Memory and protest in Belgrade: Remembering the 1990s in the mass demonstrations of 2023

Abstract

The history of the 1990s and of political life in Serbia can be viewed as a history of protest. It was during this decade, in which Slobodan Milošević held power, that an entire generation of activists became part of a process of learning to engage in civil resistance. In waves of massive anti-regime protests as well as in smaller, yet persistent, anti-war protests, they asserted that ‘Belgrade is the World’. This article examines the ways in which practices and themes from these protests have resurfaced more recently, and how this activism is remembered and referenced in the 2020s. Based on data collected in Belgrade during anti-regime protests in 2023, which began as a movement ‘against violence’ (‘protiv nasilja’), it traces how the memory of protest of the 1990s turned into memory in protest as it appeared in banners, chants, slogans and speeches, as well as in everyday conversation among citizens, some three decades later. Deploying the concept of the memory-activism nexus, the article analyses generational claims in Serbia, the practices of protesters, their hope in activism, their fear of cultivating false expectations and their continuing demands for a better future. It places cultural memory in Serbia in the context of a politics of disappointment, illustrating that memory in protest can function as both a mobilising force and a source of political paralysis.