03.06.2014

Balkan Day events this June!

Two fascinating events focusing on the Balkan perspective at the BRITISH LIBRARY and the CONWAY HALL

 

Balkan Day: A Celebration of Creativity and Identity

Friday 13th June 2014, 10.30-17.30
Conference Centre, Eliot Room, British Library, NW1 2DB
Free admission, booking essential

This event promotes the Balkan region from the perspective of its literary and cultural achievements, and widens the knowledge of our shared European heritage, especially in the centenary year of the start of World War One. By bringing together some of most prominent Balkan writers, as well as British academics and commentators who have a long-standing relationship with the region, we hope to stimulate discussion and interest, as well as provide a counter-balance to the negative perceptions sometimes promoted in the UK media.

Featuring: Dubravka Ugrešić, Vladislav Bajac, Igor Štiks, Andrej Nikolaidis, Muharem Bazdulj, Christina Pribicevic Zoric and Alex Drace-Francis. With special literary afternoon events: ‘Balkanisation: the pick of recent Balkan fiction in English’ with Rosie Goldsmith and the UK launch of the Wasafiri Literary Magazine special Balkan edition, with guest editor, Professor Vesna Goldsworthy.

This event is a unique collaboration between the British Library and Istros Books. It is part of the ‘Best of the Balkans’ project, initiated by Istros Books and the British Library, and is partly funded by the Arts Council, England.

Followed by an evening film event: premiere screening of the feel-good Balkan movie The World is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner, based on the best-selling Bulgarian novel by Ilija Trojanow.

A selection of Balkan books will be on sale throughout the day, courtesy of O'Shipka online bookshop

The ‘Young Bosnia’ Group: Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?

Bosnian author and journalist Muharem Bazdulj and Reader in History at Goldsmiths College, Dr Dejan Djokic discuss alternative perspectives on the Sarajevo assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The 'Young Bosnia' were a revolutionary group of young men from different ethinic persuasions who came together in the early years of the 20th century with the aim of freeing Bosnia from the Austo-Hungarian Empire and creating a union of south-Slav peoples. Misunderstood and mis-represented by the dominant powers of the day, the truth about Gavrilo Princip - "the man who ignited WWI" - and his companions has long been debated. This talk brings together two leading experts from Princip's homeland(s) of Bosnia and Serbia, and offers a unique and 'inside' view of this contentious movement.

This event is brought to you by the Conway Hall Ethical Society & the New Humanist Magazine.

Co-sponsored by Istros Books and the Centre for the Study of the Balkans, Goldsmiths.

Saturday 14th June 2014 at 19.00
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL
Tickets are £5 and include refreshments. Book online