This paper analyzes narratives of personal experiences of addiction, with a focus on the processes through which addiction is recognized and named in everyday life prior to entering institutional treatment pathways. Drawing on qualitative research based on 20 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with participants undergoing the rehabilitation phase of a treatment program at the Clinic for Addiction Disorders, Institute of Mental Health, the study examines the role of culture-specific knowledge in the development and recognition of addictive disorders. At the center of the analysis is the question of how individuals, before encountering expert or medical discourse, come to identify certain patterns of behavior as "pathological" and certain substances as "addictive." The paper argues that such processes of recognition are not solely dependent on formalized expert knowledge, but are significantly shaped by culture-specific knowledge produced and transmitted through everyday narratives. These narratives form informal epistemic frameworks that circulate within families, peer groups, and broader cultural contexts, enabling individuals to interpret and articulate their own experiences. By focusing on early encounters with addiction and psychoactive substances, as well as on the formation of the category of "the addict," the analysis highlights the importance of embodied experience in the habituation of behavioral patterns that are later labeled as addictive. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which individuals come to perceive their relationship with substances, or forms of impulse dysregulation, as "pathological," thereby shaping their lived experience. Addiction is understood as a socially mediated and embodied phenomenon, based on the concepts of embodiment and enactment. The gendered dimension of addictive experience is further examined from a critical feminist perspective, with attention to the ways in which normative expectations shape both the experience itself and its interpretation. Finally, the socially constructed image of "the addict," subsequently internalized by individuals, is analyzed from below, that is, from the perspective of those with lived experience of addiction. The paper underscores the importance of culture-specific knowledge about psychoactive substances and addiction in shaping the processes of the development, recognition, and treatment of addictive disorders.
This paper examines the formation and early development of the Sabor narodnog stvaralaštva Socijalističke Republike Srbije, widely known as the Leskovački sabor, within the broader cultural and political framework of socialist Yugoslavia. Focusing on the first eight years of the festival’s existence (1972–1979), the study analyzes how the manifestation functioned as a representational model for staging, disciplining, and redefining traditional music under socialist cultural policies. Drawing on archival materials, committee reports, and contemporary scholarly reflections, the paper explores the tension between the proclaimed preservation of “authentic” folk expression and the processes of modernization, standardization, and ideological instrumentalization. By interrogating concepts such as authenticity, authority, and cultural ownership, the study reveals how the Leskovački sabor simultaneously enabled visibility for working-class performers and contributed to the transformation – and at times fragmentation – of traditional musical expression in Socialist Yugoslavia, while it reveals how authorities reformulated musical performance, which brought it to its reductive, intervened, and disciplined forms of representation. At the same time, sabor, in its traditional sense, served as a model for the younger generation, who learned musical performance from older participants at festivals across Yugoslavia.
This article examines the Serbian proverb Naljutio se pop na selo, pa odsekao sebi kurac (“The priest became angry with the village and cut off his own dick”), conventionally interpreted as describing a person who acts against their own interests to their own detriment. I argue that the meaning of the proverb is more complex than such an interpretation suggests, as it points to a cultural model of sociality, that is, to a culturally specific conception of the principles governing interpersonal relations within a human community at the most general level. The three principal elements of the proverb, the priest, the village, and the dick, should likewise not be understood literally, but rather as metaphorically employed cultural representations of the micro-social community, its leaders, and the public expression of what should be regarded as their sociocultural personas, whose semantic synergy gives rise to a cultural lesson about how people should or should not behave in their interactions with the people they live with, namely, with the members of their own community. The key analytical expression in the proverb is “became angry”. It depicts the relationship between the community leader and his sociocultural environment and explains the action that this relationship has brought about. This notion integrates the cultural representations of the village, the priest, and the male sexual organ into a coherent semantic structure that conveys a distinct cultural message. Cooperation within a community, understood as goal-oriented activity, need not be directed exclusively towards material objectives. It may also possess a moral dimension, in the sense that it may insist on socially desirable forms of behaviour, and this is precisely what the proverb postulates. This saying concerning the village, the priest, and the self-removal of his own sexual organ is devoted to inaćenje (defiant behaviour), specifically, to its absurdity and even its harmfulness as a mode of sociocultural interaction. The proverbial priest represents an aberrant individual whose conduct deviates from the moral standards of the community, as manifested in his poor relations with its members, all of which is contrary to the principles of sociality and functional coexistence within a social setting. Inaćenje, for its part, constitutes a means of the self-production of an individual into a socially aberrant person. By cutting off his own sexual organ, the proverbial priest not only ceases to be a priest and, as such, can no longer lay any claim to leadership within the community in any sense, but also excludes himself from the community. In this respect, the message of the proverb is also that individuals who engage in inaćenje, that is, those who do not respect the opinions of others, acknowledge no justification other than their own, believe themselves always to be right, and generally exaggerate their personal importance within a social environment, are socially undesirable members of the community.
