HREE EXTRAORDINARILY PAINTED SEASONS … AND THIS IS NOT THE END SERBIAN PROTESTS 2024–2025
HREE EXTRAORDINARILY PAINTED SEASONS … AND THIS IS NOT THE END SERBIAN PROTESTS 2024–2025

Summary/Abstract: Two things happened one after another. First, on November 1st, 2024, the canopy of the main railway station in Novi Sad (Serbia) collapsed, killing 16 people, including two children. Soon after, the state of turmoil and dissatisfaction turned into student-led protests and faculty blockades. The students realized very quickly that it had not been an accident, but a crime, the crime of negligence, corruption, sloppiness, the crime that its perpetrators were trying to cover up and “sweep under the carpet”. Some time had passed before January 14th, 2025, the day when I started to write down something about all these events, since in the meantime everything has metamorphosed, turning into a long-lasting social process that has outgrown all known forms, thus becoming an unprecedented physical and spiritual collective entity, complex, multicolored, and multifaceted, hitherto unseen in these regions. The formation of a certain, previously unknown cultural and social formula has begun; what initially started as a student-led protest grew into massive demonstrations led by high schoolers, parents, professors, citizens and people… becoming more widespread and general. Faculty buildings, rectorates, and universities all over the country were under blockade for months and the citizens were not allowed to enter them. All events, almost exclusively, took place in public open spaces, streets, squares, crossroads, as well as roads which people walked, ran, hiked, cycled, and sloshed through in the rain, sometimes only in sneakers, and other times wearing bandages.

• Details
• Contents