Balkan historian. Full Prof., SSST. Author of five books on modern Bosnian + Serbian history. Tweet mostly about current affairs. Anti-fascist conservative.
Sarajevo and London
Joined July 2009
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My book 'Serbia: A Modern History', is now out ! The product of 17.5 years of research and writing. Get 35% off w/code SERBIA35➡️ tinyurl.com/2hf9yhd8
Bugger
wp.me/pgrPjy-1jFG via @SarajevoTimes
If this were in the plot of a novel it would be too implausible. Nobody could have so little dignity. telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2…
The Student List election victory is a tremendous step forward for Serbia. Let's hope Serbia's new generation of liberal democrats will learn from the mistakes that derailed the country's democratisation following the overthrow of Milosevic in 2000: 1) its failure to deal with the persisting authoritarian elements in the state and organised criminal elements in society, that steadily reasserted their grip on it; 2) its failure to break with the nationalist ideology that viewed its neighbours (Montenegro, Bosnia, Kosovo) in irredentist terms as prey instead of as equal partners (contrast with France after 1871 and Germany after 1945).
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
To achieve lasting friendship with its neighbours that benefited everyone, Germany dropped all claim to territories lost to Poland and Russia after WW2 which, in terms of size and ethnicity, marked a much greater loss than Kosovo is to Serbia. Serbia should show similar maturity.
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic concedes defeat to a student-led protest movement in a historic election that ends his long grip on power and heralds a new political era in the Balkan country reut.rs/4zNMyDB
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
Winners this morning - Democracy, Europe. Losers - Trump & Putin.
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
‘Of all the books I have ever reviewed that purported to offer a serious thesis, this is without question the most deranged.’
Simon Heffer gives zero stars to a ‘preposterous’ rant by a crank conspiracy theorist who for a few days was once PM, @trussliz. telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fi…
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
Orban, now Vucic. Seems that Putin backed regimes are falling everywhere.
Let's go, America.
JUST IN: Serbia’s longtime leader Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat in Sunday’s parliamentary election, losing to a student-led opposition movement after two years of protests against his government.
The stunning result ends 14 years of dominance by Vucic and his right-wing party. Backed by Vladimir Putin, Vucic had accused the student movement of being a foreign-backed attempt to oust him.
The opposition is projected to win 135–140 of Parliament’s 250 seats, compared with about 105 for Vucic’s party.
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
The first elections in Hungary toppled Orbán. Then today, an aspiring student-led movement toppled Vucic through elections.
Which illiberal populist will fall next?
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
The election results in Serbia are good news for the security and stability of the entire Western Balkans, as Vucic was the chief architect of virtually all major disputes in the region.
That said, the Student List is a heterodox coalition. We should not expect a 180 degree transformation in Belgrade's positions on Kosovo, Bosnia, or Montenegro. The (ultra)nationalist right will remain a major factor in the country's politics. And presidential elections are scheduled for December. As such, a (significant) degree of wariness in regional capitals is also not without merit.
Still, this is an opening, and politics - especially in the Balkans - is a game of inches. Decades of animosity aside, neighboring states should give the new government the opportunity to prove and constitute itself. Accept now that the official rhetoric will be over the map ideologically, especially at first. Real progress may need to be quiet, and unglamorous.
The Serbian people have made a major decision. The entire region would benefit from a democratic, moderate Serbia. This may - or not - be its genesis. Let us at least give the citizens of Serbia a chance to finish what they have started tonight.
Aleksandar Vucic concedes defeat ! Живела слободна Србија ! Long live free Serbia !
politika.rs/scc/clanak/79683…
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
Nansi Williams - the heroic dinner lady who died saving the lives of schoolchildren during the Aberfan disaster...
On October 21, 1966, a Welsh school dinner lady Nansi Williams threw herself over five children as a wall of coal waste crashed into their school. All five survived. She did not.
That morning, children at Pantglas Junior School in Aberfan, Wales, were preparing for their final day before the half-term holiday. Nansi, a local woman who worked in the school dining hall, was collecting dinner money from pupils.