This article examines the relationship between the creative industries, popular culture, and folklore from the perspective of cultural studies through a critical reconsideration of the concept of the folkloresque. The folkloresque is a concept introduced during the second decade of the twenty-first century by Michael Dylan Foster and Jeffrey A. Tolbert to describe both the processes of creation and the products that emerge when popular culture appropriates or invents folkloric themes, settings, images, and other elements. The concept of the folkloresque not only problematizes the traditional/popular dichotomy but also enables an analysis of the transposition of folkloric elements into the worlds of popular culture, the creative industries, and the digital sphere. The article begins with a discussion of the genesis of the concept of popular culture from the perspective of cultural studies, with particular attention to its understanding as folk culture. Over time, this understanding underwent a degree of transformation and, under the influence of the theoretical work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, came to be conceived as a space of symbolic struggle over meaning and a site of negotiation between the dominant culture and the oppositional responses directed towards it. The article then introduces the concept of the folkloresque, its three interrelated meanings, as well as its three categories - integration, portrayal, and parody, and outlines the principal connections between the folkloresque and other concepts employed in folklore studies. The following section addresses the issue of authenticity and, through a critical examination of the folkloresque in relation to the concepts of fake folklore and folklorism, proposes an assessment of the significance of the folkloresque for understanding contemporary forms of popular culture. The concluding discussion underscores the fluid character of the concept of the folkloresque and raises questions concerning its adequacy in relation to the established terminology of folklore studies.
Henry Salt (1780–1827), appointed British Consul-General in Egypt, acquired a vast number of ancient Egyptian antiquities during his service in Egypt between March 1816 and October 1827. Among them was a triple mummy case that consisted of an outer qrsw coffin, rectangular in its base with a vaulted lid, the middle/intermediary anthropoid coffin, and the inner anthropoid coffin with the mummified person inside. In 1835, the triple mummy case was purchased by Thomas Joseph Pettigrew (1791–1865), who unwrapped the mummy on May 27, 1836, before a large audience in the lecture room of the Royal Institution in London. The remains of the mummy were subsequently kept in the museum of his son, William Vesalius Pettigrew (1815–1874), at St. George’s School of Medicine, Grosvenor Place. Thomas Pettigrew later sold the triple mummy case to John Lee (1783–1866), whose collection was in its turn acquired in 1865 by William Amhurst Tyssen-Amherst (1835–1909). Following a pattern, at the auction of Lord Amherst’s collection on June 14, 1921, the entire coffin assemblage of ‘Aroeri-ao’ (also known as Ari, Asiriao, Osiri, Iri-Iri, Iri-Iri Wennefer, and Ir) was purchased by antiquarian Ernest Brummer (1891–1964), who was born in Sombor (present-day northern Serbia) to a Hungarian-speaking Jewish family. The Brummer Brothers (Joseph, Imre, and Ernest) opened their first gallery in Paris in 1906, and a second in New York in 1914. Soon after the 1921 auction, Ernest Brummer donated the inner coffin (bivalve anthropoid with back pillar and pedestal) to the National Museum of Serbia (NMS) in Belgrade. The coffin arrived to Belgrade by the end of 1921. Due to a dispute between two Belgrade transport companies, the coffin only entered NMS in September 1923, when it was added to the permanent exhibition for the following two decades. In the troublesome years following the Second World War, probably 1948 and 1949, in the newly established Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, the coffin vanished from NMS without a trace. Its disappearance survived only in the vague recollection, described in a single sentence, of the retired NMS curator and art historian Miodrag Kolarić (1912–2001), interviewed by the present author in 1993. The coffin unexpectedly resurfaced in 2009 at the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb (AMZ), Croatia. It turned out that it had been unlawfully removed from NMS by the Yugoslav Army officer Đuka Kavurić (1903–1976) from Zagreb, an influential figure in the communist regime who was at the time authorized to confiscate the property of politically undesirable or