Report from the “In Defence of History” panel discussion, November 2020.

30 Nov Report from the “In Defence of History” panel discussion, November 2020.

The “In Defence of History” panel discussion was held on Saturday, November 28th 2020., at the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade as a continuation of the project “Who Started All This? – Historians against Revisionism”.

Discussion was held regarding the Declaration “Defend History” and one of the main topics was what kind of relationship with the past is needed on a regional level. The participants were historian and author Dragan Markovina from Croatia, film director Mila Turajlić from Serbia, currently residing in Paris, France, theatre director Dino Mustafić from Bosnia and Herzegovina and journalist Galeb Nikačević from Serbia, with the prominent historian Dubravka Stojanović acting as a moderator. 

The discussion began with Dubravka Stojanović emphasizing the importance of having this conversation not only with historians, but also with artists, journalists and people from  other professions, as well as the importance of as many people getting more involved and signing the Declaration.

It was agreed upon that historiography must be multiperspective. There is no such thing as the Truth with a capital T and historiography must be freed from that preconception.

Some of the chief obstacles to this that were identified were polarization, division into “us and them”, the unwillingness to consider history in a broader sense and not just us “our history”, the prevailing conservative attitudes and the politics of memory that remains strongly tied to the institutions.

The participants concluded the discussion with the remark that their intention was not to come up with the new truth, expressed in the Declaration, but to create a safe space for new generations where they can think through the many challenges and not simply leave them unresolved.

This event was realised with the help of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Serbia, with the forum ZFD as an implementing partner.

Prepared by KROKODIL journalist for a day, Aleksandra Jelesijević

Photos from the event you can check HERE

Video from the event you can watch here:

Audio podcast you can listen here:

N1 TV report as a main topic of the morning show:

For this occasion we have prepared video reading of the Declaration Defend History in 11 different languages. All the video please see HERE