Fotball fans in Eastern Europe

I was shocked to hear about the racist riots in Moscow last weekend. A hooligan supporter of Spartak Moscow was shot by caucasian men, and footbal fans retaliated with a mayhem that ended with two people dead. I am no good at russian, but I think it is a good thing that Gazeta.ru dares calling the beast by its name - pogroms.

In the Guardian article above western commentators and russian liberals sees the Russian authorities as partly responsible for fomenting xenophobical feelings to divert frustrations over social and economical woes.

Making a political connection is probably correct. For all I know about Russia, it would be impossible to imagine any other kind of organised people than football fans to cause such havoc in downtown Moscow.


And Russia is not alone. Football fans are pivotal actors on the political scenes in many post-communist countries, not least on the Balkans. In the book This is Serbia Calling, Matthew Collins mentions how it was the fans of Red Star Belgrade that both brought Milosveic to power, and fought the decisive battle against his police when he fell.


Fan's graffiti from Beograd

The football fans of Bulgaria are not any more pleasant than the Spartak Moscow ones - they were probably the only kind of people that truly scared me while I was living in Sofia. In the beautiful film Eastern Plays they are depicted as doing the dirty work for politicians. Something that is easy to believe but maybe harder to prove.

But after all, who was it that decided the course of events on 14/1 2009? The people I talked to after the riots all said that football fans came uninvited to the protests, to fight with the police. For the fun of it? Or did someone want them there?

I don't know. Their presence turned the demonstration violent, and changed the political dynamics into something that was impossible for the Stanishev government to manage.

Someone who wants to really understand the politics of Eastern Europe should make reasearch on the violent football fans. maybe someone has already done it - if you know of any such work, please let me know!

Bookblogging - This is Serbia calling

How would you write the perfect book? Start with an ever interesting topic - Yugoslavia at war with itself. Continue with finding an unique angle to describe it, and then do that in a way that keeps readers spellbound throughout 278 pages.

That is exactly what Matthew Collin does in the book This is Serbia calling where he tells the story of B92 - the Belgrade underground radio station that became the center

Igra rock'n'roll, cela yugoslavija!

If I don't know much about Romania, I know even less about Ex-jugoslavia. This stands in stark contrast to the fact that I've seen Kustorica films, and that the war in Jugoslavia was the dominant pience of news during my child hood. Many people had lots of opinion, but as always when that is the case, few people actually know something. Sadly, that is also my case.

However, the region remains maybe the one most important to understand the Balkans, especially to understand the relations between the Balkans and Europe.

The history of Bulgaria is imperial opression and national resistance with two easily defined parts - Turks and Bulgarians, the story of Jugoslavia as well as Romania is about a much more complex imperial opression and a contested national identity. Whereas Bulgaria is safely within the reign of the orthodox church and Romania is a mix of everything,Jugoslavia get their flavour from the division between the western catholic - and the orthodox church and world.

Just like Bulgaria, Serbia has a story of subjugation under the ottoman rule, in many ways as brutal as the Bulgarian one. The bitter feelings against regional muslims in Albania and Bosnia clearly has their roots in the worldview that a glory Serbian kingdom lost their power, and even more important, honor to the turks and never got it back.

The Ottoman domination over Croatia is limited to some forty years under Suleiman the Magnificent. Before, as well as after, Croatia was united with the Hungarian crown, eventually united with the Austrian. The Austrian empire succeeded the Ottomans in Serbia and proved no less oppressive. This time, as so many times before, two south slavonic peoples, Croats and Serbs were confronted on the battle that had been raging since the midieval times along the line drawn 1054 between the orthodox and Catholic Church.

And in spite of European integration, this line seem difficult to erase. When Titos quasi-liberal socialist republic with fantastisc rock bands like Elektricni Orgazam crumbled, the Serbians turned Eastwards and the Croatians west. Now the Croatians are already in the EU... and maybe, maybe there is a chance for Serbia as well, given the coming pro-european government. Let's set all our hopes to this government. When EU has decided to let Croatia join, it would be abhorrable to let Serbia out. All orders are artificial, but existing a thousand years give a certain dignity that no border deserves.

Again... I couldn't do more than advising to Wikipedia;
Serbia
Croatia
Yugoslavia
The Ottoman Empire
The Habsburg Empire