All the news

Balkan history: testing imagination

23/09/2013 -  Federico Sicurella Belgrade

Is it possible to build a shared narrative of the Balkans, overcoming the conflicts between national historiographies? The travelling exhibition "Imagining the Balkans", these days in Belgrade, tries to do so

Under attack

19/09/2013 - 

To our readers:

The website and informatics services of Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso are under a DdoS attack since 16 August. The raids have reached our server causing dysfunctions. In the last few days, the attacks have increased

Blitz trade war between Macedonia and Kosovo ends

19/09/2013 -  Risto Karajkov Skopje

Truck drivers sealed off the border after a rapid escalation in trade restrictions between Macedonia and Kosovo. The situation quickly came back to normal, but not without consequences

Bulgaria: the arrival of Syrian refugees

16/09/2013 -  Francesco Martino Svilengrad

Hundreds of Syrian refugees have crossed the Bulgarian border fleeing the war. About 500 have been placed in the transit center of Pastrogor, near the border with Greece and Turkey. Our report

Azerbaijan's futuristic past

16/09/2013 -  Arzu Geybullayeva

A promenade in Baku's museal system starts at the Haydar Aliyev Center and continues through concrete and futuristic designs. Building the new, however, does not imply maintaining the old

Fanfara Tirana

12/09/2013 -  Gianluca Grossi

Though certainly more funky and jazzy in their arrangements than their great-grandparents, Fanfara Tirana have in fact revived brass tradition in Albania. And they made it out in the world thanks to a collaboration with Transglobal

Hitchhiking with Jim Morrison

11/09/2013 -  Azra Nuhefendić

In 1970, students Cvjetko and Pavle leave Belgrade to hitchhike their way to the Isle of Wight. An unexpected encounter is awaiting them in France. Back when the word Yugoslavia still opened the doors to Europe

The crossroads of Oedipus and the present Greek dilemma

06/09/2013 -  Fabrizio Polacco

Where Oedipus killed his father Laius, the roads from Thebes, Delphi and Daulis meet. At that abandoned crossroads, in a Greece overwhelmed by an economic crisis, today Europe may find its way again

A lesson in queer

05/09/2013 -  Federico Sicurella Belgrade

In Belgrade the second edition of the queer studies course just ended. It discussed unconventional perspectives, marginal identities, and emancipatory practices. Osservatorio met with philosopher and activist Dušan Maljkovic, coordinator of the course

Croatia: suspected psychiatric abuse

26/08/2013 -  Drago Hedl Osijek

Last July, the wife of a judge from Osijek was subjected to forced hospitalization, for no apparent reason. The dramatic case has raised the attention of the public and the media on the abuse of psychiatry in Croatia

United we stand

22/08/2013 -  Fabrizio Polacco

Wrestling could be banned from the 2020 Olympic Games program. The entire family of the Balkan, Caucasian, and Central Asian states has teamed up against the decision

The ping pong champion

14/08/2013 -  Azra Nuhefendić

The story of a girl from Sarajevo who became a national table tennis champion playing for the “Grbavica” club in 1960s Yugoslavia

Armenian homophobia

14/08/2013 -  Onnik Krikorian Yerevan

Proposed anti-gay propaganda legislation raises human rights concerns in Armenia, where violence against sexual minorities is supported by representatives of the institutions

Mir Sada, twenty years ago

13/08/2013 -  Nicole Corritore

Marching to Sarajevo to contribute to peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and promote popular diplomacy and non-violent interposition. This was the goal of over two thousand Italian and foreign pacifists who took part in "Mir Sada - Peace Now" in August 1993. One of our journalists participated

Macedonia's fragile real estate market

12/08/2013 -  Risto Karajkov Skopje

Rumors on the impending collapse of the real estate market in Macedonia have been spreading for some time. Lately, they are increasing

Moscow's approach towards de facto states after Kosovo's recognition

08/08/2013 -  Giorgio Comai

Kosovo's declaration of independence in February 2008 marked a change in Russia's approach towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the months preceding the war in Georgia in August 2008. Five years later, a short journey through this change in Moscow's official rhetoric

Skopje, you will be joy

06/08/2013 -  Risto Karajkov Skopje

The Macedonian capital remembered the 50th anniversary of the devastating earthquake of July 26, 1963. On that day, the city stopped breathing

Health and corruption in Serbia

29/07/2013 -  Federico Sicurella Belgrade

A young woman wrote to Osservatorio to denounce the treatment her Grandmother was subjected to in the Serbian healthcare facilities. Her letter tells of requests for money, humiliating treatment and working negligence

Turkey: the quality of democracy

29/07/2013 -  Francesco Martino

The “Gezi Park” protests enabled many to experience, often for the first time, the value of direct action and participation. A process that will have lasting consequences on the relationship between citizens and power. Our interview to professor Kerem Öktem

Azerbaijan and Islam, willfully blind or skillfully strategic?

24/07/2013 -  Arzu Geybullayeva

The state in Azerbaijan seems to be strictly in control of religious structures. Yet, many are turning to clerics deluded by social injustice and lack of acceptable forms of opposition