Alternative calendars and memory work in Serbia: Anti-war activism after Milošević

Abstract

This article analyzes the continuation of anti-war groups and activists in Serbia who were in opposition to wars in the 1990s and, in the decade after October 2000, are still in struggle. Activism often analyzed as part of the “Dealing with the Past Projects” is here analyzed in the context of social memory studies contributing to the understanding of current memory work and memory activism in Serbia. Drawing on Eviatar Zerubavel’s analysis of calendars as sites of social organization of national memory, this text looks at the emergence of alternative calendars as formed and created by anti-war and human rights activists. By analyzing the emerging alternative civic calendar in Serbia, I discuss memory activism as related to the commemoration of the Siege of Sarajevo and the Omarska concentration camp. I then extend my analysis on what I see as the most apparent and significant day on the emerging civic alternative calendar: 10 July annual commemoration of the victims of Srebrenica taking place for the last two decades at the heart of Belgrade’s city center, Republic Square.