missing persons although certainly not objects belonging to public museums. He happened to be a private collector himself, so he retained the coffin in his family’s possession for six decades. The Kavurić family sold the coffin to the AMZ in 2008, and, unaware of its previous history, the museum bought it and placed it on permanent display in 2009 (Inventory No. E-782, Figs. 1–4). The actual name of the mummified person is rather rare. The genealogy inscribed on the coffin assemblage identifies the owner as Iriru (jrjrw) a wab priest of Amun (wab n jmn). His father was Wennen-nefer (wnn-nfr), his grandfather Ankh-khonsu (anx-xnsw), his great-grandfather Hor-sa-aset (Hr-sA-Ast), and his great-great-grandfather Nes-pauti-tawi (ns-pAwtj-tAwj). All stated male family members, except for Iriru, bore the priestly title ‘God’s father of Amun’ (jt-nTr [n] jmn), as was customary among the Theban clergy. Iriru’s mother was ‘Lady of the House’ (nbt-pr), Mut-sheri (mwt-Srj) whose name also appears as Mjw-Srj. According to Taylor’s typology, the coffin belongs to type 4B (with Nut figure supporting the collar), while in the classification of Tarasenko and Elias it falls into subtype IYb (Inscribed Yellow bands edged with a blue stripe). Iriru’s Theban style coffin is to be dated to later Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, circa early seventh century B.C., around the beginning of pharaoh Taharqa’s reign. The whereabouts of Iriru’s unwrapped mummified remains, his qrsw coffin, and the middle/intermediary coffin (possibly together with associated cartonnage) are yet to be discovered.
This article examines conspiracy theories in Serbia as a structured cultural and discursive formation rather than as marginal or pathological beliefs. Drawing on anthropological and folkloristic approaches, conspiratorial narratives are conceptualized as forms of stigmatized knowledge that function as interpretative frameworks through which social actors make sense of uncertainty, power relations, and institutional distrust. The analysis adopts the concept of the conspiratorial milieu, defined as a dynamic configuration of actors, media infrastructures, and interpretative practices within which such narratives are produced, circulated, and legitimized. Methodologically, the study is based on a qualitative analysis of a heterogeneous corpus of media texts, popular publications, and digital content produced in Serbia from the beginning of the new millennium to the present. Building on Michael Barkun’s typology, it demonstrates that conspiratorial narratives operate along a continuum ranging from event-based explanations to systemic and superconspiratorial frameworks, thereby enabling the expansion and stabilization of broader worldviews. The Serbian case shows that conspiracy theories are not confined to the social margins but circulate across the porous boundaries between alternative and mainstream discourse. The article argues that the analytical relevance of conspiracy theories lies not in their truth-value but in their capacity to articulate competing regimes of knowledge and to mediate contemporary transformations in the relationship between media, power and social meaning.
During the 2024/25 student protests across Serbia, protest banners emerged as the dominant form of communication. In the age of digital media and social networks, Generation Z students unexpectedly chose (analog) banners as a communication tool that not only conveys political and social messages, but also incorporates elements of memes and viral culture. The aim of this paper is to examine the discursive features of banners characterized by social engagement, intertextuality, and humor. The features of mimetic media (multimodality, reappropriation, resonance, collectivism, and specific modes of dissemination) are interpreted through various forms of student protest banners as a medium for conveying protest messages. By applying content analysis, the key messages of the protests were identified, along with their thematic, linguistic and visual/formal classification. Forms of citationality were observed, as well as the interaction between digital and physical forms of communication, in which protest banners become a link between offline actions and online reactions, but also a specific symbiosis of different elements of art and popular culture. The results obtained were further examined from the perspective of critical discourse analysis, while the conclusions point to the specific potential of this form of communication as an example of the realization of intertextual relations which, in comparison with meme culture, are interpreted as part of a broader, metamodern paradigm.
