There are voices that help a region understand itself. Slavenka Drakulić was one of them.

Writer, essayist, and public intellectual, she stood among the most perceptive interpreters of the late 20th and early 21st century in South East Europe. Her work created connections across histories, societies and audiences often separated by misunderstanding and trauma.

Slavenka Drakulić will be remembered as one of the key authors who helped make sense of the transitional and post‑Yugoslav experience. Through her essays and books, she revealed the complexities of everyday life under socialism and in its aftermath, while bringing feminist perspectives into the public sphere and opening space for marginalised voices.

She belonged to a generation that saw literature as a civic responsibility. From her early work in socialist Yugoslavia to her writing after its violent dissolution, she chose responsibility over silence. Her voice, measured and unsentimental, resisted ideological rigidity and simple narratives, enabling readers to grasp the lived realities behind political upheaval.

She confronted nationalism early and decisively, at a time of significant personal and professional risks. Her writing contributed to the early feminist movement in Yugoslavia and to a broader culture of accountability in post-war societies. She addressed international audiences with the same intellectual honesty she demanded at home.

Working with Slavenka was a privilege we deeply value.

At the 2008 symposium »Return to Europe – Talking Balkans« at ORF RadioKulturhaus in Vienna, an event that helped frame the region’s post‑Yugoslav transformation and introduced the Balkan Express documentary series, her keynote »The Balkans – From Noun to Verb (and back)« articulated a precise and nuanced understanding of identity, responsibility and the language through which the region defines itself.

Her voice will remain present in her books, the debates she influenced and in the ongoing effort to understand and strengthen the societies in which we live and work.

Header Image: Jutarnji List, Photographer: Ivan Posavec