US Cultural Center in Belgrade

In the first year of the Yugoslav civil war, some semi-literate patriot wrote "Gringoes Go Home" on the wall of the American Cultural Center in Belgrade's Cika Ljubina street. He got the spelling wrong (Gringos not Gringoes) but that didn't alter the politics of his message which were crystal clear. Rare American tourists took pictures until the words disappeared in mid-1993.

The American Cultural Center, which is actually only a library, is now disappearing from its address at Cika Ljubina 19, it's going home as the writer of the message wanted. The US Embassy at Kneza Milosa 50 is speeding up work on office space which will house the library from next spring. After 50 years in Cika Ljubina, the American Cultural Center is going to close its doors to the public. They haven't been lending books since September but have been allowing the use of reference books. In its new offices at Kneza Milosa 50, the library will turn into an information and research center with access allowed only by appointment.

John Brown, an advisor at the US Embassy in Belgrade, was given the thankless task of convincing the local public that the whole thing has no political connotation. He said the decision goes back to the mid-1980s when the United States Information Agency (USIA), one of a number of US foreign policy institutions that are independent of the State Department, decided to adapt its wide-ranging activities to technological innovations and the need to cut down the budget. The availability of CD-ROMs, networks like the Internet, speeded up the decision to transform the libraries into specialized research centers whose services are intended for a specialized clientele, experts in various fields, journalists and artists. So they changed the auditorium from everyone to local opinion-makers and decision-making trends in society. Brown said the American Cultural Center isn't being closed down but, because of limited budget resources, it is being reoriented to providing specialized, expert information for people to meet their professional needs."

We're not abandoning the wider public but perfecting our offer, he said. Brown said it will take time for Serbian reality to adapt to the tempo of technological innovations but added that other American Cultural Centers in places like Paris, London and Budapest were undergoing the same process. It's not a political decision, this is happening everywhere, he said and added that every country thinks it is unique and should be an exception to the rule. "Every country is unique and we want to serve each one but the budget doesn't allow us to. This is primarily a budget and technological decision and should be seen outside the context of politics but we know that many countries are worried if the US is losing interest in them. This isn't a question of losing interest," Brown said. He also voiced disagreement with the assessment that the end of the cold war is in some way linked to the US decision not to focus attention on the wider public in former socialist states and energetically denied that Cika Ljubina 19 is one of the last victims of the Cold War.

Interview: Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic

"Bezdno" is the title of Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic's new book about Prince Mihajlo, Princess Julia and Serb history in the second half of the 19th century which Vreme Knjige is exhibiting at the Belgrade Book Fair. Velmar-Jankovic, a writer preoccupied with this part of the world, spoke to VREME about her vision of the times we live in.

Political turmoil and the war have divided society under new criteria. How would you describe the layers of society?

I think it's still to early to speak about new layers of society since layer has form. Amid the social turmoil we have been going through I find it hard to see forms which won't change at the next moment. Quite possibly, sociologists recognize things and are more prepared to name them. As a writer, I see these times as lethal turmoil in people, subjected to different activities by the centers of political power. Those centers are the only clearly defined, almost immovable and their power is truly unprecedented: those centers rule the lives of not hundreds of thousands but millions of people. They rule the lives of fleeing people, that is all of us. Some run from immediate danger, some from dangers to come; some from danger, some into danger, some from themselves, some into themselves. The people from the Krajina, if they speak up and when they speak up, will perhaps tell their children how they lived through the hell of expulsion from their homes to refugee camps, from relative independence to absolute dependence. We are now living through one of the worst periods in our history: the general hopelessness is probably greater now than it was in 1813 when the first Serbian uprising against the Turks was crushed in blood, when Serbs thought every hope of their survival was lost, and the deaths among the people are probably more numerous than in World War I when Serbs fled through Albania after the great but hopeless defence of Serbia. That was a time of death, this is a time of chaos and slow dying.

How do you see the outside, public and inner psychological characteristics of the new classes?

In times like these, every day is filled with signs that say things but which we mainly don't even notice. Just take the current story about gasoline. I can't pay eight Dinars for a liter of gasoline some said and stopped using their cars. I'll give up everything but I'll still be driving around, others said out of spite and continue using their cars for as long as they can. Still others don't even pay attention to the price of gasoline because the cars they drive belong to state institutions. Those people drive by desperate crowds of people at bus stations, by kilometers long lines at gas stations: perhaps they sometimes think the people are suffering and they probably enjoy their feeling of power because, thank God, they're not part of the suffering crowds.

How did the terms civilization and Serbs split up and do you see a way to get those two back together?

I don't know how that happened or when but I do know that splits like those are phony and violent. I can't forget the experiences my friends who now live outside the country have been writing me about in the past few years. Wherever they are, whether in the US or Europe, Canada, New Zealand or Australia, they have this same experience. It comes from the knowledge that the first time they talk to a local where they live now, locals get confused or startled when they realize they are speaking to a member of the satanized Serb nation. And the surprise is always greater if the Serb is cultivated and educated. It seems TV viewers across our global village have mainly adopted the image of the Serbs that has been presented to them as a savage, Slav tribe, with no history, tradition and right to survival in the civilized society of Europe. There is no doubt that we contributed to strengthening that image of ourselves across the world, that we managed to help our enemies, that we did everything we could to assist the destruction of our people.