Kinship, as one of the classical fields of anthropological research, in Serbia was not constituted as a separate field of inquiry during most of the existence of the discipline in the way that was the case in British, American, and French anthropology. In other words, kinship has not been the subject of systematic and theoretically based analyses such as we find in other anthropological traditions. However, this does not mean that it was not a subject of interest for researchers. Writing about social relations that we call kinship was often integrated into broader studies, most often within the framework of family and marriage, but also zadruga, folk customs, and organizations of life in communities. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the works that touched on the topics that we today classify in the domain of kinship as a special research field. Through the analysis of these works, main approaches and theoretical assumptions that shaped the understanding of kinship will be presented. To rephrase it, this paper tries to show how through the reading of works that explicitly or implicitly deal with kinship, one can see the broader theoretical assumptions that determined the discipline from its formative period until the moment when kinship was introduced as an academic subject.
The term sprezzatura, first introduced in Baldassare Castiglione’s work The Book of the Courtier (1528), originally denoted a studied nonchalance, a deliberate absence of affectation, and the effortless ease characterizing the conduct of the ideal Renaissance nobleman. In a contemporary context, particularly within the global fashion industry and across digital social media landscapes, sprezzatura has undergone a profound semantic and cultural transformation, shifting from a niche literary-aesthetic and ethical ideal to a pervasive visual signifier of national identity. This paper aims to analyze and decode the multifaceted concept of sprezzatura through both verbal and visual codes, meticulously tracing its diachronic shift in meaning and its contemporary mediatized reinterpretation. The methodological framework is rigorous, operating along parallel axes: diachronic and synchronic, literary and media registers, as well as verbal and visual codes. The verbal decoding encompasses an exhaustive semantic-lexicographical analysis, examining dictionary definitions alongside the term's usage in modern Italian literary works, their Serbian translations, and current Italian media discourse. Complementing this, the visual (socio)semiotic analysis focuses on identifying the key representational, interpersonal, and compositional elements in media illustrations and digital content that epitomize the concept. This decoding process demonstrates how sprezzatura has evolved from a rigid Renaissance social requirement into a potent contemporary myth or a symbol of "stylized authenticity" and an idealized Italian persona. Consequently, it emerges as a core component of modern "Italianicity" (italianità) in the Barthesian sense. Through this synthesis of linguistic and visual inquiry, the paper illustrates the complex interplay of meaning through which sprezzatura currently shapes the global perception of the "true Italian" (un italiano vero), redefining the boundaries between effortless grace and strategic self-presentation in the digital age.
Nosferatu (2024), a film by Robert Eggers, may be regarded as an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s renowned Gothic novel Dracula. Framed through two fundamentally different cultural discourses of vampirism – Victorian horror and traditional Balkan beliefs – Nosferatu narrates the story of obsession between the Transylvanian vampire Count Orlok and the young, melancholic Ellen. The relationship established between these two characters is not conceived as a romantic saga of a woman and a gallant aristocratic vampire, but rather as a tragic narrative of emotional abuse between an empathetic victim and a man with narcissistic personality disorder – a dynamic examined in this paper as "emotional vampirism." Drawing upon ethnographic sources, the paper identifies Orlok as a vampire rooted in traditional Balkan conceptions of vampirism, subsequently directing the analysis toward a psychoanalytic perspective in order to explain the dynamics of emotional vampirism, also analyzed through romantic relationships in contemporary culture.
