Ljudmila Cvetkovic is a correspondent with RFE/RL's Balkan Service.
The street artist Pijanista has increasingly focused his ingenuity on worrisome trends in Serbia, from a budding surveillance society to a "fraudulent" vote. All from outside the narrow confines of "contemporary art."
Serbia's ruling right-wing populists are expected to dominate this weekend's national elections following a campaign that has featured a lot of flag-waving.
The public has reacted negatively to reports that the Defense Ministry is sending call-up notices in an effort to beef up the military reserves. With tensions with neighboring Kosovo running high and memories of the wars of the 1990s still fresh, many Serbs are speaking out on the Internet against what they see as a new "mobilization."
Florence Hartmann, the former spokeswoman for The Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, this week was found guilty of publishing confidential court documents. The court said her actions put the work of the tribunal in peril. But Hartmann's supporters say the court is to blame for seeking to hide potential evidence linking Belgrade to war crimes in the Bosnian war.
In the former Yugoslavia, language and politics are closely intertwined. The once single common language, Serbo-Croatian, has now become Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. But are they really separate languages?
