Description

Guest lecture ‘Serbian narratives about the Past and the Russian War against Ukraine’, by Prof. Florian Bieber, University of Graz  (Austria)

🗓️ Date: 11 April, 2024 

🕒 Time: 14:30-16:30

📍 Location: Lokaal 8.3, Universiteitstraat - Oude School, Campus Aula (ingang 8 Universiteitstraat 2-4-6)

The event is organized by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie research project ‘To Destroy or to Preserve? Monuments, Law and Democracy in Europe’ (MELoDYE) and the Eureast Platform Knowledge Centre 'Ukraine and Eastern Europe' (‘Ukraine-plus’) (UGent).

Summary:

The lecture will explore how the Russian war against Ukraine is debated in Serbia. Serbia under president Aleksandar Vučić has been the closet supporter of Russian president Putin in Europe and the discussion will explore why Serbia continues its good relations with Russia, not imposing sanctions. It will examine the public debate led by the regime controlled media on the war and how it is juxtaposed on the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

Speaker:

Dr Florian Bieber is a Professor of Southeast European History and Politics and Director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Center for the Study of Politics (Cevipol)  of the Free University of Brussels (ULB). He is the coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG). He studied Political Science and History in Austria, Hungary and the USA.  Between 2019 and 2022, he held the Jean Monnet Chair in the Europeanisation of Southeastern Europe. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at CEU. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the LSE and New York University, and held the Luigi Einaudi Chair at Cornell University. Recent publications include Pulverfass Balkan (Ch. Links 2023), Debating Nationalism (Bloomsbury 2020) and The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans (Palgrave 2020). 

Moderator: Dr Alina Cherviatsova, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University