“Not FETÖ, But NATO”
Turkey’s failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt has torn apart the country’s military and shifted power towards those more skeptical of the intergovernmental alliance. Not long after 9 pm on the evening of July 15, 2016, Turkey’s Chief of Staff, 2nd Chief of Staff, Land Forces Chief and eight…
How One Photographer is Analyzing the Intersection of Class and Pseudo-Luxury in Post-Communist Albania
In a new book of photographs by artist Anna Ehrenstein, Tales of Lipstick and Virtue, intersections of class and pseudo-luxury are conspicuously unpacked in striking works that reconcile changing notions of female identity emerging in contemporary Albanian life. The photographs—mostly fake-stills Ehrenstein composed on the streets of Tirana—depict women confronting…
An Interview with Buta, the King of Albanian Trap
Buta is the freshest new face in Albanian rap. He’s the reigning revolutionary of trap music, currently the most fashionable subgenre of rap in the Albanosphere, both in flow and content. People who like rap but don’t understand Albanian can easily appreciate his smooth flow. And those who understand the…
Memory Overproduction: Turbo Sculpture and the Bizarre Statues of Belgrade
A curious array of monuments have been cropping up all over Belgrade recently, with statues of Andy Warhol, a Stalinist poet from Kazakhstan, and a late dictator from Azerbaijan all already raised or planned. What do such seemingly incoherent monuments say about politics and memory in the city and region? It is…
Op-Ed: “Doing Business” After Gruevski
“Big mountains are shivering, and a mouse is born at the end” – Balkan proverb The new government of Macedonia led by freshly appointed Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of the Social Democratic party, SDSM, will be expected to “undo” the damage caused by former premier Nikola Gruevski’s conservative nationalist party…
Countdown to Slovenia’s 2017 Presidential Election
The Slovenian presidential election picked up a bit of unexpected momentum in the past ten days or so with the emergence of what seem to be the two most credible challengers to current #instapresident Borut Pahor to date. Marjan Šarec (left) and Milan Jazbec (right) are challenging president Borut Pahor this…
Serbia’s New Lesbian Prime Minister: A Symbolic Step Forward?
In Serbia, is the recent appointment of Ana Brnabic to the office of prime minister indicative of a new commitment to LGBT rights — or a smokescreen? On the evening of Thursday, June 15, news broke that Serbia would have an openly lesbian prime minister. Immediate reactions from the global LGBT community…
Putting Ideology Aside: An Unholy Alliance to Keep Croatia’s Government Alive
Croatia is (un)fortunately a small enough country not to be on the radar of the world’s major media most of the time, but what has been unfolding on the political scene in recent weeks and months has provided the public with some truly engaging political theater, resembling something between an overwrought…
Albania is Emptying at an Alarming Rate
Since the summer of 2015, the number of Albanians requesting asylum in Western Europe has risen dramatically. Although the number of asylum requests dropped during 2016, the number of people migrating illegally has continued to grow. Balkanist spoke with several Albanians in different countries and asked them why they chose…
Investigation: Serbia’s Involvement in the Macedonian Crisis
Serbian journalist and MP Miroslav Lazanski was involved in a coordinated propaganda campaign along with members of Serbia’s intelligence service, the BIA, aimed at mobilizing public support for Macedonia’s ex-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and Russia in Macedonia. Lazanski describes these claims as false, and says that he was only doing his job as a…
