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Serbia’s Student Protests: Building Bridges through Solidarity and Hope

by Katarina Ristić

Since November, Serbia’s students have mobilized historic protests, demanding accountability for the tragic Novi Sad Canopy collapse, which claimed 15 lives. Their peaceful demonstrations quickly grew, uniting educators, professionals, and citizens across the country against corruption and authoritarian governance. Despite government attempts at provocation, students maintained their peaceful stance, sparking hope in a society long dominated by division and apathy. Katarina Ristić analyzes these remarkable developments in our latest blog, exploring how the protests bridge societal divides—urban and rural, generational, ethnic, and political. She raises a compelling question: Could these inclusive, solidarity-driven demonstrations represent more than just regional resistance? Perhaps they signal broader global trends toward democratic renewal and societal cohesion, offering crucial lessons for confronting authoritarian populism worldwide.

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Student Protests in Serbia: Bridging Divides through Solidarity and Hope

Since November of last year, students in Serbia have been blocking universities and organizing protests demanding the rule of law and the prosecution of those responsible for the Canopy collapse, which killed 16 people in Novi Sad. Joined by teachers and university professors, they marched through Serbia, connecting university towns with protests in Novi Sad, Kragujevac, and Niš. They stood in silence to remember the victims at every protest, including one on New Year’s Eve. They organized a general strike on January 24, 2025, leading to the forced resignation of the prime minister. On March 15, between 300.000 and 500.000 people – more than 5% of the 6.5 million population – gathered in Belgrade in a colossal display of nonviolent resistance, surpassing the numbers that toppled Milošević’s regime in October 2000. In this race against time, which Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vučić is already losing, students managed to inspire solidarity and hope in a desperate and apathetic society.

Serbia is not the only country in the region experiencing unrest: a series of tragic incidents, such as the nightclub fire in North Macedonia, a train crash in Greece, and widespread corruption in Bulgaria, have led to mass protests demanding the rule of law and an end to corruption. The detention of an opposition mayor and protest bans in Turkey similarly provoked mass demonstrations. In a region that has been swept by authoritarianism for more than a decade, people are taking to the streets, calling for an end to the incompetent, corrupt rule of their governments.

Out of Sync or Avant-garde?

These protests stand in stark contrast to the relatively mild responses to the rise of the far-right in Western Europe and the United States. A similar disconnection occurred in the 1990s, when the European Union was expanding, and consensus around liberal democracy and globalization seemed to prevail, while the former Yugoslavia descended into violence fueled by separatism, ethnic nationalism, and right-wing populism. The wars led to fragmentation and the creation of new borders, often explained as the result of the revival of ancient hatreds or elite-driven top-down manipulation. It took nearly thirty years, along with the rise of populism in Europe and the United States, for scholars to look back and recognize the structural factors and shared features underlying these political processes. Revisiting the 90s also meant reevaluating them, and Slovenian scholar Mitja Velikonja suggested that the Balkans in 2022 appear as the “tragic avant-garde of Europe,” while Serbian historian Dubravka Stojanović asked if the Yugoslav wars were “a snapshot of Europe’s future” rather than its past.

A similar impression is shared by commentators observing the student protests in Serbia—they seem to represent a comparable moment of disconnection. Geopolitically, they appear in the vacuum of the global far-right rise, not supported by the United States, which is aligning with the illiberal camp alongside Russia, Meloni’s Italy, and Orbán’s Hungary. They are also not welcomed in Europe’s liberal capitals. Aside from individual support in the EU parliament, officials have long signaled their backing for regional stabilitocracies, while both France and Germany rely on the current Serbian regime to secure a deal for lithium extraction, despite widespread public concern over environmental pollution of water and soil. The persistent support the current regime enjoys from Russia and China leaves little room for geopolitical speculation.

This raises the question: are these protests disconnected from broader global trends, following their own local trajectory? Or do they represent a potential alternative in the form of bottom-up solidarity, possibly acting as an avant-garde? For American anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff, peripheries and postcolonies can possess “avant-garde” features, as “many of the great historical tsunamis (…) appear to be breaking first on their shores” (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2006). It wouldn’t be the first time the region heralds historical changes yet to come, highlighting the need for a better understanding of the processes sparked by the student protests in Serbia.

Apathetic and Apolitical Gen Z?

If global political trends argue against the possibility of such protests, research on Gen Z does as well, depicting them as self-absorbed, fragile, overly sensitive, and disinterested—more focused on social media and gaming than on social or political issues. In addition to isolationism during the pandemic and social media alienation creating an “anxious generation,” youth in the Balkans have grown up under populist, radical-right authoritarianism in dysfunctional states, surrounded by corruption and violence. Their understanding of the past seems shaped by the far-right, their history education serving as preparation for future conflicts, with limited knowledge of international human rights movements and global justice.

