Rodoljub Jovanović

Dr Rodoljub Jovanović

Small Group Project 2025-26

Fiction as Memory Work: Youth Engagement with Yugoslav Wars Through Literary Fiction

This project investigates the role of literary fiction in shaping collective memories of the 1990s among young readers in Serbia, focusing on youth born after 2000 who lack personal memories of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the wars in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. It investigates how literature contributes to their understanding and emotional engagement with this historical period, addressing broader theoretical questions about the transfer of historical knowledge. The study considers fiction as an alternative source of memory, recognizing that collective memory extends beyond formal historiography and textbooks, which is a topic that has been quite extensively researched. It examines how fiction integrates data, insights, and emotions, emphasizing the capacity to understand wrongdoing and suffering.

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Areas of interest

Human Rights Former Yugoslavia Eastern Europe Balkans Serbia Youth War & Peace Kosovo Peace Education

Cohort

FG11

Biography

Rodoljub Jovanović is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. He holds a PhD in Human Rights (2021) from the University of Deusto (Spain), MA in Interdisciplinary Research and Studies on Eastern Europe from the University of Bologna and the University of Ljubljana, and BA in Psychology from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade.

During his doctoral studies, he was a Marie Skłodovska-Curie COFUND PhD Fellow. In addition, he was a Memory Activism Fellow at the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade, as well as the EuroClio Research Fellow. He taught various subjects at the University of Amsterdam and at the Belgrade Centre of School for International Training (SIT). He is the author of several academic papers in prestigious academic journals and several chapters in edited volumes. In addition, he is engaged in various initiatives related to the improvement of teaching about the wars of the 1990s in the ex-Yugoslav space, he is the author of policy papers related to history teaching, and teaching materials for lectures on the wars of the 1990s.

Biographical details correct as of 26.06.25