{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/dr2p55fk0m/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Interview with Sonja Licht, November 07, 2022"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2022-11-23 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewer"]},"value":{"en":["Whalen, Emily"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewee"]},"value":{"en":["Licht, Sonja"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eSonja Licht explains how she became involved with the EastWest Institute during her long career in democratic and civil society activism in Belgrade. She recounts her and her husband's experiences with the 1968 student uprisings, their proscription under Tito's regime and the time her husband spent in prison, her antiwar activism under Slobodan Milosevic, and the opposition unification efforts of the Bratislava Process. She discusses the importance of dialogue and unification to ensure that democratic backsliding does not happen.\u003c/p\u003e (abstract)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Contributing Institution"]},"value":{"en":["College of Charleston Libraries"]}},{"label":{"en":["Media Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Personal or Corporate"]},"value":{"en":["EastWest Institute","Milošević, Slobodan","Mroz, John Edwin","Soros, George","Tito, Josip Broz"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Topical"]},"value":{"en":["Civil society","Democracy","Elections","Kosovo War, 1998-1999","Polarization (Social sciences)","Political persecution","Yugoslav War, 1991-1995"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic"]},"value":{"en":["Balkan Peninsula","Bratislava (Slovakia)","Europe, Eastern","Poland","Serbia","Soviet Union","Ukraine","Yugoslavia"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type IMT"]},"value":{"en":["video/mp4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright © College of Charleston\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date Digital"]},"value":{"en":["2022-11-23"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eSonja Licht explains how she became involved with the EastWest Institute during her long career in democratic and civil society activism in Belgrade. She recounts her and her husband's experiences with the 1968 student uprisings, their proscription under Tito's regime and the time her husband spent in prison, her antiwar activism under Slobodan Milosevic, and the opposition unification efforts of the Bratislava Process. She discusses the importance of dialogue and unification to ensure that democratic backsliding does not happen.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright \u0026copy; College of Charleston\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/173/393/small/Licht_Sonja_Nov2022.mp4_1673465555.jpg?1673465556","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Licht_Sonja_Nov2022.mp4"]},"duration":4160.928,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/173/393/small/Licht_Sonja_Nov2022.mp4_1673465555.jpg?1673465556","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-cofc.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/173/393/original/Licht_Sonja_Nov2022.mp4?1673465527","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":4160.928,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Transcript of Interview with Sonja Licht, November 7, 2022 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nGood.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2.0,3.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nWonderful.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3.0,5.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nIt works.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=5.0,7.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nOkay. Well, if you could just start by saying your name and what your position is and how you are affiliated with the East West Institute.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=7.0,19.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nSo with pleasure. So my name is Sonja Licht, and I am the founder and the president of Foundation BFPE for a Responsible Society. BFPE stands for Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence. This was our name until a year ago because when this organization was founded by me and a number of my colleagues, well, we were adamant to send a signal that we believe our message that we believe that political excellence is what this world needs and our region and our country as well.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=19.0,74.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I don't want to sound grim, but after more than 18 years, we came to the conclusion that maybe this is looking as a farfetched utopia. Maybe we should in fact get closer to the reality, in fact, to the need to establish the grounds for a responsible society. Especially since my organization, a part of working on capacity building of people in public life, including politicians, is also working a lot on development issues, development agenda, starting with the green and just transition.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=74.0,139.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Just transition and energy. Just energy transition. Must, must. I just heard António Gutierrez, part of António Gutierrez's speech, speech at the COP 27 where he said, \"We still have our foot on the brake but not for long.\" We are dealing with these issues as well. I don't want to say that we gave up on political excellence, but unfortunately for the time being, we thought it is so presumptuous that we need to get a closer also to some other issue. That's a story I was too long about to explain how it happened. Now, my connection to the EastWest Institute, in fact had two stages, in the first one, beginning of nineties, I think it was '92, '93, that I in fact found out about the work of the EastWest institute. Not only found out, but in a basically fundraising trip to the US with my colleagues medical daughter, the two of us, she's from London School of Economics, quite famous author on peace studies.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=139.0,243.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Mary and myself were at that moment, the co-presidents of the International Helsinki Citizen's Assembly that was founded in Prague, 1990, and another person, Min Faber from Netherlands, the three of us traveled to the States to fundraise for the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly, which was standing, in fact, for when we would say Helsinki, they would think we are coming from Finland. No, this is because of the Helsinki Accords in Helsinki in '75, which were basically the beginning of real détente.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=243.0,290.