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Ivan Milenkovic

Ivan Milenković (1965), philosopher by education, translator by vocation, critic by temperament. He deals with political and contemporary French philosophy. Published three books, more than 40 scientific papers and translated ten books from the French language. Member of the NIN jury from 2018 to 2021. He has been writing for Vreme for a quarter of a century.

Latest news

Interview: Slobodan Maksimović, director

Humor as protection against harmful environment

Many people approached me after the film with a smile, while wiping away tears. I think they are touched by the fact that the film covers an era of exceptional creators, who are an indispensable part of our common history

Ivan Milenkovic

Foreign literature

Struggles with myself, women and reality

Nina Like, We are not here to have fun; translation from Norwegian by Radoš Kosović; Geopoetics, Belgrade 2024.

Ivan Milenkovic

NIS: Aleksandar Vučić opens the project

Comment

Sanctions to the NIS in the bubble of the masters of ignorance

The blow to the stomach of the citizens that follows the US sanctions on NIS is a consequence of the inability of the master of bubbles and the ignorance of Aleksandar Vučić to understand what politics really is

Ivan Milenkovic

The battle for public space

A lie in politics

Love of truth, says Hannah Arendt, has never been counted among the political virtues. Does this mean that the essence of truth lies in its impotence, and the essence of politics lies in treachery? Well, if so, doesn't powerless truth deserve the same amount of contempt as power that doesn't care about truth

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

Who does time work for?

Citizens will continue to press the regime with their bodies. Students may turn another circle around Serbia. And the opposition has only one task: to unite

Ivan Milenkovic

Analyze

Early elections: Time is not working for Aleksandar Vučić

Whatever the regime tries, it goes to waste. Time is no longer working for Aleksandar Vučić. Hence this fierce pre-election campaign, as if extraordinary parliamentary elections had just been announced

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

Regime gatherings as funeral processions

There is no energy at the regime's weekend gatherings as reality seeps through the cracks of an alternate reality. And without passion there is nothing, as Hegel said

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

Two cores of the political gathering

Ideological and moralistic purity cannot defeat the regime of Aleksandar Vučić. It is necessary for citizens to gather around two political cores that jointly strive towards the same goal

Ivan Milenkovic

Interview: Klara Vlasakova, writer

Change is the only certainty in our lives

Often readers tell me that the book gives them discomfort, sometimes nightmares. My goal, of course, is not to make anyone feel bad, but at the same time, I don't know the purpose of writing that just slips away and leaves no impression, no scent, no memory. In that sense, I'm glad that Cracks they arouse emotions, questions. Discomfort

Ivan Milenkovic

When he talks about the misuse of police powers, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić only mentions the case of Vujadin Savić.

Comment

The loneliness of a leader

And what else did we expect ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen? That the president of all citizens, upon returning from that vampire ball in China, will understand how the future of this country lies in respect for the law, democratic procedures and republican division of power, education and the rise of culture?

Ivan Milenkovic

Interview: Dejan Atanacković, writer and visual artist

A strategy for maintaining populist illusions

As a society, neither at the end of the eighties, nor ten or fifteen years ago, were we able to recognize the perniciousness of simpletons and kitsch. We didn't see that singing fountains, crazy New Year's lights, idiotic monuments, and all that followed by media hype, directly announce totalitarianism, ruins and death.

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

There will be elections, there will be theft, but nothing depends on Vučić

It is unthinkable that citizens and students recognize a victory won by theft. And it is quite certain that he will steal. On the other hand, does anyone believe that Vučić, if he loses the elections, would recognize the elections? Of course he wouldn't, but this time he doesn't ask

Ivan Milenkovic

Corruption of the people

Is there life after Vučić?

"In a country that its president persistently claims is a welfare state, pensioners, especially those with lower pensions, have been turned into a group of suitable voters," says anthropologist Miloš Matić. "That (mis)use is based on the regularity of receiving pensions as an insignia of a secure existence, although that existence actually implies a low level of quality of life. And security is what people always need. With old age, the need for security prevails"

Ivan Milenkovic

Novel

Screams and whispers

Not to be outdone: the novels of the Spanish writer Almudena Grandes are enchanting. There are no formal breakthroughs, new literary procedures, language experiments, or labyrinths in them: Almudena Grandes simply knows how to tell stories and is not interested in anything other than storytelling.

