Culture Clash in Belgrade – an article about the cultural and political situation in the Flemish newspaper De Standaard

04 Nov Culture Clash in Belgrade – an article about the cultural and political situation in the Flemish newspaper De Standaard

Cultuurclash in Belgrado

By Wouter Hillaert
Source: https://www.standaard.be/buitenland/in-servie-ligt-de-cultuur-onder-vuur-wat-hier-gebeurt-kan-een-proeftuin-zijn-voor-heel-europa/100022912.html

Milena Beric, executive director of the KROKODIL Association was one of the interlocutors of the Belgian cultural journalist Wouter Hillaert, for his article about the socio-political and cultural situation in Belgrade and Serbia today, which appeared in the Flemish daily newspaper De Standaard recently. You can read it below in English translation.

Another nationalistic regime with dictatorial tendencies? The interventions of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade’s cultural sector are as recognizable as they are alarming. “Why does the EU remain so silent?”

“Then I discovered that there was spyware on my phone. Apparently, the regime was listening to me.” Milena Beric tells it almost as a fait divers, as if she is no longer surprised by what Vucic is doing to get the Belgrade art scene under his control. We are sitting in the cozy office of Krokodil, a literary organization where Beric is one of the driving forces. There is coffee and cake, and two young dogs further enhance the homely atmosphere. Thanks to their birthday on July 4, they were named Thomas and Franklin, after the American presidents Jefferson and Roosevelt. Freedom and independence are the highest values for Krokodil.

These are values that are under pressure in Serbia, says Beric. “We are constantly faced with intimidation and harassment. Even for removing far-right graffiti from a children’s playground, we had a lawsuit against us. We did eventually win that ridiculous case, but it completely exhausted us.”

Beric can only draw one conclusion: “Serbia is taking on the allure of a dictatorship.” She refers to A Digital Prison, an Amnesty report from late 2024 on the surveillance and suppression tactics of the Serbian government. The report outlines a climate in which the authorities are increasingly hostile to free expression and open debate and are acting ever more boldly against the successive waves of protests that the country has experienced since 2021, “ranging from persistent malicious smear campaigns against critical NGOs, media and journalists, to repeated judicial harassment of citizens who protest peacefully.”

What has Krokodil done? It opened its doors to Russian dissidents and built a library with 600 books for Ukrainian refugees. It also organized a relief convoy to Kherson in occupied Ukraine and published a literary report about it. So much sympathy for the Ukrainian cause is not in line with the good relations between Vucic and Putin.

The state-controlled sabotage of the cultural sector is taking on absurd forms. When Krokodil held its annual international literature festival in June, the largest in the region with thousands of visitors, the regime countered it with a nationalistic poetry event, right in front of parliament. “Imagine Bart De Wever organizing a major literary event during the Passaporta festival. Employees of Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic even came to cut off our electricity to shut down the festival! Only thanks to EU Ambassador Emanuele Giaufret was it able to continue, although it was accompanied by three days full of attacks. It has shortened my life by three years.”

Demo-choreography

Serbia is experiencing its most turbulent times since the Balkan War and the NATO bombings in 1999. This weekend marks one year since sixteen people died in Novi Sad when a concrete canopy broke off at the renovated train station. The tragedy ignited a powder keg of frustrations over corruption, fraudulent practices, neoliberal sell-offs, and authoritarian power displays with which ultranationalist Vucic and his populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) have been calling the shots for ten years now.

Across the country, students began occupying universities, strongly supported by cultural players. Strikes, mass demonstrations, and popular assemblies signaled a revolutionary mood comparable to the Arab Spring or the protests in Hong Kong in 2019 – with the difference that there was much less attention for it in Western Europe. The student movement put forward two major demands: an investigation into those responsible for the train station tragedy and free elections.

“It was one spontaneous choreography of democracy,” testifies Tanja Sljivar, professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts of the University in Belgrade, where the first roadblocks were erected. “A fundamental difference from May ’68 or the struggle against Milosevic in the 90s is that this resistance has no distinct ideological color or identifiable leaders. Everything is done through direct democracy and spokespersons who change continuously. That partly explains why the occupations were able to continue for so long. We have all learned a lot from it.”

Vucic’s regime responded to the unrest in a totalitarian manner, with house arrests for the most visible students, wage cuts for sympathetic teachers, violent infiltrators, bought-off counter-demonstrations, manipulation of local elections, and fake news through the state-controlled media. For eight months, Vucic has hermetically sealed off Pionirski Park between his presidential palace and parliament with a tent camp for SNS supporters, even though it is now eerily empty.

In July, most of the university occupations were eventually lifted. At the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, classes resumed after the summer, and students were able to retake their missed exams. Yet the protest is not dead. The student movement continues to work on its own electoral lists for the next national elections, scheduled for 2027. This week, hundreds of students from all over the country walked to Novi Sad to commemorate the tragedy of a year ago together on November 1.

