Wednesday - down to business

ever-so-slight difference between pictures :-)



We're in it, full-speed ahead.

Yesterday (Tuesday), we visited the B92 Radio & TV station, the best radio station of the '90s and 2000s (and now still the 'best', but holding the 2nd spot among the other 400-plus broadcasters in Serbia).

We met with Sasha, the CEO and one of the early founders of B92 (founded as 92 FM radio in 1989). We had a tour of both the radio and the TV studios and then met on the roof for a Q&A (the roof being the only space large enough to hold all 23 students plus Mladen, Yiannis and me). Sasha ended our discussion with a detailed history of the role of B92 as a voice of challenge to Milosevic (first and foremost, throughout the 1990s until 2000) and even as a challenge to "our former friends" (as he called the political opposition to Milosevic). In short, B92 Radio & TV are what you would expect from the media - a "4th Estate" as we'd say in the US; an institution that doesn't allow politicians (even those they support) to have the only say in public debate, unchecked (i.e., B92 is not Fox News).

That afternoon, I gave my "Clash of Civilizations to Dialogue of Civilizations" presentation at the Belgrade Open School. Mladen was a student there and secured for us the use of one of their classrooms - on the 16th floor of "Belgrade Lady" building, with an incredible view of all of downtown Belgrade.

This morning, we returned to our classroom for Mladen's presentation (with a lot of kibbitzing from Yiannis and me; poor Mladen!). He gave us a very thorough history of the Balkans from Medieval times through the end of the 19th Century (ending around 1878, when Serbia gained some form of international recognition as an 'independent' entity, though still controlled by the Ottomans). And this afternoon, he led the group to the military museum at Kalamegdan fortress.

We'll pick up tomorrow morning with the demise of the Ottoman Empire here in the Balkans and the rise of Yugoslavia, though we know how that story ends ...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You can't get there (Serbia) from here (Kosovo) - go to Montenegro!

Image
“You can’t cross this boundary from here [the Kosovo “border”/Administrative boundary]. You’ll have to go to Montenegro and then enter Serbia from there.” Thus sayeth the Serbian policeman at the boundary/border, yesterday (Thursday) around 3:30 pm. The reason? We had a stamp on our passports that read “Republic of Kosovo”, which Serbia does not recognize as independent nation-state (nor do a small number of nation-states of the international community – Russia, Spain, Greece, and 6 other members of the EU). “Kosovo is Serbia.” What he was proposing was for us to “re-enter” Kosovo (1/4 th of a mile back from where we came); return to the town of Mitroveca (where we just left 90 minutes ago); cut over to the West, and enter Montenegro (another 90 minutes-2 hours); then drive to the Montenegro-Serbia border (another hour); then drive until we catch up with the road we could have been on – only one hour from the point on the map where we were standing that ver...
Read more

Student blogs - check them out!!

Image
on the right side of this blog, run your cursor over the second box down from the right - you should see "Student Blogs Balkans 2012".  As students send me their URL (addresses) for their blogs, I will add them here.  the students have unique insights into much of the same thing I discuss - but then again, so much more!  Check them out when you can. While I'm "here", I'll post just two more pictures from July 9.  First, a picture of our meeting with Ambassador Rod Moore, former US Ambassador to Montenegro, career foreign service officer, and now works as the 2nd in command at the OHR - the Office of the High Representative.  OHR is essentially the "authority of last resort" in Bosnia.  We met with Ambassador Moore just after we witnessed the ceremony honoring the 520 souls who were to be buried today in Srebrenica.  Here is one more picture, below, that shows the flowers that were placed on the 3 semi-trucks, carrying the 520 coffins that were...
Read more