Yet, these very students are organizing, leading, and developing strategies of resistance that the rest of society observes with admiration. With 15 minutes of silence for 15 victims in Novi Sad (the 16th victim, 18-year-old Vukašin C, died in a hospital on March 21), they introduced collective reflection and a moral obligation toward innocent lives lost to corruption, disregard for the law, and unaccountability. Organized in open, democratic plenums and rotating media appearances to avoid centralized leadership, protesters are gradually building their own structures and widening support within society. By rejecting violence and calls for revolution, they are opting for a more thorough, deeper, and systemic change—an overhaul of the system itself. While changing the regime is easy, changing the system is hard, and they invited citizens to create their own resistance structures, applying principles of direct democracy to matters of interest.

In this endeavour, they cannot rely on a long democratic tradition either. Scholars disagree on whether there is a genuine democratic tradition in a country that fought for independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, only to experience several authoritarian populist regimes throughout the 20th century. The brief period of political stability and democratic rule before World War I makes it difficult to identify a ‘golden age’ of Serbian democracy, as it was equally marked by militarization and the rise of nationalism. In an illiterate, peasant society living in poverty, without a middle class or economic elite to mediate between political and intellectual elites, politics easily devolved into populism, tribalism, corruption, nepotism, and a disregard for the law—traits that have accompanied political processes since the late 19th century.

Another brief democratic interregnum from 2000 to 2012 ended with the rise of the authoritarian regime under Aleksandar Vučić, who quickly dismantled weak democratic institutions as the regime took control of the state, media and suppressed the opposition. The region underwent an authoritarian turn, with regimes relying on the constant manufacturing of crises and state capture. Simultaneously, in Serbia, the regime supported extremist parties and football hooligans to push the political center further to the far-right. With the opposition disbanded and elections reduced to mere plebiscites to confirm the leader’s popularity, prospects for democratic change appeared bleak as the disillusioned population sank into apathy.

And yet, however improbable, student protests are not building a democratic protest culture from scratch. Beginning with the democratic protests of 1991 and the mass student and opposition demonstrations of 1996, and continuing through various environmental and anti-corruption movements in the early 21st century, Serbia’s history of resistance and the collective memory of protest constitute a persistent tradition that interconnects generations through shared experiences.  The shift from socialist Yugoslavia to neoliberal Serbia also marked a change in protest alliances and “reasoning solidarity,” now formed around democratic, environmental, and anti-violence causes. Moreover, social media contributed to reframing issues within broader transnational agendas, while enabling connective action and personalized, emotional mobilization.

It is within this context—and against all odds—that the current student protests in Serbia unfold. In the rest of the text, I will examine key characteristics of these protests and their influence on society in general.

Inclusivity of the Protests

Shortly after the student protests began, high school teachers and university professors joined in, closing educational facilities across the country. Other professions also periodically engaged, including lawyers, farmers, artists, IT sector, and medical workers. While rejecting any attempts by political parties to appropriate the movement, students welcomed a variety of professions to join, primarily as citizens. Even civil engineers, scapegoated and accused by the regime of negligence, joined the protests, highlighting how the regime’s actions expedited construction processes and bypassed legal engineering standards. Instead, the protests targeted corrupt politicians who ran projects without adhering to laws and procedures, prioritizing quick deadlines and boosting their public image. The Novi Sad train station, for example, was opened twice, in 2022 and 2024, even though the reconstruction was incomplete and the permit for opening was not issued. The protests served as a call for different professions to unite against irresponsible and unaccountable governance, countering the divisions the regime sought to exploit.

One major strategy of the protests was student marches connecting four key university cities—Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Niš, and Belgrade. These marches demonstrated dedication and readiness to sacrifice while also serving as a mobilization strategy that included citizens along the route who prepared food, provided accommodations, and organized impressive welcomes for protesters. As students marched through smaller towns and villages, they brought their message to places where ‘free’ media does not reach. They also empowered those in smaller towns, helping them break free from fear in a system where loyalty to the leader and ruling party secures a job and salary.

At the same time, for many citizens who joined the students and traveled to other cities, it was their first encounter with Serbia beyond city borders. For those from the capital who were traditionally dismissive of “provincial” areas (the “unutrašnjost”), joining the protests in Kragujevac and Niš was a life-changing experience. According to social media posts, they were impressed by the hospitality, good food, and organization, but even more so by discovering thousands of decent, like-minded people—critical, open, and eager to overcome fear. These emotional encounters, marked by a sense of liberation and solidarity, were captured in hundreds of video clips that flooded social media. This was another divide that students challenged: the urban/rural and north/south divide.

