The year ahead
Eastern approaches 2014-01-08
Summary:
THIS year promises to be an important year for the western Balkans and here are some of the important stories we expect to cover:
The biggest and flashiest Balkan news event will be the commemoration of the centenary of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28th 1914, which sparked the first world war. The issue is a divisive one in Bosnia as we have noted here in our sister magazine, Intelligent Life. Many Bosniaks and Croats view Gavrilo Princip, the assassin, as a terrorist. Serbs see him as a liberator.
Big showpiece events taking place in Sarajevo in June include a major cycle race featuring former Tour de France stars and a performance of the Vienna Philharmonics in the city’s Austro-Hungarian city library building (pictured), which was burned down at the beginning of the Serbian siege of Sarajevo in 1992. Workmen are now racing to restore it.
In Serbia the big question is whether early elections will...Continue reading