antiquisation and Europeanisation?”

Discussant: Ivan Nikolovski

 Moderator Aleksandar Pavlović

With the breakup of the Yugoslav Federation, some Macedonians embarked

upon a new definition of their ethno-genesis: though still maintaining the
view about an amalgamation of ancient Macedonian and Slavonic roots, they
started placing the emphasis upon the former, rather than the latter. This
cultural tendency of the 1990s has morphed into an official social engineering
in the 2000s. The lecture considers some of the causes that gave rise to this
revised narrative of Macedonian national identity as illustrated in the Skopje
2014 project as well as in several fiction and dramatic works which had a
wider resonance with the Macedonian public.

Suggested readings:

Georgievska-Jakovleva, L. (2023). The dissonant narratives of the Skopje 2024

project. In R. Hudson & I. Dodovski (Eds), Macedonia’s Long Transition: From
Independence to the Prespa Agreement and Beyond (pp. 195-205). Palgrave
Macmillan.

Dodovski, I. (2023). Claim on Antiquity in Macedonian fiction and drama. In R.

Hudson & I. Dodovski (Eds.), Macedonia’s Long Transition: From Independence
to the Prespa Agreement and Beyond (pp. 179-193). Palgrave Macmillan.

o X May 3, 2024 Adriana Zaharijević, “(Post-) Yugoslav Feminism:

Socialism, War and Beyond”
Adriana Zaharijević, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory University
Belgrade, “(Post-) Yugoslav Feminism: Socialism, War and Beyond”

Moderator: Aleksandar Pavlović

It is an established truth that in socialism there was no feminism. Yugoslav

case tells a different story. Feminist storytelling takes another truth as equally
indubitable: after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern feminists were made to
catch up with the West, to unlearn their previous emancipation and learn how
to do feminism in the liberal democratic way. Post-Yugoslav feminists do not
 fit in here either: they found themselves not only in the changed system, but
their common country collapsed in a bloodshed. Doing democracy and
feminism was deeply entangled with war and peace. The last decade saw the
rise of il(neo)liberal governments, followed by the strong anti-gender
presence in the region. Post-Yugoslav feminists again share experiences in
order to better understand and confront this transnational phenomenon.

Suggested readings:

Bonfiglioli, Chiara (2018). “Feminist Translations in a Socialist Context: The

Case of Yugoslavia”. Gender & History 30(1): 240–254.

Iveković, Rada (1993). “Women, Nationalism and War: ‘Make Love Not
War”. Hypatia 8.4: 113–126.

Zaharijević, Adriana and Zorana Antonijević (2024). “Gender Equality for Show:
Serbian Performative Europeanisation”. In Gender, Religion and
PopulismGender Equality for Show: Serbian Performative Europeanisation”. In
Gender, Religion and Populism, J. Garraio, A. Giorgi and T. Toldi (eds.). New
York and London: Routledge.

o XI May 10, 2024 Nemanja Džuverović, “Is There a Point in

Measuring Peace? The Case of the Balkan Peace Index”; Filip Ejdus,
“Peace anxieties in the Balkans”
Nemanja Džuverović, Faculty of Political Sciences University Belgrade, “Is
There a Point in Measuring Peace? The Case of the Balkan Peace Index”

Filip Ejdus, Faculty of Political Sciences University Belgrade, “Peace anxieties in

the Balkans”

Discussant: Yevhen Hlibovytsky

Moderator: Olesia Marković

The first part of the lecture deals with the Balkan Peace Index which is the first
locally produced and owned peace Index. By relying on the ‘local turn’ in
peace and conflict studies the BPI tries to combine ‘good enough
methodologies’ with ‘big data’ in producing an index which is policy-relevant
yet still grounded in local realities of countries where the measurement is
taking place. The second part of the lecture will discuss peace anxieties in the
Western Balkans. By drawing on ontological security theory, the lecture will
analyse how the incomplete peacebuilding in the region generates collective
anxiety in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia.

Suggested readings:

Löwenheim, Oded. (2008). “Examining the state: A Foucauldian perspective on

international

‘Governance Indicators.’” Third World Quarterly, 29 (2): 2551-274.

Merry Sally Engle (2011). “Measuring the World: Indicators, Human rights, and
Global Governance.”

Current Anthropology 52(3): 83-95.

Džuverović, Nemanja (2023) “Balkan Peace Index 2022: Trends and

Analysis.” Journal of Regional

Security (online first).

Balkan Peace Index (https://bpi.mindproject.ac.rs)

Rumelili, Bahar, ed. Conflict resolution and ontological security: Peace

anxieties. Routledge, 2014 (Chapter 1)

Ejdus, Filip (2018). “Critical situations, fundamental questions and ontological

insecurity in world

politics.” Journal of international relations and development 21.4 (2018): 883-

908.

Kočan, Faris (2022). “Ethnicizing” the EU's Involvement in Post-conflict

Societies: The Case of
 Ontological Insecurity in Republika Srpska.” Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 19.73
(2022): 117-131.

Ejdus, Filip (2021). “Abjection, materiality and ontological security: A study of

the unfinished Church of

Christ the Saviour in Pristina.” Cooperation and Conflict 56 (3): 264–285.

David, Lea (2019). “Policing Memory in Bosnia: Ontological Security and

International Administration of

Memorialization Policies.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and

Society 32: 211–225.

o XII May 17, 2024 Aleksandar Pavlović, “The End of the Balkans?:
The Future Balkan(ism)”
Closing Lecture

Aleksandar Pavlović, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory University

Belgrade, “The End of the Balkans?: The Future Balkan(ism)”

Moderators: Olesia Marković. Marija Mandić

Will the Balkans - by joining the EU - lose its stigma but also its name? Is the
term Western Balkans just a temporary marker to be abolished when the
Balkans “evolves” into being properly European? What are the prospects for
the Balkans in general?

Suggested readings:

Todorova, Maria (1997). "Introduction: Balkanism and Orientalism: Are They

Different Categories?", in: Imagining the Balkans. New York, Oxford: Oxford
University Press. pp. 1-20.

Pavlović, Aleksandar (2018), What can Germans and French learn from Serbs
and Albanians?
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