This mobility and protest contagion reached unlikely places like Novi Pazar in the Sandžak region, which has a majority Muslim population. Traditionally skeptical of majoritarian (read: Christian Orthodox) mass protests in the capital, students from Novi Pazar joined this time, as the rule of law and an end to corruption hold the hope that Serbia is more than just the country of the Serbian people, as stated in the constitution. It is, or at least could be, a country for all its citizens—a hope that protesters in Novi Pazar share. However, one should not overlook the appearance of “Kosovo is Serbia” flags or war veterans parading through the streets, which may indicate a different kind of solidarity emerging. At this moment, though, there is no indication that the protests were fueled by ethno-nationalism. In fact, the majority-minority divide is another divide the students’ protests attempted to bridge.

State capture and deep divisions within the Serbian media system have created two realities, formed by state-run and oppositional media. The former includes state television RTS (referred to as TV Bastille since the protests in the 1990s) and entertainment networks like Pink and Happy, supported by tabloids that have reached unprecedented levels of hate speech and racism, forming a genre of “conflict-mongering” journalism. Primarily addressing an older population, a stronghold of the regime, they spread lies, fears, and conspiracy theories, creating constant crises on which the regime thrives. For example, research by Stefan Janjić identified 150 announcements of wars on tabloid cover pages in just one year. These media have created a “Bermuda Triangle” in the Serbian media landscape, where truth, decency, and respect for humanity vanish, while simultaneously fostering the regime’s support and voter base. After months of silencing the protests or misinterpreting their goals, RTS reported about a “mob” inspiring students to gather in front of the national television on 11 March at 11 PM, blocking entrances (but not exits) and inviting journalists and employers to join the protests. When asked about their actions, one student replied, “We want our grandmas and grandpas to see the truth.” This reframing of the political “enemy” as “our grandmas and grandpas” highlighted another divide the protests addressed: the generational divide, often influenced by media capture.

Very general and vague demands being promoted by students can easily be co-opted by individuals to impose their own meanings. During the protest in Belgrade on March 15th, a mother was interviewed by N1 while carrying a banner with a bloody handprint and her 6-year-old child’s signature. Her older son stood beside her. When asked if she was afraid and why she brought her child despite the regime’s warning of potential violence, she responded, “We are Ribnikars; we are not afraid. We’ve had enough.” This referred to the mass shooting at Ribnikar Primary School in 2023, where a 13-year-old killed nine pupils and one security guard in an unprecedented school shooting. That event in May 2023 sparked a wave of protests later termed “Serbia against violence,” which yielded no significant results. Her statement underscored the need to end the cycle of violence that has dominated society and media for nearly thirty years—hate speech, enemy fabrication, warmongering, and polarization have become so prevalent that they are hardly noticed anymore.

Another protester, seen as students passed through his village, stood next to his tractor. His mother had died in a car accident in 2019 when her vehicle was struck by a car driving a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party’s presidency. Although the driver was arrested and convicted, the two-minute video of the incident was never released, despite requests from the family, defense, and court. It is therefore unclear whether the politician who was in the car had any part in the accident. The only person publicly admitting to having seen the recording is President Vučić, who arbitrarily and illegally decided not to release it. This kind of power, easily translated into violence that supersedes the law, underscores the calls for the “rule of law.” Authoritarian rule corrupts institutions from within, undermining the police and judiciary, which are incapable of operating independently. In this sense, the rule of law serves as a demand against the divide between the unaccountable regime and the rest of the population.

When Divisions Do Not Work

Vučić’s regime has employed all the strategies from the far-right playbook. He has accused students in Novi Sad of being separatists attempting to disintegrate Serbia, claiming they are puppets of foreign services and traitors. The regime has resorted to violence on several occasions—students were attacked by individuals with baseball bats who were spotted leaving party premises in Novi Sad. There were multiple incidents of cars ramming into protesters, recorded and shared on social media. Before the Belgrade protest, Vučić claimed students were preparing for a revolution, announcing a “D-Day” to overthrow his ‘democratically’ elected government. In an attempt to provoke tensions, the regime created a small area in central Pioneers’ Park in Belgrade where a regime-organized group of “students who want to learn” camped, hoping for a clash between the two groups. Regime provocations and violent incidents culminated during the Belgrade protest when a long, terrifying sound interrupted the 15-minute silence, causing panic, which fortunately did not result in serious injuries. Personal testimonies and recordings from the scene indicated the use of illegal sonic weapons, which the government openly denies.

