Bojan Bilic

Serbia's Unfinished Revolution: What Has Really Changed After October 5th? Bojan Bilic

Hailed as the event that 'removed the last brick ofthe Wall' (J. Fischer), Serbia's democraticrevolution marked the end of an era in the country'srecent history. This book is devoted to the studentmovement Otpor (Resistance) that was instrumental inousting Slobodan MiloševiĿ's regime. It is aninterview-based study representing one of the firstattempts to explore how the movement activists thinkabout their participation in these memorable changesas well as how they account for the difficultiesSerbia has been facing in its transition towardsdemocracy and market economy. The interviewsreflected a plethora of positions that theinterviewees assumed towards the issues that aresymbolically charged, suggesting that both thestudent movement and the Democratic Opposition ofSerbia were ideologically heterogeneous organizationswith constant internal tensions. They thus could notpossess a clear-cut political strategy that would gobeyond immediate MiloševiĿ's removal, leaving theirmembers and supporters rather unsatisfied with therevolution's final outcome. This study could be ofinterest to those working on the processes ofsocio-political transition in the region.