Publications

The project benefitted from two main outlets of publication: 40 feuilletons in the Belgrade daily newspaper and an Information campaign by OBCT.

Publication in Danas

40 feuilletons in the Belgrade daily newspaper Danas published in Serbia but available in the region, with distribution of 6000 copies. The feuilletons included a selection from the the conferences proceedings, which allowed the public perceive the breadth and depth of the discussions held during the conferences of the concept of testimony in general and in the Yugoslav wars in particular. The topics ranged from analyses of post - WWII Holocaust poetry as a model for commemoration of the YU wars, through commemoration and human rights to historic testimony of dissidents and converts. The publication included both first hand testimonies and analytical articles.

 Information campaign by OBCT to raise knowledge of the Yugoslav wars as part of a common European history

As planned, OBCT information campaign resulted in the publication of regularly posts and articles giving an overview of the flourishing literature on memory studies in pre & post Yugoslav time produced by local scholars, thus helping integrate it in the broader European academic reflection on the cultural heritage of war. Luka Zanoni, OBCT editor-in-chief, discussed with Marco Abram, Chiara Sighele and Luisa Chiodi the editorial plan for the information campaign, facilitating whenever relevant the engagement of OBCT freelance contributors. Several analytical articles in Italian and English were written by Marco Abram and other OBCT’s collaborators, covering news and events related to the memory of the Yugoslav wars in the SEE region but also investigating the relation between the European memory framework and the local dynamics.

IT: https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/Progetti/Testimony-Truth-or-Politics

EN: https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Projects2/Testimony-Truth-or-Politics

To circulate Testimony contents among the Italian/European public sphere, OBCT press officer Nicole Corritore, distributed several news alerts among OBCT press contacts about new publications of OBCT Testimony information campaign, and regularly posted Testimony contents on OBCT social media in ITA and ENG, reaching out to its around 50.000 followers.

The information campaign on OBCT website reached out to an online audience of over 17.141 page views (Google Analytics as of March 2018).

In addition to the publications on its website, OBCT engaged in various offline initiatives to disseminate the project. For instance, in June 2017 Marco Abram attended the 1st Conference of the “Associazione Italiana di Public History”/ 4th IFPH Annual Conference Program in Ravenna (Italy), presenting and discussing some of the most relevant aspects of the project in the paper “Public History and European Remembrance”: A Transnational Project on the Memories of the Yugoslav Wars”. Moreover, the issues investigated by the project were presented by Marco Abram on the occasion of lectures at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento. Some of the analysis were reported in the book chapter “L’allargamento dell’UE, i paesi post-jugoslavi e la memoria dei conflitti degli anni novanta”, included in the edited volume "La questione orientale. I Balcani tra integrazione e sicurezza" (Donzelli forthcoming 2018).

In the run up of and during the exhibition period, OBCT co-organized different public events on related topics, with the aim to take advantage of meaningful initiatives organised by others to further maximise the visibility of the project Testimony and its specific perspective, and to encourage more people to visit the exhibition. This additional awareness raising effort, carried out with resources external to this project, included the engagement in events such as the presentations of the Italian translation of the book The Art of Survival, realized by the Bosnian artist collective Fama; the screening of movies related to the memory of Yugoslav wars (as for example “Dobra Žena” (A Good wife) by Mirjana Karanović) and public meetings with war testimonies, such as the meeting with Jovan Divjak who visited Trento in early December 2017 (meeting introduced by Marzia Bona for OBCT).