Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung – Brussels Office, 5.5.2020 ;
English version: FOLLOW THIS LINK
German version: FOLLOW THIS LINK
Essay on the importance of including the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav history and memories in an European culture of remembrance. “(…) I am not trying to play off the wars of the 1990s against the Second World War or the Balkans against Europe. In fact, quite the reverse. I want us to think about these dates and places in terms of each other. Not to mix them up or equate them. 1995 is not 1945, and vice versa. The Balkans and the Yugoslav region are not the same as other European regions. But they are nonetheless European regions. And only by thinking about them together will it be possible to identify, work out and understand specificities and differences, similarities and parallels, as well as trans-European relations and interconnections. In short: if, in 2020 and beyond, we wish to commemorate the past in a truly European sense, and really wish to take seriously the concept of a ‘European culture of remembrance’, we must also think about the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav region and not forget neither 1995 nor the Yugoslav 1945.(…)”