What are the similarities and differences between the Serbian political situation and what Hungary had under Viktor Orbán? How quickly can a freaking system be dismantled?
About that for large double issue of "Vreme" (Thursday, July 30) speaks Italian-Hungarian historian Stefano Bottoni, associate professor at the University of Florence.
Price for Serbia - recognition of Kosovo
Botoni, who is currently finishing work on a book about Orban, believes that the question will remain whether Serbia wants Euro-Atlantic integration, especially today, when they are not bringing a generous economic and political package like Hungary received two decades ago.
"That package is much more modest today, although it still has its weight. However, it comes with a clear price," Bottoni says. "I come from the country of the trauma of Trianon and I understand perfectly well the depth of national crises, but for you it means recognizing Kosovo as a state. And accepting that Bosnia and Herzegovina is also an independent state that will have to decide its own destiny one day, while Serbia is, simply, Serbia."
Photo: Tanjug / Amir HamzagićFront page of the new issue of "Vremena"
He says it took the Hungarians almost a whole century to accept that they are no less and no more than what they are. And that geopolitical choice sealed the fate of Orbán's regime.
"Orbán tried to present the elections as a fateful collision between the 'rotting and dying' West and sovereign, happy Hungary. The citizens' response was: 'You and your sovereign Hungary cope. We want to remain part of the European semi-periphery because that's what we are; we prefer that to participation in dangerous geopolitical adventures without any future,'" explains Botoni in a conversation with Jelena Jorgacevic.
The past and nostalgia
According to his view, there are three nations in Europe with a deeply unresolved vision of their own imperial past - Russians, Serbs and Hungarians.
"We share that unclear vision of who we are and how we got to where we are in the first place, what exactly went wrong. For Hungary, it is nostalgia for the period before Trianon, i.e. the famous Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and for Serbia the period after the collapse of Tito's Yugoslavia and Milošević," he adds.
The entire interview in the summer double issue of "Vremena" from Thursday (July 30), on several pages for the same money. Or it is subscribe to the digital edition now.