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

Where to next, Vučić?

What does it mean when Aleksandar Vučić calls terrorists, Ustasha, traitors and other blockaders to a meeting and lowers food prices and interest rates on loans

Ivan Milenkovic

Regime against the people: Sources of violence

Pendrek as a technology of survival in power

"At first glance, an individual act of extreme violence - when a civil servant threatens a girl with rape - may seem like an isolated outburst," Zoran Pavlović, a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, told Vreme. "But it's not just a matter of his private 'pathology' - even if it was, it's still not just his problem - but a symptom of a system in which such behavior is tolerated and even encouraged"

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

The private violence of the president of all the beatings of Serbia

The president of all the clubbers in Serbia is writing a historical grotesque: he is trying, through the process of branding, to make citizens out of clubbers, and to turn citizens into clubbers.

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

Revolutionary transformation of war veterans

The rebellion of the citizens of Serbia is not revolutionary because they do not demand a change of the political system, but a change of the kleptocratic team in power. But in this rebellion, the revolutionary actions of the war veterans are

Ivan Milenkovic

Prosecutor for organized crime

Comment

A prosecutor's performance or a blow to the spine of a corrupt regime

If this is another performance by Vučić, nothing will happen. If the activities of the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime are really the implementation of the law, then the arrests for corruption in the event of a falling canopy are a blow to the spine of a regime that rests on lawlessness

Ivan Milenkovic

Interview: Mile Babić, theologian and philosopher

Break the chain of violence

Today, we see quite clearly how strong this will for power is among people, so people are ready to sacrifice their own lives and the lives of their own people in order to preserve their power. They love their power more than their life and than anyone else's life. Nothing can be achieved by threats and coercion because such behavior fuels evil in depth and breadth

Ivan Milenkovic

Interview: Svetislav Basara, writer

"Existence is a waste of time"

There can be something - in fact there are many such "somethings" - but if we don't have a word for it, it doesn't exist for us. We have as much of the world as our language is rich, expressive and its verb forms and tenses are elaborate and sophisticated

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

Purge of judges and prosecutors: Putting the paste back in the tube

Does anyone believe, except perhaps Vučić, that the purge of prosecutors and judges would succeed? Does he really believe that he can find enough Bokans because, to be fair, Bokans are pearls among pearls after all

Ivan Milenkovic

United opposition, necessity or myth

Separately they must not, together they cannot

The students responded to Vučić's anti-politics with a political masterpiece - also anti-politics. Because they noticed that political rhetoric and political action (grouping by ideological closeness) do not bring results in a desolate anti-political space. They also saw that the opposition, like deo of the political system, it simply does not work because the regime abolished the political system. The opposition's efforts to establish a legal order can be compared to an attempt to plant a tomato plantation in the desert, but without water. Political means in a devastated political landscape simply do not work

Ivan Milenkovic

Comment

Autoimmune disease in Serbia

Instead of focusing on diseased cells, the Serbian organism's defense cells turned against healthy cells. The medicine has started circulating in the bloodstream, but the healing process is long and uncertain

Ivan Milenkovic

Serbia on the streets

Why only now and what to do next?

What are the reasons for the longevity of protests against Vučić's regime? The interlocutors of "Vremen" answer this question from different perspectives, but one motive runs through all of them: advanced injustice and intolerable lies.

Ivan Milenkovic

Opening of "Prokop" in 2023: It already has to undergo reconstruction

Comment

Nebulous government speech

Aleksandar Vučić is no longer able to restore balance in the rebellious society. This is best seen in the level of speech: none of his remarks go through anymore

Ivan Milenkovic

Novel

Light in the shadows

June Fosse, Septology; translated from Norwegian by Radoš Kosović; Third Square and Silver Tree, 2023–2024.
Other name (I-II), I am someone else. (III-V), New name (VI-VII)

Ivan Milenkovic