From genocide to Air Jordans: new Balkan threads

On screen: Mr. Velickovic. © All rights reserved, Vuksa Velickovic

Vuksa Velickovic is, quite possibly, a true renaissance man — a writer, artist, symbol of his generation and messenger of his time and place. As the editor of BTurn Magazine, an online destination for modern Balkan culture, Velickovic weaves togethers strands of art, music, politics and society into a fascinating portrait of the former nations of Yugoslavia. A place rich with history looks to the future.

Tell us a bit about yourself, where you’re from, and what inspired you to start Bturn.

I come from Belgrade, Serbia and have been working in European media and culture for about a decade and a half now. The idea of an all-Balkan online mag had been on my mind for several years, and after a few unsuccessful attempts, I sat down with Sasha Mircov, my business partner from the US, and decided to start the whole thing from scratch.

We wanted to create a magazine that gives an insight into contemporary Balkan culture and society, combined with a database of artists, venues and events in the region. The idea is simple: the Balkans are still a vast, ‘uncharted’ territory and it needs to be mapped. We believe there are some great things going on down here, and yes, some pretty mad things as well, and we want to gather all of that in one place, from Ljubljana to Istanbul, and try to present something we perceive as a specifically “Balkan experience”.

At the same time, we maintain a sharp, critical voice in dealing with various social, cultural and political issues in the region. We want to keep it real.

To the average twenty year-old from the Balkans, born in 1991, what do the Yugoslav wars of the ’90s mean? How does that experience affect their everyday life? 

I would say the average twenty year-old from ex Yugoslavia is more concerned whether he’ll have enough money to move out of his parents’ flat or get a new pair of Air Jordans than he is with the issues that confronted generations born in the 1970s and early 1980s.

However, even today in 2011, the Yugoslav wars remain the most recognizable Balkan ‘brand’, at least from a Western perspective. From the insider’s point of view there is still a lot of political mythology circulating, sometimes covered in a blanket of “national interests”, which of course, makes it even more dangerous. Especially for a number of twenty year-olds, bored and out of work, with no future perspective, who are often keen on exploring these mythological threads. One of Bturn’s missions is to give way to new threads.

How do you define the “New Balkans”? What elements of history have been retained? What trends are emerging, and what should the world know about the former Yugoslav?

The ‘New Balkans’ are all those who don’t fall for myths and wish to make a bigger investment in their future than in their past. The ‘Old Balkans’ have been obsessed with their past and their histories. And it is something our mag doesn’t shy from – many articles on Bturn deal with various historical topics – but we try to give history a different, non-essentialist perspective. I would say, interpretations are more important than ‘facts’, as much as the present context is more important that the historical one. That’s why we focus on contemporary Balkan and Eastern Europe, the artists and their audiences, because those are people doing extraordinary things in extraordinary conditions.

What are your goals for Bturn? What would you say you’ve learned from starting and operating it?

Running a 12 people team (and counting) across two continents is a bloody difficult task. Our director is in San Francisco, our software developer in Portland, I am in London, and our regional editorial teams come from Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia so far. All together, that’s four time zones.

We got big plans, but prefer to go one step at a time. And we are still learning as we go ahead. Learning is fun, right? At the moment, we are expanding our regional editorial team and building a network of partners in the region. By ‘region’ I don’t mean just the Western Balkans, i.e the former Yugoslavia, but also the integral core of the Balkans: Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, with a pinch of Turkey.

What are three most exciting things coming from the Balkans today?

I couldn’t say there is anything uniform, like a current or something, because there are so many different countries and they include scattered underground ‘scenes’ where you cannot really pin point a trend. But new tendencies are definitely taking shape, especially if you look through generations. I could mention something from my immediate background. The new school of Serbian film, if we may call it so (well, I just did): a group of young directors born between 1979 and 1983 who offer an original take on the present Balkan reality. Directors like Mladen Djordjevic, Ivan Ikic, Nikola Lezaic and Maja Milos approach both the war legacy and the present condition in a completely different way than their predecessors. Their approach is post-ideological and their film discourse is a fusion of art house and cinema verite. Maja’s teenage drama “Clip” is my personal favorite at the moment, and I’m looking forward to its premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival in January 2012.

The second thing would be – passion. There’s plenty of it in the Balkans. Though I wouldn’t say that’s necessary a good thing. It’s that kind of energy that if not channeled properly, can be quite useless, or even dangerous. But that’s what makes it so exciting. I sometimes feel that passion is globally underrated for some reason. In the Balkans it’s probably the opposite.

The third most exciting Balkan thing today would be Bturn, of course