![]() “Such destructive behaviour must not remain without consequences,” Anna Lührmann, Germany’s Minister of State for Europe, told the Bundestag on Wednesday. The German government is also lobbying for EU sanctions against Dodik. To counter secessionist efforts, Germany wants to increase pressure on Republika Srpska and its representative in the tripartite presidency, Milorad Dodik, who is subject to US sanctions for corruption and threatening Bosnia’s stability and territorial integrity.įor example, infrastructure funding amounting to €100 million has been suspended. The two others, Šefik Džaferović and Željko Komšić … Schulze warned that BiH should be helped in becoming more resistant to outside influence, particularly in countering any Russian attempts at political and economic destabilisation.ĭodik ready to block BiH’s decision to join EU’s Russia sanctionsīosnia and Herzegovina will not join the EU’s sanctions against Russia, said Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the BiH tripartite presidency about a decision that needs the backing of all three presidency members. Last week, the Serb member of the tripartite presidency blocked sanctions against Russia and even announced increased energy cooperation. The Kremlin has backed Republika Srpska’s independence movement for years and has established close ties with Serbia, the biggest country in the region.Īmid the war in Ukraine, Bosnian Serb representatives in the government are loyal to Moscow. ![]() Russia’s influence in the region is seen as a problem. ![]() “Especially in the current crisis situation in Ukraine, there is a threat of chain reactions in the Western Balkans and even beyond,” she added. “And these efforts of the Republika Srpska to secede, I, in any case, observe with great concern,” German Development Minister Svenja Schulze told a plenary debate in the Bundestag on Wednesday (6 April). In December, government representatives of the Bosnian Serbs in the Republika Srpska announced they would secede from Bosnia within six months. EURACTIV Germany reports.Īlmost thirty years after the war in BiH, ethnic divides remain entrenched, and the secession attempts of the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS), which is locked in an uneasy and loose union with the Bosniak-Croat Federation, are seen as a challenge to peace and stability in the region, according to the German government. Whether this is subversion or proliferation of Balkanism remains to be settled.The German government has warned of Russia’s destabilisation strategies, possibly challenging peace and stability in the Western Balkan region, most notably in the already dysfunctional Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Finally, I conclude with an appeal to giving intra-textual evidence or rebuttals of Balkanism greater emphasis than extra-textual ones, especially because in Kusturica’s case it reveals that the often overlooked aesthetic break that takes place with Dom za vesanje goes hand in hand with the representation of Balkan sterotypes. ![]() Thus, we should focus on the comments made not the commentators. ![]() I point out that the study of Balkanism is itself a political project and thus has an ideological slant, and that the commentators, regardless of their nationality stand to gain or lose something. Secondly, I tackle the reviewer’s skepticism of “insider” analysis because it necessarily has an ideological/nationalistic slant (the reviewer points out all ex-Yugoslav commentators have something to gain or lose by the virtue of their nationalities). Nevertheless, I demonstrate that the focus should be switched from Underground to Zivot je cudo. I argue that it is illegitimate to expand the canon to works the circulation of which is limited and that is why Kusturica remains our best bet. New movies and director’s should be sought out in order to apply Todorova’s (1997) theoretical framework. First, the reviewer points out that studying Kusturica’s movies, especially Underground, brings nothing new to the table because it rehashes old formulas touching either on ethnic propaganda (Cerovic 1995, Finkielkraut 1995a, 1995b) or on Balkan stereotypes (Iordanova 2001, Zizek 1997a, 1997b, Levi 2007). Prompted by comments and criticisms of a paper dealing with Emir Kusturica’s Zivot je cudo made by an anonymous reviewer I hope to address three issues: 1) the expansion of the canon studied, 2) the ideological slant of the study, and 3) the question of weight given to extra-textual evidence. ![]()
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