The paper analyzes the banners collected during the student protest marches in Užice in 2024-2025, whose authors are students of the Faculty of Pedagogy in Užice and are part of the researcher's personal archive. The banners and their content are analyzed as a contemporary folklore genre, a form of vernacular expression, and a part of social protest folklore, which has recently attracted growing interest among folklorists, and has been the subject of special journal issues and other scholarly publications. In this research, we rely on the understanding of folklore as a communicative process, the concept of material folklore, and on mimetic folklore research. We explore the semantic properties of the banners, relating their messages, or slogans, to the study programs that the creators attend, within the context of the folklore of a specific group that is simultaneously socially determined (as students, who are both a transitional category and part of the academic community) and professionally defined (as future educational professionals). It is observed how the themes, motifs, and patterns change and adapt to the current social and political context. In this regard, particular attention is paid to intertextuality, referentiality, and the use of humor in the corpus. The analysis also takes into account the fact that the material was collected by insiders who were both the creators of the banners and participants in student blockades.
This paper discusses the media reception of the fairly unexpected collaboration between two major music acts of the late-socialist period in Yugoslavia, Bijelo dugme from Sarajevo and Laibach from Trbovlje/Ljubljana. These bands were associated since the 1980s, but always as stylistic and cultural antipodes: Laibach were identified with the alternative music scene and elitist world of art and high culture, while Bijelo dugme, a mainstream rock act, were accused of „electrifying the villages“ and introducing urban (and global) cultural forms in backward rural environments. What really connects them is the fact that in various phases of their careers both bands articulated the reflection on the cultural space and political system of the state in which they were formed, and that they continue to do so long after its demise. The focus here is on the stereotypical associations between Laibach and Bijelo dugme from the 1980s onwards, including the media reception of the recently released singl S topom te bom ciljal moja mala – Laibach’s cover version of the song Top (originally from Bijelo dugme’s second single released in 1974). The way in which the regional media covered this collaboration is a telling demonstration of how the media in the meantime changed themselves – indeed a mirror of their current fragmentation, politicization and consumerization. The aim of this paper was to challenge the longstanding perception of the relation between the two music acts, and to place it in a wider cultural and political context of the socialist Yugoslavia and post-Yugoslav cultural space. This collaboration between Laibach and Bijelo dugme is discussed as a reflection of deeper cultural ties which outlasted the political collapse and disintegration of their country of origin. A closer analysis shows that this act of mutual respect rests on much more solid foundations then the current media are capable of explaining to their audiences, regardless of their previous experiences with the two notable music acts.
The subject of this paper is the significance of the narrativization of personal experience in the work of the Mostar-based writer Elvedin Nezirović, that is, the construction of identity, imagination, memory, and self-examination of the subject and agent within the context of “external” space and time – namely, a historical period, real events, individuals, and locations rendered from within through narrative discourse. The methodological framework of the study integrates literary-anthropological analysis with a political-anthropological, ethnographically grounded, and cultural-historical approach to a specific locality and to socio-historical processes as both referent and context of the literary text. In Nezirović’s lived, experiential prose, personal themes predominate (the early loss of his father; a psychologically specific relationship with his mother and stepfather), alongside family narratives, depictions of childhood in a village near Stolac and of growing up in Mostar in the 1980s, the experience of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the wars in the Mostar region, participation in the war, and life in a divided city. By situating Nezirović’s work within the broader phenomenon of postwar Bosnian-Herzegovinian and post-Yugoslav “reality-based prose,” the paper demonstrates that his writing transcends individual and narrowly national frameworks. It constitutes an important contribution to memory studies concerning Yugoslav socialism, to the study of cultural trauma, and to the urban anthropology of Mostar, which functions as both narrative setting and symbolic space. The literary-anthropological analysis of a significant portion of Elvedin Nezirović’s oeuvre, combined with a political-anthropological, ethnographically grounded, and cultural-historical approach, has yielded an anthropological interpretation of the referent and the broader context of the text – its socio-political and socio-cultural dimensions. Nezirović’s experiential prose draws extensively on the author’s coming of age during the period of socialism, on personal traumas conditioned by the war events that befell Mostar in the 1990s, and on the postwar social reality shaped by ethnic and political divisions between Bosniaks and Croats in the city on the Neretva River. In this respect, he becomes one among a number of individuals who, through their creative work, seek to carve out a niche of their own existence and to (re)conceptualize their ethnic and local identity, relying on memories from family history as well as on the legacy of supranational belonging formed during the era of Yugoslav socialism. Although Elvedin Nezirović insists on an aesthetic distinction between fiction and document, his works reveal the flexibility of these boundaries and possess, in addition to their literary-aesthetic dimension, value as documents of lived experience and as socio-cultural records. Nezirović’s prose, while (auto)biographical and intimate in nature, transcends the confines of individual and collective-national experience, as well as the traditionally conceived national literary framework, and becomes a literary document of the epoch marked by the breakup of Yugoslavia, the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the postwar period. It potentially addresses all those concerned within the post-Yugoslav literary and cultural field, which literary theorist Boris Postnikov has termed the “literary republic of Yugoslavia,” but it speaks above all to the generations of the last Yugoslavs – those who formed their identities in the former common state and experienced the “social drama” of its disappearance: the trauma of war, deportation, displacement, and emigration to foreign countries during or after the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s.
