Novi Sad

So as the regime advanced, it became more nepotistic, more clientelistic, more corrupt.

And the tragedy of Novi Sad... on 1st of November 2024, was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Because people realized, and students first and foremost, that their slogan was corruption kills, because they understood that there was something very corrupt that led to shoddy, bad construction work that had this canopy collapsed and killed people.

16 people and maimed, disabled very seriously, a 17 person.

So I think it's very important to understand that.

that the students began a huge experiment in democracy.

And the other thing that I think why this came about, not only Novi Sad was the trigger, the horrible trigger, it's that when we defeated Milosevic in 2000 at the elections, again, a very people moment, Prime Minister Dzingic then said we should now work towards a society and politics that should avoid ever again having a regime like we had with Milosevic.

Mutatis, Mutandis, we got a similar regime that, yes, created some economic stability.

So I can provide a small background.

So the movement did start in November 2024 in Novi Sad, which is the second largest city in Serbia and one of the largest cities in former Yugoslavia.

There was an accident, so a canopy collapsed at the railway station and 16 people died.

Right? So the media in Serbia and in the region used often discourse of an accident, of a tragedy.

And students in Serbia recognized that.

So they started with these small gatherings just to mourn people of like 15 minutes.

Right? So they would block the streets, students in Novi Sad and Belgrade in Novi Sad.

in November just to basically show respect and to mourn together the people that died in this so-called accident.

Austro-Hungarian imperialism is definitely one of the major contributing factors to this war and it's going to become a contributing factor to the future war that is coming as well.

The Serbian socialists immediately translated this pamphlet into Serbo-Croatian and published it in Novi Sad in 1913.

And this pamphlet has one of these early elaborations where he really pushes this, and he says that there's this phenomenon of banditry in Macedonia, and this banditry has existed ever since Ottoman central power started weakening, but it has, in the recent decades, as these people got more educated, also received a very clear political dimension.

And what happens is that as these people gain an education, and he says, you know, when they start seeing the world further than their village church tower, they see Serbia, they see Bulgaria, they see Greece.

You build up momentum, people go away for the summer, and then the momentum just isn't regained in the autumn.

Well, we've seen that with the students, they have been able to maintain the momentum, they have been able to maintain the goodwill that goes beyond just their own cohort of young people and reaches into... other parts of society and other areas of the country than just Belgrade and Novi Sad, the big cities.

So that's been very impressive and that engagement by young people has certainly continued and that's why we're seeing this student list running in the elections next month.

Guy Delaney and the accordion player.

But there is a sense that something has fundamentally changed in Serbia over the past year or so, which, as you note, there have been massive demonstrations that have been taking place across the country.

It was started by events in Novi Sad, where a recently renovated train station the canopy outside collapsed, killing several people, and that this caused huge outcry.

It was linked with corruption in Serbia.

And so what we've seen are these demonstrations.

There have been a lot of complaints that he's become far too authoritarian, that he's closed down the media.

So There are a lot of people who are very, very anti-Vucic and we can see that and believe that Serbia is taking a wrong direction, that there is endemic corruption.

But on the other hand, you need to balance that against, you know, when you go beyond the confines of the big cities, so Belgrade and Novi Sad, Novi Sad being the second city of Serbia and maybe some of the other big cities.

I've certainly found that Vucic has tended to be more popular than, if you like, people would put it disparagingly, the urban liberal elites would present him as being, that many people in Serbia would say, look, you know what, Vucic may be a bit of a strange character, and there's no doubt that he is a bit odd in some ways.

So this year, I actually had a chance to be in Zakrzówek just twice.

Because before the season even started, I went off to the CMAS World Championships in Nowy Sad and then immediately flew to Kalamata for seven weeks.

So there was really no room for me to dive in Zakrzówek.

But the friends that I dive with, they've been going at least twice per week.

It was, uh, Monica Seles.

It was the mid-'80s, and the Seles family had traveled to Hvar from their home in Novi Sad, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the First World War, but now part of Serbia, though the Seles family spoke Hungarian at home.

As the Croatian island they were holidaying on had no tennis courts for Monica to practice, the wall next to the ferry terminal had to do.

Even at 11 years old, training came first.

Let's talk about Serbia, which is, I guess, a different movement trajectory that's still up in the air, so it remains to be seen exactly how the outcome will be.

The inciting incident for these protests in November twenty twenty-four, there was a train station collapse at Novi Sad, which killed something like sixteen people, and people suspected that the cause was shoddy oversight and kind of corruption in contracting practices.

And so most people demanded an investigation, which President Vucic's government kind of resisted at first.

Students began organizing protests in response.

And at that 2015, she told me, maybe you need something more than the willpower this time.

And happened to be at that time, happened to be a family constellation seminar in Novi Sad, in my hometown.

I attended the seminar.

It was 2015.