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I must say also the falling part of the Soviet system as it was before. So it was also, of course the grounds of organization for security and cooperation. So we were covering all those fifteen- something countries, and so this was the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly. We went also to visit the EastWest Institute, but that was just the first glance so to say, and the second [glance] was six years later when I was invited to the board meeting of the Mott Foundation Trust, the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=290.0,352.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was together at that meeting with John Mroz and Pavol Demeš from Slovakia, who was at that time a senior fellow of German Marshall Fund and was in charge of the Balkans and the development of civil society first and foremost in the Balkans. So this was Southeast Europe. So this was '99, and I must say it was a very challenging moment when I went to Flint because it was, I believe, if I remember right, June 3rd. So the NATO intervention, meaning the bombing of then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia, Montero Kosovo, was still ongoing. So it was a very also emotional, of course moment for me, but also for the people of the board of Mott Foundation, not, it was not my intention, but at the end of my introduction, most of the board members were crying. So it was really a very, very unique experience. John Mroz at that time was preparing a project with his colleagues on how to support Southeast Europe, the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=352.0,460.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"As most people at that time did, he also left out from the map Serbia, because the fact the one of the, so to say reasons or motivations for the creation of the Stability Pact was also to get rid of the Milošević regime. So after my intervention, I remember so well as if it happened a week ago, John had to leave earlier. So he sent me a small note and said, and wrote, \"Are you coming by any chance to New York?\" I said, \"Yes, in a few days.\" He said, \"Please come and visit me.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=460.0,515.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So we agreed on the time in his office, and when I arrived he said, \"You convinced me that I'm wrong. So I in fact changed the map and put Serbia in and would you like to cooperate with us in this endeavor?\" So I said, \"Sure, absolutely.\" So this was beginning of June '99 and July again, I think I remember right, it was very important dates for me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=515.0,559.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I think it was July 19th, '99. So a month and half later I was invited with a lot of my fellow civil society activists and other democratic activists to Bratislava from the EastWest Institute and the Slovak Minister for Affairs. This was the time when Steven Heintz was the senior vice president of EastWest Institute, and Steven was also residing at that time in Prague. So he and Eduard, the late Eduard Kukan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia, an absolutely fascinating man, decided to organize conference where they invited people from in great majority from Serbia to discuss how Serbia could be, how in fact all those basically were for a democratic European Serbia and how Serbia could be included into this initiative of the Stability Pact and how we could develop a narrative that would convince those who in fact initiated the Stability Pact, that the democratic minded people and organizations should be included.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=559.0,672.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So that was the meeting. There were mayors, there were a civic activist, there were some people from the democratic political opposition. At the end of those two days, I was asked by the representative of EastWest Institute, who was also at the time Vice President of East West Institute, whether I would be ready to head a task force. He first called it the Task Force for the Future Yugoslavia because this was the area of Yugoslavia. Then, since that was quite confusing, it was changed into the process. So this is, I mean, the short version of my story, how it all started. Then those moment, which I need to tell you because talk about oral history! I had a sabbatical from February to April, 2000, in New York City because at that time my boss, George Soros —I was the president of the Open Society Foundation in for Soros Foundation, then foundation for an Open Society in Belgrade.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=672.0,770.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"At one point, George simply directly ordered me to take a sabbatical and said, \"Enough is enough. You must come to New York and take a break because if you are not under my control, I won't believe that you are really taking break.\" This is how I found myself in New York, beginning of February, 2000. I had several meetings with John, and John told me, in fact, that he would like to propose me for the membership of the Board of East West Institute. So it was not a complete surprise, but can you imagine that on October 5 there was this huge demonstration in Belgrade that in fact ousted Milošević, who by the way lost the elections but didn't want to accept it, quite familiar as a practice. So there was a huge demonstration and he had to give up. So of course we were all that night, as you can imagine in the city.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=770.0,851.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"My husband and I came home somewhere around three o'clock, three-thirty in the morning. So until we got to sleep with all the adrenaline and watching what is happening on the newly liberated television stations, we probably didn't go to sleep earlier than five o'clock, six o'clock in the morning that I don't remember exactly. Then in the morning, my phone, my mobile rings. My cell phone rings, and it's John Mroz, they had a board meeting, I think in Vilnius. He calls me — the first person to call me after the 5th of October on the phone to tell me, \"Congratulations, you became a member of the Board of the East West Institute.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=851.0,902.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I started crying. It's still so much, it was really a moment that is hard to describe, that he's the first person to talk to and basically to tell \"We are free.\" So as you can see with the EastWest Institute, this whole story started really as such a combination of clear activism, clear ideas where we, who I can say felt as people who were fighting for years or decades. As it is for example, the case with my husband and myself from '68 on the student movement on. He spent three times in jail as a political dissident during the Tito's time and after who were really suffering terribly under this whole process of renewed nationalism, revived nationalism, pulling part of our country.