The Balkan Perspectives podcast is forumZFD’s audio format on Dealing with the Past and Peace Education in the Western Balkans. The podcast is produced in four languages (Albanian, BHCS, Macedonian and English) by the forumZFD offices in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia. You can subscribe to the Balkan.Perspectives Podcast on the following streaming platforms […]

Conversation between the Secondary Archive Kosovo curators Erëmirë Krasniqi and Renea Begolli Erëmirë: You are an artist yourself Renea. How much did you know about women artists of different generations in Kosovo prior to the curation of the Secondary Archive project? Renea: To be honest, I did not know much, especially not before I practiced art more[…]

I have listened all my life to the stories of women who survived the war. As a four-year-old girl, I also passed through the refugee column. I witnessed how mothers, daughters, aunts, grandmothers, and friends remember those moments and images; how these women so bravely and so often experienced fear and suffering in silence, left to struggle[…]

Memories lie, women don’t. it is not true that only winners write history. History is written by men in power. During a war, women become second-class citizens and their role is split between somber duties in preserving daily life and their social and political position: a sharp division line splits heroes and non heroes, the so-called patriots[…]

Few months into 2023, we can safely conclude that 2022 was not the best year for any of us – still confused from the COVID 19 restrictions, witnessed the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine and heard possibilities of food, gas and electricity deficits, while prices skyrocketed everywhere around us. So, it was expected from[…]

If you live in the Balkans, on a few occasions if you are lucky, and on many, if you are not that much, you become aware that in this part of the world, people have very peculiar views on the concept of respect towards women. Where I pinpoint that peculiarity would be that concept seems to be[…]

Apart from a personal angle, there are at least three other ways in which we can remember the war. “The first way entails seeking reconciliation with the former enemy, mitigating conflict, and is therefore inclusive. The second way promotes national self-affirmation by excluding the enemy, therefore it is irreconcilable and exclusive. The third aims to defend against[…]

Remembering the Role of Women During the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina If relied exclusively on the programs and messages of commemorations, street names, names of institutions, and what has been written on memorial plaques and monuments in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, it would be hard to believe that there had been any women at all who […]

On 17 February 2023, as Kosovo celebrated its 15th anniversary of independence, a journalist asked people on the street who they thought the central figure of Kosovo was. They all mentioned men, whose names we had all heard before. Nobody mentioned Bahrije Kastrati, or any other woman, for that matter. I first came across the name Bahrije[…]