Above the village stood enormous mountains of waste from the nearby coal mine. For years, residents had lived beneath them, despite concerns about their stability.
At approximately 9:15 a.m., one of those mountains collapsed.
Around 150,000 tonnes of coal waste and water surged down the hillside, smashing into houses and engulfing the school.
Inside, Nansi saw the danger approaching.
She ordered five children to get down, then threw herself over them, using her own body as a shield.
The impact killed her.
One of the children, Karen Thomas, later recalled how Nansi had jumped on top of them as glass shattered and the wall collapsed. The children initially did not understand that she was dead. They tried pulling her hair to wake her.
When rescuers recovered Nansi's body, accounts say she was still clutching a pound note collected for school dinners.
The Aberfan disaster killed 144 people, including 116 children.
An official inquiry later placed responsibility squarely on the National Coal Board. The catastrophe had been preventable.
Nansi had no children of her own. In her final moments, she saved five who belonged to other families.
For decades, her extraordinary sacrifice received little recognition beyond the community that remembered her.
Now, approaching the disaster's 60th anniversary in October 2026, a campaign to honor her has succeeded. A commemorative Purple Plaque is scheduled to be unveiled in Aberfan on October 30.
Five children went home because Nansi Williams never did.
#archaeohistories
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
A few basic points as we await results from Serbia later today:
a. It is unlikely that we will have a clear winner tonight. Turnout is looking impressive, and Serbia’s ballot counting is slow at the best of times. High turnout also suggests large mobilization by the opposition, which the regime will further try to derail by delaying the count. A significant number of invalidated ballots will be one of the clearest signs of significant regime-direct fraud. It may take days to have real clarity on the outcome.
b. A close finish between the two blocs – Vucic’s SNS et al and the Student List – will mean protracted instability in the country. Violence in the streets is quite likely, again primarily directed by the regime as we have already seen in and around Belgrade today. If such a cohort is even seated in parliament, that chaos may well continue in the chamber; including physical altercations but also attempts by the SNS to buy-off oppositions MPs to pad its numbers.
c. Serbian politics remains dominated by the dark, brutal horrors of the 90s. Vucic and his long-time No. 2 Dacic both served under Milosevic and remain beholden to his core project; i.e. authoritarianism at home, militarism and expansionism abroad (e.g. Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro). Both also celebrated the assassination of the country’s one genuine, senior reformist figure, PM Zoran Djindjic, in 2003. Djindjic was killed by elements of Serbia’s expansive and influential security apparatus, who are connected to the country’s likewise powerful organized crime underground, and the same will likely be called upon again to act if the Student List genuinely has a breakthrough tonight. As such, do not expect a Hungary-style change in government in Serbia even if the opposition clearly wins; think Pakistan, or Egypt.
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
I defy any parent - indeed, any sentient adult - to read @AllisonPearson's account of the Aberfan tragedy without choking up.
“We gently removed the sticky black matter that clung to their hair and clothes, and washed their faces, making sure that their silky soft skin was totally clean and dry. This was important because it would enable their mums and dads to give a kiss goodbye. We lifted their limp arms in order to wash their little hands, making sure that mud was removed between each finger. It was strange to think the pen marks on their hands had been made only a couple of hours before.”
telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…
Jean-Luc Mélenchon will win young French voters – until they realise the size of his Russia blind spot
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
Marko Attila Hoare 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇦🇬🇱🇪🇺 retweeted
And there is your proof.
82% of Democrats support Ukraine over Russia. So do 52% of Republicans and even 50% of MAGA supporters. Support for Russia? A miserable 1%, 4% and 5%, respectively.
Trump, Hegseth and JD Vance do not represent the American people on this issue. They represent their own interests.
They represent themselves, their egos and a peculiar little faction that seems determined to mistake loyalty to Putin for patriotism.
The most remarkable thing about these figures is that even MAGA voters are ten times more likely to support Ukraine than Russia.
America has not become pro-Russian. Its leadership has simply become spectacularly unrepresentative of the country it claims to speak for.