As early as October 16, for example, a group of students left Novi Pazar for a protest march of 400 kilometers and “16 days for 16 deaths,” as they told Serbian media. “This walk is so much more than a trip between two cities. It is a journey between injustice and responsibility. We are marching for all victims of corruption and police violence. For the new world in which we want to live.”

Enemies of the Regime

A large part of the cultural sector in Belgrade shares that dream. Artists and cultural workers are active in the many working groups of the resistance, offer assistance to the students, and participate in demonstrations, such as on March 15 in the largest procession in Serbian history, with a few hundred thousand protesters in the capital. Around that time, there was also a general cultural strike for a full week, until it crumbled in a messy discussion with too many divergent ideas and interests.

What doesn’t help is that the art field in the capital is divided by a deep split between, on the one hand, about thirty subsidized government institutions such as the National Theater or the National Museum and, on the other hand, a growing independent scene of collectives such as Krokodil, who on their own initiative work on visual arts, performance, film, or literature. The latter receive little or no government support, making them primarily dependent on private funding or foreign funds, often through the EU. In their eyes, the institutions are inert and regime-loyal, while they pride themselves on their creative innovation and committed engagement with other progressive forces in society.

“We are fixers!” says Milica Pekic of art collective Kiosk. She co-founded NKSS, a growing platform of about a hundred independent art organizations. “We have talked to almost every minister to convince them of structural investments, but this regime is averse to critical art. The state sees us as enemies. In the 35 years after the fall of ex-Yugoslavia, the state has not opened a single new space for contemporary arts. This keeps us hanging in the margins, but we also have nothing to lose. Vucic cannot take away money from us that we do not have.”

This is very different for the larger institutions where the regime has begun a cunning savings and ideological recuperation campaign. For example, the top of the National Theater was exchanged for Vucic loyalists this summer. The chairman is now the radical nationalist Dragoslav Bokan, who led the paramilitary group White Eagles during the war. General Director Svetislav Goncic was replaced by opera singer Dragoljub Bajic, who repeatedly acted as presenter of the political rallies of Vucic’s party.

Since then, a new house rule applies in the National Theater: any actor or employee who makes political statements will be fired. Earlier, famous actors were already dismissed after they had declared their solidarity with the student protest. “The National Theater has become a prison,” concludes Dijana Milosevic of the independent Dah Theater. “Many other institutions now also have a director with an SNS signature.”

At the renowned Bitef theater festival, the implosion is complete after former NTGent director Milo Rau criticized the Serbian government’s controversial plans for a lithium mine near the city of Loznica at the opening of the last edition in 2024. His speech is said to have contributed to the fact that artistic director Nikita Milivojevic was suddenly pushed aside in March by the city government of Belgrade, also led by SNS. After barely two years, his mandate was exceptionally not extended.

At the same time, the city delayed appointing a successor, so that the festival had to be postponed in September for the first time in 58 years. “Vucic must be a genius,” a theater maker scoffs about this. “He is doing something that even NATO did not succeed in doing in 1999: canceling Bitef.” In the meantime, it has also been statutorily determined that the new board may interfere with the programming itself. It promptly rejected the screening of Milo Rau’s new creation The Pelicot trial, simply based on his name. To this day, it remains unclear whether Bitef will still take place this year. The same applies to Fest, the annual film festival of Belgrade.

Culture War

These are machinations from the handbook of Orban in Hungary or Trump in the USA. They combine a financial thumbscrew policy with an unconcealed intervention in the institutional hardware of cultural life, by placing men with an ideological cap everywhere. For nationalists, artistic freedom stands for cursing in church. But culture in itself is crucial, the ideal lubricant to connect the people and to show off internationally.

Like Orban and Trump, the Vucic regime is also increasingly starting to curate itself. For example, in 2020 it spent a few hundred thousand euros on a grand retrospective of Marina Abramovic, born in Belgrade, in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) – almost an entire annual budget of the museum. In 2027, the world expo in Belgrade should be the superlative event. Expo 2027 is announced as “an exhibition full of tradition, culture, innovation and science” and is budgeted at 1.2 billion, including opening a few new museums.

In the cultural circles of Belgrade, skepticism prevails. “You already know that there will never be elections before that Expo,” says Milena Beric of Krokodil. “Italian Prime Minister Meloni has already confirmed that she will contribute significantly.” In the Serbian parliament, a ‘lex specialis’ has also been voted for Expo 2027, which means that other laws do not apply to it. “They have their hands free to do what they want.”

Meanwhile, the scarce project resources for art creation are being plundered in favor of the government’s own ideological project. Free art organizations that submitted a project plan to the annual open call of the Ministry of Culture received nothing. In mid-September, half a year after the scheduled date, all the money went to a handful of heritage, folkloristic, and revisionist projects. And not for the first time.

