Public Lecture - The '90s Student Protests in Belgrade

 

 

The assessments of the student protests in the 1990s (especially the most massive ones of 1996/97) today often range between their heroisation, largely imbued by the optimism of participants' memories and bitterness when it comes to their essential effects. In this public guided tour, we will recall the three most significant student protests during the 1990s (the one of 1991, the student protest of 1992 and the most massive one of 1996/97), their specific causes, the forms which they took, but also how the broader social context influenced their articulation and what the students' response was to the social issues they faced. This is also an opportunity to open the issue of the scope and limitations of these student protests, and to examine to what extent they are relevant today.

 

 

 

 

 

Locations

 

TERAZIJE

Following an opposition rally on 9 March 1991 which ended in violence and arrests of protesters, tanks were brought in to the streets of Belgrade. The student protests started on 10 March and lasted for the following four days. The Terazije fountain was the central spot of this student protest.

 

 

 

 

 

STUDENT'S SQUARE

The 1992 students’ protest officially began in a rally of tens of thousands of students at 12 o'clock in front of the Belgrade University Rectorate building on 15 June 1992. These protests lasted from 8 June to 10 July 1992 and mostly took place in front of and within the individual university buildings, which, with the introduction of some new protest forms, characterised the student protests of 1996/97 which would run from late November 1996 to 21 March 1997. This place was an opportunity to discuss the specific causes of both the '92 and  the 1996/97 protests their demands and objectives, their organisation and forms.

 

 

 

 

 

RADIO TELEVISION OF SERBIA

The demand for media freedom was a constant in student protests in '91, '92 and 1996/97, as the RTS was seen as one of the symbols of the regime's power and an almost mandatory stop of (also student) protest marches (walks) during the 1996/97 protests. Through the discussion of the resistance discourse, this place was an opportunity to raise the issue of conceptual (even ideological) basis of the student protests, their scope and limitations and to what extent they are relevant for the current events.

 

 

 

 

 

The Guided Tour Video