This article examines how displaced Serbs in Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, engaged with the category izbjeglica (refugee) in the decades after the 1992–1995 war. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it traces how identifications with this label shifted over time – at once inhabited, contested, and redefined – as displacement moved from temporary suspension to long-term settlement. By situating these dynamics within the Bosnian post-war context, where international policy privileged “minority return” while co-ethnic re-settlers were largely overlooked, the article shows how refugee labels endure beyond their legal status, acquiring new meanings in everyday life. It highlights how, in the absence of a “myth of return”, belonging was rebuilt through endurance, resourcefulness, solidarity, and difference, shaping what it means to be and remain izbjeglica.
This paper explores how older adults in Serbia overcome the digital divide through the perspectives of younger family members who support and narrate their relatives’ engagement with digital technologies. Drawing on ethnographic research, the study highlights the relational practices and everyday strategies through which older adults bridge technological gaps, often in the absence of formal support. Grounded in the concept of the third-level digital divide, intergenerational solidarity, and social learning theory, the findings show that older adults gain not only technical proficiency but also social, cultural, and emotional benefits through sustained, guided engagement. By reversing traditional educational roles where younger relatives become facilitators of learning, the study demonstrates how family networks play a central role in overcoming the digital divide, fostering connection, trust, and shared meaning in everyday digital life.
Fashion and clothing constitute effective technical instruments for shaping and performing public personas. In Zona Zamfirova, Stevan Sremac exploits this potential to deepen the relationship between literary characters and the cultural milieu of Oriental Niš, a world that irreversibly ceased to exist after 1878. In this author’s literary vision, garments materialize economic privilege, social mobility, attachment to (Ottoman) tradition, national identity, and the acceptance of Western modern values. Nevertheless, deviations from traditional/Ottoman dress codes in the novel remain minimal, thereby underscoring a strong attachment to the local as opposed to the global environment. By contrast, the film narrative and its visual representation are not fully aligned. Costume design embodies identities that diverge significantly from those conveyed in the narrative. In the novel, Zona’s traditional and fixed mode of dress symbolizes a static, patriarchal environment and her unquestioning acceptance of paternal authority. Conversely, Mane’s attire, blending Ottoman sartorial tradition with emerging national elements, emphasizes his liminal position between two identities. The most pronounced internal transformation is experienced by Hadži-Zamfir, whose modernized exterior signals an accommodation of social change without a complete departure from the Oriental cultural framework. This mediated Ottoman modernity—where European cultural influence is filtered, adapted, and localized—remains closer to Hadži-Zamfir as a man of the East, who feels a substantial distance from Western culture. In the film adaptation, however, costume constructs characters differently: Zona, Mane, and Hadži-Zamfir are depicted predominantly in conservative dress, with only occasional modernized elements in public settings. This approach undermines the narrative dynamism by visually fixing them as static figures despite their active roles. Particularly indicative is the portrayal of Hadži-Zamfir, whose costume is reduced to signaling the wealth of the dominant class rather than serving as an active element of characterization. An additional issue arises from the stylistic separation of Zona and Mane from their mothers, aunts (with the exception of Doka), and older female relatives. The generational divide materialized through clothing assumes a paradoxical form: the older generation of women—defenders of the established order—wear modern European attire, while the younger characters, who continually destabilize tradition through their emotions and actions, remain bound to its norms.
