Serbia
Dario Ivkovic: 'people don’t seem interested in roots of Balkan music'
Best-known as a member of both the German touring group Shantel & The Bucovina Club Orkestar and French band Les Yeux Noirs, the Serbian accordionist is an electrifying personality onstage. We talk music legends, Balkan beats and why 'girls like guitarists better'
I like Mostar: are there really no tourists who want to go to Bosnia?
Mostar and I go back a long way. Ours is the story of a missed encounter – in 1998. Fast forward to September 2011: cafebabel.com organises the annual network meeting in Dubrovnik. On learning that the city is only 150 kilometres away from Mostar, I decide to revisit the city I never reached
serbia, identity, lifestyle, balkans, bosnia and herzegovina, tourism, mostar
Rock band Turbo: ‘absence of taste’ an ‘incurable disease’ in Hungary
When it comes to psychedelic-progressive rock music, Turbo is Hungary’s number one. Bass guitarist Jero and singer Balázs Tanka on genres, role models and taking different viewpoints on music tastes and truths in general
serbia, bands, interview, festivals, sziget, bulgaria, hungary
ABV guide to learning your Serbian (from your Croatian, Montenegrin and Bosnian)
To hail the European day of languages on 26 September, cafebabel.com tries to learn Serbian. The short rocket takes us past planet Cyrillic alphabet and planet Latin alphabet, before speeding through planet lexical history and firing off into next-door neighbour space
serbia, tower of babel, bosnia and herzegovina, croatia, paris, montenegro, politics
Book trade faces bust in Balkans
‘Remaining indifferent to books means recklessly impoverishing your life,’ said Yugoslavia’s best known author, Ivo Andric. Fifty years after he won his Nobel prize, people across the former Yugoslavia are in danger of ignoring this health warning
serbia, balkans, bosnia and herzegovina, culture, international book fair, economy, sarajevo
Concert hype review: Amy Winehouse in Belgrade vs Die Antwoord in La Coruna
As the weekend drew to a close we’ve been hearing polar concert success stories. Between one Grammy-award winning British former drug addict’s Balkan comeback and more outrageous non-European sounds in Spain, is it off the continent where we need to be experiencing the best music live?
serbia, festival, amy winehouse, culture, music, culture calendar, spain
Serb general and 'Bosnia defect' Jovan Divjak under arrest since March
As Bosnia commemorates the Srebrenica massacre of 8, 000 Bosniaks in 1995, the former Serbian general Jovan Divjak is being held in Austria for crimes that he undoubtedly did not commit. He defected to the Bosnian army at the beginning of the 1992-1995 war. The president of the French association Confrontations Europe is convinced that European democracy is being tested in the Balkans right now
serbia, la haye, balkans, tribunal penal internacional, bosnia and herzegovina, sarajevo, war
Expats: from London to Srebrenica this July
The difference between summer in the UK and summer in Bosnia-Herzegovina is much more apparent around the date of the anniversary of the massacre in July 1995, when 8, 000 Bosniak men were killed. Notes from an expat abroad on cafebabel.com's official Sarajevo blog
serbia, blogs, bosnia and herzegovina, ratko mladić, history, srebrenica, politics
Albanophobia: land for Harry Potter villains?
Pop culture won’t cease to derive from stereotypes and prejudice. One Serbian journalist, who tentatively packed her bags for Tirana, finds out whether this is a revealing sign of ever-present albanophobia or anti-albanianism
Under EU status pressure? Ratko Mladic arrested in Serbia: live from Belgrade and Sarajevo
The alleged war criminal and genocide suspect, 69, will answer international charges of genocide, extermination and murder after his arrest and extradition to the UN war crimes tribunal. As the EU parliament’s president Jerzy Buzek welcomes this ‘good news for Serbia, for the stability of the region’ and for ‘Serbia's EU accession process’, two Serbian and Bosnian twentysomethings react with relief
serbia, balkans, tribunal penal internacional, ratko mladić, youth, radovan karadzic, sarajevo
Canvas, Otpor, Pora: Serbia's brand is non-violent revolution
Israa Abdel Fattah, Mohamed Adel and Asmaa Mahfouz will be remembered as the ones who largely contributed to dismantling Hosni Mubarak's 30 year rule over Egypt, and one of them revealed this year that he trained with similar youth organisations in Belgrade
serbia, youth, arab spring, orange revolution, egypt, otpor, pora
Aleksandar Radivojevic of ‘A Serbian Film’: it’s catharsis more than ‘torture porn’
In Belgrade artistic culture and creativity seem to be menaced by the muzzle of conformism and the dictatorship of political correctness. Many believe that Serbia’s entry into the 27-nation European union could make the situation worse. We meet the co-writer of a controversial 2010 horror film, which he says is the perfect 'plastic metaphor' onscreen of the indignant cry of an art which wants to break free
serbia, cinema, film festival, culture, violence, culture calendar, festival de cannes
Burn after Belgrade: trying to type over stereotype
After Sarajevo and Podgorica, the third stop of ‘Orient Express Reporter’ takes place in Belgrade, cafebabel.com’s maiden voyage to the Serb capital. History wears a heavy coat on the journalists’ investigations. From Belgrade’s museums, a German journalist learns more about a little known scientist national hero whilst a Canadian learns about the Kosovo myth as he ponders whether Serbia will become an official candidate for the European Union in late 2011. An Italian deliberately dives into the country’s stereotypes whilst an Irish asks if Serbia can beat its past to gain a brand. All the while a French photographer stops and starts in the city, capturing the serenity which has not been the easyjet party capital’s claim to fame. In this week’s cities column special edition, we learn that our quick pan-European stop in Serbia by no means defines a mostly misunderstood, future European city (Image: (cc) Andrej_Filev/ Flickr)
Bridges in Belgrade: why citizens should have a 26-hour-day
If we don’t have enough bridges, we should at least have enough time to cross the three over Sava river that we do have. Because, it really does require a lot of time... and nerves! Extract from cafebabel.com's latest city blog, Belgrade citypulse
Cinema horror in Europe: happy yucky Halloween
In light of the ‘love-it-or-hate-it’ upcoming Halloween on 31 October, we propose three of Europe’s best horror movies at the moment from Serbia, France and Holland, with a running commentary from Franco Calandrini, director of the Ravenna nightmare film festival
serbia, cinema, netherlands, civil society, europe, culture, france
Serbia and EU, sitting in a tree…
Yes! The EU foreign ministers resolved to formally initiate the accession process for Serbia on 25 October in Luxembourg. But! It must first hand over war criminal Ratko Mladić, write the German, Danish and Italian press
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