As Serbian students mark the first anniversary of a fatal building collapse at a railway station that sparked massive nationwide protests, there are signs that far-right nationalist groups have sought to infiltrate and even hijack the movement.
Early demands for political accountability, followed by calls for the resignation of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and new elections, have been complemented with strong anti-Kosovo rhetoric.
“I’m proud when we fight for our national interests -- for Kosovo and Metohija,” one protester, who identified himself only as Stefan, told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service. He was using a term favored by the Serbian government, which does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.
The year-long student protests are the largest in Serbia since demonstrations that led to the toppling of Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic 25 years ago.
They began after the collapse of a railway station roof in the northern city of Novi Sad on November 1, 2024. The tragedy killed 16 people and shocked the public amid reports that corrupt practices led to shoddy construction at the railway station, a flagship government project led by Chinese businesses.
The protests were marked by a commitment to strict political neutrality, focusing on calls for a thorough investigation and keeping a distance from both ruling and opposition parties.
The Far-Right Gets Involved
The first major rightward shift came on June 28, on the anniversary of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo Polje, a charged date in Serbian politics that was used by nationalists to justify the Balkan wars that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
During a protest that day, speakers made calls to “defend the Serbian people” outside the country’s borders, apparently referring to large ethnic Serbian communities in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“Speakers were chosen to highlight both the movement’s diversity and the idea of national unity,” an electrical engineering student from Belgrade, who declined to be named, told RFE/RL.
Other people who had taken part in protests felt alienated by the rhetoric.
“These are not the values I stand for. If they want my support or my vote, they need to clearly distance themselves from that rhetoric,” said a woman who gave her name only as Milica.
Milos, a man in his fifties who has been joining anti-government protests since the 1990s, said that “after cooling down” he understood the speeches as “a populist move -- an attempt to reach broader audiences ahead of possible elections.”
The student call for early elections has not been successful. But ahead of scheduled local ballots in October, the heat turned up again.
Law students in Belgrade organized a rally demanding accountability for "violations of Serbian rights" in Kosovo. On social media, organizers accused Serbia’s government of "betraying Kosovo."
Ultra-nationalist and far-right groups -- some of them banned by Serbia’s Constitutional Court -- appeared alongside students, although only about 1,000 people attended. This was far fewer than at many other protests.
Serbian Muslims March
Shortly afterwards, a European Parliament resolution condemned what it called “nationalist narratives” in parts of the protest movement.
"The right is absolutely trying to take over the protests, but it's not that big. It's just louder and better organized," Dusko Radosavljevic, a professor at the law and business faculty at the University of Novi Sad, told RFE/RL.
He added that the appearance of extremist groups at demonstrations was often staged.
“These are frequently provocations organized by security services on the state payroll, meant to create confusion,” he said.
"In a divided society like ours, many students still can't tell the difference between healthy patriotism and nationalism," said Boris Kojcinovic, a philosophy student from Novi Sad. He recalled nationalists grabbing European Union flags from protesters, but added: "I feel most of us are here for one goal -- to build a healthy society."
That message has also resonated in Sandzak, a region in southwestern Serbia with a Muslim majority.
Marching under the message "You Won’t Divide Us," students from Sandzak made a 400-kilometer protest march to Novi Sad, arriving on November 1, to mark the anniversary.
