Yesterday, our group had a lecture with Mladen to start off the day. He mainly spoke about WWI and WWII and the development of the countries in the Balkans at that point in history. During this time the Balkans were the source of a major war with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. The history of this region is extremely complicated - even our Serbian teaching assistant says so. Basically, the two major powers of the region - Serbia and Croatia - have been feuding and vying for regional power with each other. At the time of WWI, Serbia wanted to unite all the countries in order to be strong against their enemies. Croatia reluctantly agreed, as many political groups within the country believed strongly in their right of being an independent, sovereign, and fully autonomous nation. Thus, the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which later became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia occurred. However, WWII saw the Ustasha, Croatia's fascist wing, come to power and let the Nazis march into Zagreb. The Serbs resisted the Nazis and many Serbs within Croatia were exterminated in a major genocide that unfortunately is not well known about in the West - hundreds of thousands were killed (the exact number differs by source). WWII saw a political battle over the future of the country and ultimately a young communist named Josip Broz Tito gained political and military prominence. More on him soon...
Besides the lecture, yesterday we also visited an NGO called the Zoran Djindjic Foundation. It is named after the former Prime Minister of Serbia who was assassinated in 2003. He was the first democratically elected Prime Minister after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Djindjic was critical in reforming the country and extraditing war criminals indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He was key in extraditing Milosevic to The Hague, even though this was seen as very controversial at the time. Djindjic faced a great deal of opposition for his extraditions and his cooperation with the international tribunal, but ultimately his actions were extremely significant as he moved Serbia past the dark period of the 1990s and pushed the country into modernizing and a member of the EU. Unfortunately, organized crime and members of his own cabinet seriously disagreed with his views, and thus shot him from a rooftop in Belgrade on March 12, 2003.
Besides the academics, today we had a free day and thus I went for a walk through the city. First I walked to the major Orthodox Church in Belgrade, the Cathedral of Saint Sava. Saint Sava is the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Then, I went to the Kalemegdan, or the Belgrade Fortress. It is a beautiful fortress and park which overlooks the Sava and the Danube rivers.
I then walked through a modern, shopping district which is all pedestrianized. After this, I went to Republic Square, where the National Museum is located.
I then walked for kilometers and got extremely lost. However I did get an opportunity to see parts outside of downtown Belgrade. Ultimately, downtown is very cosmopolitan and modern. Once you walk outside of the immediate center, however, the architecture is communist and extremely deteriorated. The buildings are run down and the area looks a lot poorer. The contrasts within the city are incredible to see.
And an anecdote - yesterday a group of us went to an amazing party on a boat. The party was for the celebration of Miss Serbia 2011! It was an incredible time - red carpet, techno music, lights, open bar, and the most beautiful women of Serbia. Here I am with Miss Serbia 2011.
Tomorrow morning we will go to Novi Sad, a city north of Belgrade. I look forward to sharing the experience there with you - but until then, cheers!
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