The Milena Jesenská Fellowship program, which is generously supported by the ERSTE Foundation, was established in 1998 to enable journalists to work on larger projects of European social, political or cultural relevance and thereby to strengthen investigative journalism and press freedom. The Milena Jesenská Blog provides a new platform for the works of these journalists and allows them to exchange their ideas and views with a wider public.

Mykola Riabchuk

The Land of Lions

What makes Ukraine different from Russia, in the most general terms, is a tint of 'orange' noticeable in its culture, politics, social life and individual habits. One may call this 'tint' a European legacy – part of Polish and Austrian heritage, not fully eradicated by two centuries of Russification and Sovietisation.

Ivan Angelovski

The Sad Truth About Serbian Media

A ministry that pays hundreds of Euros to a newspaper for positive coverage; a telecommunications company which spends one third of its marketing budget for press services – the Serbian media is almost completely dependent on the country’s political and business elite, a new critical report has shown. Not surprisingly, none of the newspaper, TV, radio or Internet media outlets in Serbia covered the story.

Cynthia L. Haven

Hot New Social Media Maybe Not so New:
plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Imagine there's no email, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Internet at all. What would you do? How would you communicate? How would you stay in touch with others? Maybe you would do what people did in the 17th and 18th centuries: write letters and little notes, read posters and newspapers, host discussion circles and salons. The Age of Enlightenment was a laboratory for new forms of communication. They are the predecessors of today’s social media. Cynthia Haven on the information explosion before Facebook, Twitter and Co.

Vukša Veličković

Inside Gaddafi’s Tent:
the Colonel’s Yugoslav Connection

Libyan dictator Muammar al Gaddafi is no more. However, until his very end, he kept close ties with Serbian and Croatian politicians. A Yugoslav connection with tradition. Back in the 1970s, Josip Broz Tito had been a close friend. For the majority of post-Yugoslav states, Gaddafi remained a persona grata as they had tangible economic interests in the North African region.

Oleksiy Radynski

We Are All Russians Now

“Putin Out,” protesters are chanting in the streets of Moscow. Thousands of Russians are defying the bitter cold to hold the biggest anti-government rallies since the fall of the Soviet Union. Are we now witnessing an Orange Revolution in Russia? As the arrests of hundreds of protesters show, the Kremlin seems to think so. Yet, the recent protests have less to do with the famous post-communist Colour Revolutions, and more to do with today’s Indignant Movement, which is spreading globally – and has finally reached Russia.

Slavenka Drakulic

Who created Ratko Mladic?
What remains after a war criminal has been sent to The Hague

When Ratko Mladic faces the International Tribunal in the Hague, he is likely to use the defence of superior orders. But when he asks who it was who voted for Milosevic he has a point, comments Slavenka Drakulic. Will trading off Mladic for the EU allow Serbs to avoid the question of collective responsibility?

Oleksiy Radynski

Not a Single Word About Football

Spectacular sports events are said to provide a great stimulus to the economies of the countries in which they are held. Yet, as is often the case in sports, promises are bigger than the final results. Oleksiy Radynski takes a look into the preparations for the upcoming European Football Championship in Poland and Ukraine, and suspects that all which will be left in these countries after EURO 2012 will be debts.

Mykola Riabchuk

Dichtung und Wahrheit

Where were you on September 11 ten years ago? Most of us were sitting in front of a TV watching the unbelievable: two airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center in New York. Ukrainian writer Mykola Riabchuk, who was a Milena Jesenská Fellow at the IWM at that time, recalls his feelings on the day the Twin Towers collapsed and asks: can we write poems about 9/11?

Cynthia L. Haven

“Invisible You Reign Over the Visible”:
Julia Hartwig’s Reality Mysticism

Ryszard Kapuściński once called her “one of the foremost poets of the twentieth century”, and the writer Czesław Miłosz spoke of her as “the grande dame of Polish poetry.” Julia Hartwig turned ninety on August 14 this year. She has been writing for eight decades, since she was ten. Yet her long career is still in glorious late flower. Cynthia Haven visited the poet in her hometown Warsaw and listened to Julia talking about her life and poetry.

Zsuzsa Balazs

Reclaiming Public Spaces

The urge for answering alienation in European metropolises has given rise to different types of grassroots actions. Examples of these social movements are squatting initiatives, which are increasingly less tolerated by governments and city councils. Zsusza Balazs has visited the few remaining squats in Berlin, Budapest and Copenhagen.

Ashley Ahearn

Military Zones Mean Boom for Biodiversity

Throughout history people and nations have felt the need to divide "us" from "them". That’s why they built walls. From the Great Wall of China, to the Iron Curtain and to the barbed wire fences separating Israel and Palestine, walls were built for protection, out of insecurity and fear. However, while these militarized boundary zones are the physical manifestations of dark periods in human history, they also became a hot-spot for the protection of biodiversity.

Vukša Veličković

Serbia's Guilty Pleasures:
Who’s Afraid of Turbo?

The notorious music genre that became synonymous with Serbia’s nationalist regime of the 1990s has anything but disappeared. Turbo-folk continues to play the role both of hero and villain – as Serbia’s best known "brand" and as skeleton in its closet.

Merlijn Schoonenboom

From Nymph to Playboy Bunny

How is European ancient culture being brought into the 21st century? This was the question Merlijn Schoonenboom attempted to answer during his stay in Vienna. The answer, however, was not to be found in the museums of the city but in a cheap art store around the corner.