News

Dubravka Preradović, PhD, a research associate at the Institute for Balkan Studies, is the first laureate of the newly established biennial award "Alexander Deroko" awarded by CI "Parobrod" for a unique and authentic contribution to culture in the Municipality of Stari Grad.

Preradović received the award for the project "Gabriel Mija and research of old Serbian architecture", which consists of an exhibition held at the Gallery of Science and Technology of SASA, an exhibition catalogue and a collection of scientific papers.

The jury for the award consisted of: Branislav Mitrović, academic and professor at the Faculty of Architecture, prof Rastko Ciric, illustrator and professor at the Faculty of Applied Arts, and Marina Pavlovic, PhD, architectural historian and deputy director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade.

On Tuesday, July 13, 2021, the Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts hosted the workshop of the bilateral project “The linguistic landscape of the cultural region Banat in synchrony and diachrony”, financed during 2020-2021 by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (partners: Institute for Balkan Studies and Friedrich Schiller University in Jena). The workshop was attended by: Aleksandra Salamurović, senior research associate of the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and leader of the German team, Ljubica Đurić, assistant professor at the Philology Faculty in Belgrade, and three researchers of the Institute for Balkan Studies: Annemarie Sorescu-Marinković, senior research associate and leader of the Serbian team, Svetlana Ćirković, senior research associate, and Rastko Lompar, research associate. During the meeting, the researchers presented and discussed the results of the project and settled the details of forthcoming archival and field research, as well as of the lectures that the members of the Serbian team will give in October in Jena.

After the workshop, the team members conducted field research: on July 14 in the city of Vršac and on July 15 in the settlement of Ečka (municipality of Zrenjanin). In these multiethnic and multicultural settlements, Annemarie Sorescu-Marinković, Aleksandra Salamurović, Ljubica Đjurić and Svetlana Ćirković documented multilingual signage in public places and tombstone inscriptions, with the aim of researching the presence / absence of different languages ​​on the territory of Banat. The documented material will be deposited in the Digital Archive of the Institute for Balkan Studies and in the Digital Archive of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Igor Vukadinović, PhD, research associate at the Institute for Balkan Studies of SASA, participated in the international scientific conference "Being a Minority in Times of Catastrophe", which was held online on June 25^th and 26^th 2021. The conference was organized by the Birkbeck University of London and the Study Group for Minority History. Igor Vukadinović, PhD, presented his research titled “The 1972 smallpox outbreak in Yugoslavia and the health status of the Albanian national minority in Kosovo”.

Dr. Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović, senior research associate of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, took part in the international conference The Migration Conference 2021, held online from 6 to 10 July 2021 and organised by Ming-Ai Institute (London, UK). Dr. Djurić Milovanović presented a co-authored paper with Dr. Amjad Saleem (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, Geneva), entitled The Role of Interreligious Dialogue and Outreach in Strengthening Social Inclusion in Europe: the case of Network for Dialogue. The Migration conference gathered over 500 participants worldwide working in the field of migration studies.

Boris Milosavljević, PhD, senior research associate of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA took part in a two-day scientific meeting Literature and culture in reading Slobodan Jovanovic (30 June  –  1 July 2021) organized by the Institute for Literature and Art (Vuk Foundation Building, Kralja Milana 2, Belgrade). Boris Milosavljević, PhD, had a presentation titled Jovanović`s concept of cultural pattern.

Convention program

Boris Milosavljević, PhD, senior research associate of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, Marija Vasiljević, PhD, research associate of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, and MA Milena Davidović, research assistant of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, took part in the Seventh National Conference of Byzantine Studies (22–25 June 2021), organized by the Serbian Committee for Byzantine Studies together with the Board for Byzantine Studies SASA and The Institute for Byzantine Studies SASA. Boris Milosavljević, PhD, had a presentation titled Methodological questions in the research of Byzantine philosophy, Marija Vasiljević, PhD, had a presentation titled Serbian Empire as a Part of the „History of the World“, while MA Milena Davidović’s presentation was titled „Imperial“ Scriptoria: Serbian Literacy in the Time of the Serbian-Greek Empire.

The 2020 Social Sciences and Humanities Award – Despot Stefan Lazarević was presented to Dr Boris Milosavljević, Senior Research Associate of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, at the ceremony that took place on 19 April 2021. The decision to bestow the Award on Dr Milosavljević for his book Genealogies of Belgrade Families, published by the Institute for Balkan Studies, had been made unanimously by the Belgrade Social Sciences and Humanities Awards Committee. At the award presentation ceremony the Award was delivered to Dr Milosavljević by the Mayor of the City of  Belgrade professor Dr Zoran Radojičić, and the Chair of the Assembly of the City of Belgrade Nikola Nikodijević. Since this year the Award of the City of Belgrade has been renamed the Despot Stefan Lazarević Award, all  the laureates received a diploma and a statuette of Despot Stefan.

Research associate of the Institute for Balkan studies SASA Dragana Djurić participated in the scientific conference Protection, preservation and affirmation of the Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija which was organized by Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and took place on June 1–2, 2021. PhD Djurić presented her paper „Ritual procession vučari in Kosovo and Metohija as a part of the intangible cultural heritage“.

On June 1, 2021 at the invitation of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research (Zagreb), Dragana Djurić, research associate of the Institute for Balkan studies SASA, gave a lecture “Days of the week in folk culture of South Slavs and East Slavs with a special focus on the cult of animals“ via Zoom platform. As a part of the public lectures of the Institute and the project Cultural Animal Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspective and Traditional Practices, PhD Djurić presented her monograph on the days of the week while paying special attention to folk perceptions, beliefs and relationship towards animals with regard to the days of the week.

The two-day international conference “Semiotic landscapes of Southeastern Europe” was held on May 28-29, 2021, at the Moise Palace, on the island of Cres, Croatia, and online. The organizers were the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Center for Advanced Studies – South East Europe University of Rijeka. Two associates of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA took part in the conference. Senior research associate Annemarie Sorescu-Marinković presented, together with dr. Aleksandra Salamurović (University of Jena), the co-authored paper “LL of rural Banat: a possible typology”, while senior research associate Marija Mandić presented a co-authored paper with Prof. Jelena Filipović (Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade) entitled “Subotica – the minority capital in Serbia. Conflicting and corresponding cultural and semiotic landscapes and ideologies“.