Balkans
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'
Nikola Djukic: 'Bosnia may have to wait until 2022 for EU membership'
Croatia’s citizens overwhelmingly voted to join the European union on 21 January. Meanwhile, its neighbour Bosnia-Herzegovina has not yet gained candidate status. We talk to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s ambassador in Hungary about what Croatian membership would mean and why Bosnia is different
balkans, europe, bosnia and herzegovina, hungary, enlargement, budapest, european union
Croatia EU vote: Swiss, Italian, Slovenian, Czech media react
A clear majority of Croatians voted in favour of EU accession in a referendum on 22 January. However, if they want to join the EU it's above all for economic reasons, European commentators write and prophesy that the EU's eastern enlargement is over for the time being
balkans, vote, brussels, candidate countries, euweek, croatia, european union
Slovenian journalist: death threats after arms trade trilogy
In Slovenia, a trilogy published between summer 2011 and spring 2012 has exposed the secrets of the arms trade during the Balkans war and the role of the country's politicians in it. It's been an ache in the sides of those in power and with money and interests whom the book denounces. Co-writer Blaz Zgaga, 38, may be in hiding but he won't stay down
balkans, interview, corruption, international trade, yugoslavia, ljubljana, war
Ivana Simic Bodrozic and co: more women on Croatia literary scene
The Zagreb-based poet and writer's coming-of-age drama Hotel Zagorje is the theme of a literary event in Paris. Though her debut novel stays true to a tradition in contemporary Croatian fiction, the 29-year-old gets her audience in a flurry with the book's themes of war, women, the past and an inevitable future together
balkans, zagreb, yugoslavia, death, culture, candidate countries, war
Heartbreaking Movies Of Staggering Bosnian Conflicts
Sixteen years since the end of conflicts, Bosnia is becoming the ‘promised land’ for moviemakers from Hollywood and Europe starving for a real commercial war story. Is the tragic Bosnian story finally beginning to make money?
balkans, penélope cruz, cinema, bosnia and herzegovina, angelina jolie, culture, jasmila žbanič
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
balkans, identity, lifestyle, bosnia and herzegovina, tourism, mostar, war
Balkan basketball: Macedonia honour and no 'hate thy neighbour' syndrome
In 1991 SFR Yugoslavia won the 'Eurobasket' gold medal and ended its existence as the second most successful country in basketball championships (after the soviet union). Twenty years on, all of Yugoslavia's ex-republic national teams have met for the first time at the same event. The riveting European basketball championships have reunited a region and end in Vilnius on 18 September
balkans, sport, yugoslavia, vilnius, macedonia, politics, society
Liv Holm Andersen: 'Danes like to lose their sense of security'
She talks and laughs with Mediterranean hand gestures and speaks a bit of Greek, but don't be fooled. The 24-year-old is actually one of Denmark’s youngest politicians, a candidate for the Scandinavian’s country’s second smallest party Radikale Venstre in elections on 15 September. In Athens, we talk Europe, the Balkans and learning from Spain
balkans, greece, bosnia and herzegovina, immigration, youth, right wing extremism, athens
Skopje’s ‘Albanian neighbourhood’ in Old Bazaar, Çarshia
There are essential traces of the history of Albanians and Macedonians, evidence of survival and revival after the Balkan or world wars. Skopje’s ‘Albanian neighbourhood’ is in a corner where the çarshia (bazaar) lies below the citadel, says Anisa Ymeri
balkans, immigration, community, albania, shopping, macedonia, cities
Digging out Macedonian documentary film and its female directors
Did you know that it was a Macedonian team who did the visual effects for Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator? Or that the George Clooney-vehicle The Peacemaker was also partly filmed in Macedonia? Twenty years after Macedonia gained independence from Yugoslavia, we discover there are actually new angles on the Balkan country's claim to fame
balkans, cinema, filmmaking, culture, macedonia, skopje, orient express
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
balkans, bosnia and herzegovina, economy, belgrade, culture, international book fair, sarajevo
Orient Express Reporter 2010/11: citizen journalism’s ‘corridor no.10’ in Balkans and Turkey
For nine months, this citizen media has been sending an editor from its team of six in Paris along with volunteer teams of journalists to the likes of Bosnia, Macedonia and the EU’s 28th member state as of July 2013, Croatia. A project initially born of idealism in the winter – the aim being to present ‘our Balkan neighbours’ from an on-the-ground, positive viewpoint – the monthly city missions became a veritable bastion of shared and unshared realities throughout the year (travel in the Balkans, football fever), even when some well-meaning articles inevitably dipped into the usual shadows of already mediatised topics. Politics decides the status of a Balkan member state in relation to the EU, and politics is unavoidable in the daily lives of young people. In December 2010, Montenegro and Albania respectively garnered ‘EU candidate’ status and celebrated visa-free access to the EU’s Schengen zone. Their journalists and Arab-revolutionary wannabes dream whilst in Kosovo, a Spaniard (whose homeland has not recognised the ‘world’s second newest country’) has a one-on-one with the prime minister. As Irishwoman simply tries to understand Serbia, which is racing ahead in its EU prospects after 'handing over old war criminals', whereas from Turkey, whose negotiations to join the EU seem stalled, the scene is set by a passionate cult of football supporters in Istanbul. And that was the key to this year's editorial mission: passion. Read the best of cafebabel.com’s jaunt in the east and south-east (Image: (cc) Ezequiel Scagnetti for Orient Express Reporter Kosovo/ ezequiel-scagnetti.com/)
- Read the special edition Orient Express Reporter 2010/11: citizen journalism’s ‘corridor no.10’ in Balkans and Turkey
- Selling Serbia, a PR nightmare
- Hunting Hashim Thaci in Prishtina
- Being a Beşiktaş football supporter in Istanbul
- Vox-pop: Being a young journalist in Montenegro
- Try finding an Arab revolution in Albania
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
balkans, la haye, tribunal penal internacional, bosnia and herzegovina, sarajevo, war, war crimes
Going bananas for Tirana
In 2010 a group of Albanian politicians organised a hunger strike in protest at the electoral problems of the year before. In January 2011 the police killed three protesters in front of parliament. This year marks the return of citizens riled at the irregularities at the foundation of local elections in June. In Tirana everything revolves around politics, but some are able to rise above the stench of disappointment. Between architects, artists, journalists and students, a new generation is trying to revive a young Balkan capital. Read the articles from our Bosnian-Serbian-Spanish-French team who report from Albania in the framework of our special edition, Orient Express Reporter (Image: (cc) davduf/ Flickr)
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