The new millennium has ushered in a new era of popular music in which the Balkans and Balkanism have moved to the center of musical narratives. Although often vague and internally contradictory, the image of the Balkans as a place of poverty, passion, violence, nightlife, crime, and love has proven compatible with the rise of trap music, which emerged from the “Dirty South” of the United States and came to dominate the global music scene. Over the past decade, this convergence has produced a glocalized and (self-)exoticizing phenomenon—Balkan trap/trap-folk—which combines trap techniques, technologies, and musical patterns with Balkan music in its broadest sense. Today, Balkan trap/trap-folk is among the most dominant formats of the local mainstream, especially among younger audiences. Its visibility has also turned it into a focal point of moral panic and a symbol of the alleged cultural decline of new generations. Against this backdrop, the paper examines the reception of this genre in migratory contexts, focusing on the second generation of the Serbian diaspora in the Vicenza region. The analytical framework is grounded in the concept of musical habitus and thematic-narrative analysis. Fieldwork is based on participant observation and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with fifteen interlocutors aged sixteen to twenty-two. The study explores (a) how the audiovisual content of this genre is perceived, interpreted, and consumed, and (b) how Balkan trap/trap-folk operates within cultural arenas and identity practices among young people of Balkan origin in the Vicenza area.
This study examines the Yugoslav magazine Tajne, published between 1987 and 1994, as a key example of the rise of “occulture” in the years surrounding the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Operating under the slogan “Journal for the frontier regions of sciences,” the publication, more than a repository of esoteric texts, served as a dynamic alternative media space that integrated spiritual and occult ideas into broader cultural discourse. Drawing on Christopher Partridge’s framework of occulture, we argue that Tajne bridged private esoteric practices and a wider readership by validating marginal topics such as parapsychology, alternative medicine, and ufology, situating them at the intersection of scientific inquiry and occult belief. As a cultural artifact, the magazine transcended a passive information role, functioning as a vehicle for community-building. Reader participation fostered a network that provided a sense of belonging for people across the country. The study traces Tajne’s editorial evolution, particularly under Petar Luković (1991–1994), who combined esoteric content with pop culture and entertainment to broaden appeal. We also identify a shift during the deepening Yugoslav crisis, where economic instability contributed to the commodification of spirituality, seen in advertorials and paid divinatory services. In parallel with worsening political conditions, content shifted from optimistic self-exploration toward politically charged conspiracy theories and futurology. Ultimately, this paper positions Tajne as a cultural barometer reflecting the “re-enchantment” of sectors of Yugoslav society, offering both a space for socialization and a flexible spiritual framework through which readers could interpret an uncertain socio-political reality.
The article discusses the main findings of research on the use of cultural-heritage-related bilateral disputes in the Western Balkans’ EU accession process. It explores the concept of culturalized conditionality, examines how identity issues intersect with EU accession criteria, and analyses the implications for regional stability and EU enlargement. We argue that the aura of sanctity attributed to cultural heritage transcends the boundaries between old and new media, making it an ideal tool for transforming otherwise serious national media outlets into giant social-network-like echo chambers capable of locking entire nations into closed cognitive loops. Implications are discussed and further research directions outlined.
Although it is evident that more and more women are playing video games of all genres today, this media is often treated in public discourse as exclusively for men. In accordance with this stereotype, the characters from video games are most often made for the male gaze. However, when Baldur's Gate 3 (the third part of the now legendary franchise) was released in 2023, it was evident that the character named Astarion had become extremely popular among female gamers. Therefore, this paper analyses what attracted them to Astarion, with special emphasis on the vampiric nature of character. Looking at the history of the vampire archetype and its connection with sexuality and taboos, as well as women's love for vampiric fantasy, the paper researches if Astarion fits or doesn’t fit into this trope, and what are the reasons for overwhelming female love.
