Since November last year, students have been protesting across Serbia, with support for them growing. Duška Radosavljević explores the reasons behind this current wave of student protests in Serbia and how they differ from past protest movements in the country.
For the last three months Serbia has been a stage for an extraordinary political performance. Its protagonists – university students – have developed a unique protest vocabulary that combines strategic silence with wit, dignity, and collective action. They are protesting against corruption in Serbian society which they see as the cause of the tragic disaster at the recently renovated railway station in Novi Sad when, on 1st November 2024, 14 citizens were killed and many injured when a concrete canopy collapsed. A 15th victim died in hospital two weeks later which led to public displays of grief with 15 minute silent vigils designed to mark the loss of each person’s life.
One of these student-led vigils outside the Faculty of Dramatic Arts on 22 November 2024 was disrupted when drivers started arguing and assaulting some of the students. It subsequently turned out some of these people had state jobs. This incident led to the subsequent organized actions known as ‘blockades’ which consist in students occupying their faculties while they wait for the authorities to meet their demands, namely: transparency, justice, and efficient processing of all responsible for various offences against the public, including the shoddy reconstruction of the canopy. The sit-ins have continued throughout the winter holidays and even spread to some high schools.
The protesters’ signature 15-minute silent vigils create a striking contrast to the cacophony of Serbian political discourse, most recently demonstrated outside Radio Television Serbia (RTS). On January 17th, students gathered outside the national broadcaster’s building under the slogan ‘Our Right to Know Everything’ – intended as an unequivocal response to RTS’s own strapline ‘Your right to know everything’. On this occasion the students weaponized silence against an institution that has systematically defamed them as foreign agents. The timing was meticulous: ritualized silence at 7:00 PM, followed by noise at 7:30 PM – the start time of RTS’s live news broadcast. This temporal choreography targeted the broadcaster’s failure to fulfil its public service mandate, despite being funded by mandatory license fees from all citizens. While RTS has devoted extraordinary airtime to President Aleksandar Vučić, it has completely excluded student voices throughout the three months of protests.
The street show did not lack suitable props, including witty banners, whistles and a giant sandwich which was presented to RTS director Dragan Bujošević, complete with two mock 100-euro notes. The satirical sandwich, referencing the ruling party’s practice of bribing supporters with food to attend pro-government rallies, transformed a symbol of political corruption into a tool of mockery.
Perhaps the most powerful moment of the evening occurred when RTS workers emerged on their balcony in solidarity with the protesters. This spontaneous breaking of the fourth wall between state media employees and protesters created a powerful image of institutional cracks in the regime’s control.
I talked to the Editor-in-Chief of Children’s Programmes at RTS, Jelena Popadić-Sumić. ‘I am flooded with impressions from the events outside RTS where we as workers showed our support to the students. I feel personal pleasure to be part of their efforts, to talk to them…’, she says.
Asked what solidarity with the students means to her, she lists pride, duty and pleasure. She begins by marvelling at the astuteness and collective wisdom of these Millennials and Gen Zs usually dismissed as apolitical:
‘Though they did not have many good lessons in setting boundaries, they collectively got to the essence of things. They are not poisoned by daily politics and political rivalry. Unlike the opposition parties, who are obsessed with the president, and prone in recent years to always set unreasonable and unachievable goals, the students have chosen their own direction, which is not actually determined by the parameters of party politics. They are not asking for anyone’s resignations, they are asking for responsibility. They are not fighting against anyone, they are fighting for returning jurisdiction into competent hands. They do not enter meaningless discussions, they ignore stupidity and arrogance. How can I not be proud of these people before me who have not yet made a single obvious mistake to compromise the protests and the ideas that guide them?’
Her sense of duty to support the students is intertwined with pleasure and admiration for their ingenuity in finding an authentic, honest and open-minded way to approach the situation: ‘They are organising themselves, they are freezing every night, they are returning the state to “factory settings” – I am in awe of their ability to foresee and anticipate every problem, of their communication culture, of their confidence and readiness to succeed’.
The students’ organizational structure itself performs an alternative to authoritarian leadership. By adopting a devolved form of leadership through working groups and plenums, refusing to name a leader or be co-opted by opposition parties, they present a living example of horizontal democracy. This was evident in their deployment of student monitors to protect government buildings near RTS – a performance of responsible citizenship that counters the state’s narrative of them as foreign-funded provocateurs.
Popadić-Sumić remembers multiple previous protests over the years in Serbia: ’We went to protests, we froze, and we knew that there were no prospects of any lasting effects. The main effect we could hope for was to arouse the public interest a little bit. There have been so many waves of protest here that we came to the point where we no longer saw the point of any protesting at all. We knew those rituals by heart: we would gather probably on a weekend, so it is cosy and comfortable for everyone; we would come in big numbers unless it’s raining, or snowing, or a holiday of some kind; then we would listen to speeches which explain to us for a millionth time how “we’ve had enough” and “they will pay” – speeches which were turning in my head into a cacophony of nothing, a heap of powerful words which have totally lost their meaning; then we would go for a walk always following the same route…’
How are these students’ protest different from past movements? ‘Now the gatherings take place in various places always at 11:52 am (the time of the Novi Sad tragedy). These are not big organised protests, but gatherings. Every day, everywhere. I believe that this permanent pressure is effective. Wherever you go, you can set yourself according to the 11:52 mark, it’s always on your mind. The protests are not inflated in their importance by taking place once in a week or a month, but are constant, persistent, and humble. They take place without noise, but on the contrary, in complete silence, where you can only hear the sound of the traffic lights: “Please press the button to cross to the other side”. These are the kind of protests made to measure – according to frequency, timing, duration – and they are made to measure for a human being, without being too demanding or taxing… They are highly charged with the kind of energy you can feel in silence too. And the banners are not offensive, but witty.’
As a person with ‘many protests in her legs’ as she says, these are definitely the best directed protests in her experience, with a clear vision, inspiration and logistical execution.
How does she interpret the silence as a political tool? ‘When the canopy fell, I told the person who was with me at the time “Now we should organize ourselves to just stand in protest and keep quiet for two hours”. That was my sense of the world – that there was nothing left to say and that the only point of gathering together is to quieten our turbulent thoughts and stay in the dark, on our own, in a group, re-examining ourselves’. Then the protests took on the form of silence, and although the silence did not stop violence, it did become part of the daily routine: ‘This is the holiest and most illuminating silence. A silence that showed us how it is possible to be together as one’.
Duška Radosavljević Krojer is a writer, dramaturg and academic. She is the author of award-winning academic monograph Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century (2013) and editor of Theatre Criticism: Changing Landscapes (2016) and the Contemporary Ensemble: Interviews with Theatre-Makers (2013). Her work has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK multiple times including for www.auralia.space (2020-21) and The Mums and Babies Ensemble (2015). She is a regular contributor to The Stage, Exeunt and The Theatre Times.