The second conference under the project “Who started it? – Historians against revisionism” will take place on 9 and 10 December, starting from 18:00. The first day of debates is titled ALL OUR WARS, WW II and 1990s wars, whereas the second day of discussions is dubbed ALL OUR YUGOSLAVIAS, the creation and dissolve of the first and second Yugoslavia, and will feature prominent historians from the countries of former Yugoslavia.
Participants: Vesna Terselic, Srdjan Milosevic, Srdjan Susnica, Olga Manojlovic Pintar, Nemanja Stjepanovic, Bojan Balkovec, Petar Todorov, Adnan Prekic and Goran Hutinec as well as members of the project’s working group: Dubravka Stojanovic, Milivoj Beslin, Tvrtko Jakovina and Husnija Kamberovic.
Following the project “Languages and Nationalisms,” which dealt with the issue of four different political languages in the region – and culminated in a Declaration on the Common Language, compiled by 30 linguists and signed by some 10,000 people from the entire region – association KROKODIL kicked off a new project titled “Who started it? – Historians against revisionism” The two and a half year project was launched with a major conference within the KROKODIL Festival in June 2018, which gathered historians from across the Western Balkans and was attended by over a thousand visitors.
In the period from June till September, residential visits were organised for historians under KROKODIL’s Writers’ House in Belgrade. Two week residential stays allowed the historians to conduct a research in Belgrade, as the Archive of Yugoslavia and the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – both headquartered in Belgrade – house the most relevant Yugoslav-era documents. Following the residential visits, September saw three summer camps for students from across the former Yugoslavia. The camps were aimed at bringing students closer to the method of multi-perspective historical narrative. Their papers focused on the neuralgic points of the history of Yugoslavia.
The main goal of the project was to create a space for historic and inter-cultural dialogue through creation of a network of historians, writers, journalists, students and a wider audience, that would contribute to conflict resolving, mutually respected historical narratives (in the absence of a shared one) and a more inclusive memory culture. The project aims to set up a sustainable platform for a discussion about acceptable versions of events from the distant and more recent past. The Belgrade conference will gather leading experts in history from Serbia and the rest of the region, including Dubravka Stojanovic, Bozo Repe, Husnija Kamberovic, Milivoj Beslin, Tvrtko Jakovina, Peter Miksa, Hrvoje Klasic, Adnan Prekic and many others.
The project is funded by the European Union and will be implemented in close cooperation with ZFD Forum Serbia. It is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia and the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society.
The project is produced with financial support from the European Union. The sole responsibility for the project lies with association KROKODIL; the project does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Union.