Persistance of violence is what students stand against, as testified by the visual icon of the protests, the image of a bloody hand, whis is displayed on walls, streets, and flags. The bloody hands directly reference the corrupt regime’s responsibility for the deaths of 16 citizens in Novi Sad. However, images carry both denotative and connotative meanings shaped by ideological and mythological interpretations within historical and cultural contexts. In this case, the hands of Aleksandar Vučić are linked to the paramilitaries during the 1990s wars, committing crimes under the political leadership of his mentor Vojislav Šešelj, a convicted Serbian neo-fascist sentenced to ten years in prison by the Hague Tribunal. The bloody hands also reference the special police forces whose members were involved in a series of war crimes during the 1990s and, fearing arrest, assassinated the late Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić in March 2003.

The bloody hand symbolizes the long history of violence that has torn Yugoslavia apart and continued in post-Yugoslav states. It serves as an icon of resistance against the debilitating logic of division, hatred, and both verbal and physical violence.

Solidarity Across Borders

Impressive inclusivity of the students protest is facilitated by the absence of a concrete political program. The core demand for the rule of law is broad but not limitless, and its transformation into a political program could be a long and exhausting process, where insecurity and disappointment challenge solidarity and hope. With violence, the pressure on striking teachers who no longer receive salaries, attacks on civil society organizations, and arrests of protesters, the regime is doing everything it can to suppress dissent. Fear and disappointment are the regime’s strongest allies in its attempt to demobilize opposition.

As students prepare for their 1.300 km bicycle tour to Strasbourg, beginning on April 3, they can count on solidarity in and beyond the region, as the spread of solidarity protests throughout Europe and the world has shown. In mid-March, over 3,000 academics signed a letter of support in just two days, including renowned French economist Thomas Piketty, philosopher Etienne Balibar, and American feminist icons Nancy Fraser and Judith Butler. The long list also includes regional star philosopher Slavoj Žižek, as well as the proponent of the ‘end of history,’ Francis Fukuyama. Civil society organizations, such as the European Civil Society Forum and the International Federation for Human Rights, have also expressed their support, along with the European Greens, who have consistently backed protests against lithium extraction and Rio Tinto in previous years. The growing domestic and international support has led to revisions of earlier skeptical commentaries, such as one in Foreign Policy, which previously suggested that student protests alone are insufficient to transform Serbia. At the same time, there are increasing calls to the EU to end its silence, driven by “greed instead of solidarity, arrogance instead of equality, bureaucracy instead of democracy.”

I began by arguing that the protests in the region hold global relevance as they may provide insights into new, inclusive politics, solidarity norms, and protest strategies. My argument does not rely on predicting the future—social sciences are notoriously incapable of such predictions, often missing key historical turning points, like the end of the Cold War or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead, my argument centers on the inclusivity of the protesters’ strategies, which aim to counter right-wing populist exclusionism, nativism, polarization, and the spread of fear and hatred.

The hope and solidarity generated by the student protests during their four-month demonstration challenge the polarization and divisions that far-right populists have fostered for decades, as well as a long history of corruption and nepotism. This inclusion, rooted in the simple demand for the rule of law, embodies an ideal form of social cohesion that transcends class, race, ethnicity, and religion. It bridges age, political differences, capitalist greed, and resource exploitation, conveying a fundamental message of shared humanity. It also sets a tone for others facing polarization and hatred, demonstrating that civility and decency—rather than aggression and violence—define the ‘silent majority.’ The divisions exploited for political and economic gain—between migrants and natives, between whites and blacks, between Christians and Muslims—can be reframed and overcome. This is the hope of bottom-up solidarity emerging from the student protests in Serbia, and it is the hope the world urgently needs.


About the author

Katarina Ristić is a research associate at the Global and European Studies Institute at Leipzig University. She is working on the intersection of Southeast European history, media and memory studies. Holding a PhD in history from the Faculty of History, Arts and Regional Studies of Leipzig University(2013), she studied philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade (2004). She is currently researching far-right extremism and memory culture in the digital age.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
recentglobe (April 7, 2025). Serbia’s Student Protests: Building Bridges through Solidarity and Hope. Global Dynamics. Retrieved December 15, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13p4r


2 Responses

  1. 02/07/2025

    […] can we learn from protest in Serbia? What will they bring, new hope or anarchy? Which impact do they have? How do they actually look? Stay tuned and follow our flying […]

  2. 11/09/2025

    […] den Zusammenhang von Recht, Moral und Zusammenhalt zum Leben erwecken. Für viele kamen etwa die Proteste gegen den korrupten serbischen Staat unerwartet. Dort hatte die radikale Rechte an der Macht das getan, was sie immer als erstes tut: […]

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