“Since 2000, the policy has combined a desire for a market-oriented culture industry with a pronounced nationalism,” observes Marijana Cvetković of the independent dance organization Stanica. “Since the takeover of power by SNS in 2012, that marriage has become a monster, with all kinds of new rules that aim for complete control, down to the smallest detail. Now we have even reached the point where the authorities repeatedly violate their own laws themselves. It’s a total war situation.“

For the time being, independent players are keeping their heads above water thanks to foreign funding and ties with other European players, but for how much longer? At Dah Theater, Dijana Milosevic and her colleagues have already held strategic consultations on a freeze on foreign money, as during the war. In Hungary, Orban has been campaigning for years against organizations with funds from the West. “That can also happen here,” they fear at Dah. “The regime is increasingly exhibiting irrational behavior.”

Senseless Mannequins

At subsidized houses such as the Cultural Center of Belgrade (KCB), there is a lot of uncertainty. This urban institution, founded in the 1950s as a showroom for literature, theater, film, photography, and visual arts, today has thirty employees. “Yet the city of Belgrade provides shamefully few resources for our operation,” sighs program maker Zorana Djakovic Minniti.

On the wall of her small office hangs an enlarged statement by the Serbian video and performance artist Rasa Todosijevic, a figurehead of conceptual art in ex-Yugoslavia: “Despite the economic crisis and a world full of conflict, everyone agrees on one thing: artists need a lot of money.”

His wisdom from 2004 is difficult to read here other than as irony. In May, the already tight urban grant for KCB was halved again. At the same time, nothing has yet been decided about their national subsidies for 2025, even though the year will soon be over. Culture Minister Selakovic has been considering his decision for months. “Culture has been in the trenches for a long time, but it is getting worse every day,” says KCB curator Vladimir Bjelicic. “We cannot say today what this society will look like in a week. So enjoy Belgrade, before it goes up in flames like Rome!”

The savings forced KCB to heavily weed out its autumn exhibitions. The offer was reduced to one expo: 9 solo exhibitions. A critical quip, because in practice there was only money left for seven oeuvres. The center wants to trigger a public debate about what culture can still mean in a time of socio-political chaos. For example, in the Art Gallery you now come across a row of senselessly staring mannequins, an artwork by Goran Despotovski. They depict man in his naked surrender to a world in which familiar values no longer apply. Filip Radenovic’s photos of drag figures with traces of violence also have a distinctly socio-critical slant.

Contemporary artists can still make and show what they want, assures Bjelicic. “Not what you create is dangerous, but what you say.” In practice, the city government even shows itself surprisingly indifferent to the offer in the Cultural Center. “In ten years, I have never seen a city politician come here,” says Minniti. “Not even by invitation.” This also turns out to be a characteristic of right-wing nationalist policy: a great disinterest in all culture that does not fit into its own agenda.

“For years you have noticed a neoliberal tendency towards erasing the traces and stories of socialist Yugoslavia,” says Cvetkovic. “It won’t work.” For example, the students rediscovered the power of some customs from the communist era, such as the popular assembly. This year, the cultural sector also forged closer ties with the trade unions to become proficient in resisting wage cuts and other repression. And there is even more rapprochement between institutions and independent players. “We are all in the same boat. If we do not unite, everything we have fought for will be lost.”

European Laxity

Many conversations turn out to be about this: the need for collective action. And not only in Serbia. “What is happening here with culture can be a testing ground for the whole of Europe,” says Beric of Krokodil. “We may already be a step further here in Belgrade, but everywhere you see similar interventions by the radical right on culture. In the meantime, we have a lot of expertise in this to share with others, across borders. Today it is no longer about countries, but about ideological bubbles.”

Beric therefore does not understand why Europe is looking away from Serbia and is so lax with Vucic, while the country is still a candidate member of the EU. There are of course the political and economic interests, such as the geostrategic value of lithium, the run-up to Expo 2027, and the uncertainty about what would follow after Vucic. “But I don’t understand why the EU is watching so silently, while it knows perfectly well what is happening here. If Europe takes its own values seriously, then it will immediately withdraw its hands from this regime, as it did with Milosevic in the past. And then Vucic disappears from the scene.”

Last week, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning Serbian state repression and ordering an independent investigation into the tragedy in Novi Sad. It also mentions fair elections and further democratization as a condition for Serbian EU membership. “This is a clear step, but it remains to be seen whether it will also help us,” says the Serbian-Belgian artist Sara Oklobdzija, who is conducting research into the student protests with the support of the KVS. “Such a statement is often also a politically correct form of procrastination. I remain determined to find out why Western media report so little about this persistent popular resistance just two hours’ flight from Brussels.”

The weekend of the first anniversary of the tragedy in Novi Sad will in any case be one with mixed feelings in Belgrade. “The past year was not only the worst time in my life, but also the best,” says Ksenija Durovic of the Bitef festival. “Usually you are very alone in your struggle, now I feel part of a stream. Finally something is moving!” She fears that it will get worse before it gets better. “Wherever you scratch in this country, the sore spots are numerous and they are deep. Also in the art field.”