Impression management of a contested past: Serbia’s evolving national calendar

Abstract

The basic argument outlined in this article is that the Serbian political elite has managed Serbia’s contested past through covering and cultural reframing rather than public acknowledgement. I show here that in the creation of a current Serbian calendar, as a state-sponsored practice, there is an extensive usage of impression management techniques which enabled a different reading of the calendar at both the domestic and international levels. It is further claimed that the calendar serves multiple functions and meanings: on the one hand, it tends to present Serbia as a democratic and progressive state, but on the other hand, it legitimizes a wide range of emotions at the local level. In other words, the new Serbian calendar is made both to meet European expectations and further Serbian interests to join the European Union, but also to allow wider audiences in Serbia to express feelings of animosity, injustice, and frustration as a means of settling historical accounts.