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=902.0,993.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I mean everything that one can experience in such a turmoil and in such a really existential, protracted crisis. So on one hand, this is all that activism, all what we were dreaming about. Of course our dreams didn't get through, but that's a different story that we can touch. It very rarely do. Of this very emotionally charged, charged experience. I don't, in fact, remember I was part of different organizations. I was part of different boards.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=993.0,1040.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Some of them I really enjoyed immensely that also the board of the European Culture Foundation and of course in first place Open Societies Foundation and so on and so forth, but nothing was that emotionally charged as was EastWest Institute. So those eight years of membership in the board, and plus of course the cooperation until this very day with, so to say, its \"successors.\" East West Institute opened an office in Belgrade. Aaron Presnall was the head of that office. Then Aaron and Biljana Presnall de facto started out of the East West Institute, a spin off, the Jefferson Institute. I'm still a board member of the Jefferson Institute. We had a board meeting two days ago, so on Friday, three days ago. Then of course part of the East West Institute was inherited by the Atlantic Council.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1040.0,1114.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Together with my very dear colleague and friend Maja Piscevic, we continue to cooperate and in fact initiated together with her still at the EastWest Institute, the Balkan Dialogues that my organization is now the principal organizer of. It started in 2019 and in two weeks time, we will have a meeting in Skopje, north Macedonia, and our partner in this Balkan dialogue is the Atlantic Council. It was the East West Institute and now it is the Atlantic Council. So as you can see, it seems if one once met John Mroz and became part of the EastWest family, I think it is simply one of those really situations like with family — you can't leave it. You become part of it and that's it. That's part of your identity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1114.0,1181.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nWell, Sonja, that was such a tremendous story and I have so many follow up questions. Maybe actually what I'm interested too is you know, were living through such a transformational moment in Europe's history. I would love to know a little background on you and how you got involved with civil society work. What was it like to live in Belgrade during those years? I'd love to know, I know we don't have enough time to get into the full rich depth of it, but I would love just a little bit of context.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1181.0,1215.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nSure. Well, first of all, I was born in 1947, a few days ago, just a little thing in the brackets ... a few days ago, friends of mine were in Belgrade, and their 13-year-old son—they live in France, in Strasbourg—was with them. He wanted very much to visit Slavia Museum, a museum of Yugoslavia, but unfortunately couldn't because it is under renovation now. He wanted to visit the museum because he knows his stepfather is in fact coming from here. His mother is at Romanian, both of them are Roman, absolutely great people, great activists, great friends.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1215.0,1274.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So he was very curious to find out why did Yugoslavia pull apart? Why the war? What was Tito doing? And so on. So they told him, \"Well, you see, this is the second best. You couldn't go to the museum, but Sonya will tell you.\" His stepfather said, \"You see, she was an activist during the Tito's time and then Milošević's time and post Milošević era.\" He was looking at me—I mean, 13 years old, very smart boy—with huge question mark in both eyes. So I said, \"Well, with this introduction, I have to tell you that I'm a little bit younger than the dinosaurs.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1274.0,1330.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Yeah. I'm 75 and introduced in such a way. How else can I probably relax him, explain him that I'm little bit younger than the dinosaurs, but I'll tell him. This was in the brackets. Now, well, I think I was born as an activist, and I believe I inherited it mostly from my father because you inherit these things. Of course, I'm a post Holocaust baby, both my father and mother as being Jews went through quite tough, but still —a tough time, but still lucky enough to remain alive. Most of the families just were, I mean, disappeared during the Holocaust, both sides.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1330.0,1397.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I was born in Subotica, this is a town on the the Hungarian border, the most northern part of Yugoslavia at that time in Serbia. I was born in a quite intercultural setting because my mother was a Polish Jew. She was born in Poland. Now her small village is Ukraine, western the west of Ukraine, close to [inaudible] where most of her relatives and sisters lived, and who all vanished during the war. My father was born in Subotica, but although Hungarian was their mother tongue, they very much identified themself in the Yugoslav idea and Yugoslavia, including my grandfather. So we spoke at home Hungarian, at school, I went to Serbian Language School from the very beginning, both me and my youngest sister. So it was a really, an interesting and good enough mix to being brought up as someone who is really, how to say, based in a situation where dialogue of cultures, languages, it's just a norm of it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1397.0,1499.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So although my first language was Hungarian, in fact, I was proficient in Serbian that used to be called Serbo-Croatian, et cetera, et cetera. So it long story. Now after I started, well, I was an activist already in the fifth grade of the elementary school. I was working. I started working for the youth of the Red Cross. As you see, until this very day, it never stops. I was youth activist as such. I participated, for example, in the New Tribunes Youth forum in 1966. Fantastic experience. Three months in different families, different parts of the East Coast with 30 other youngsters from all over the world. So it really made me, in a way, a citizen of the world.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1499.0,1571.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"As I say again, this was the ending year of my gymnasium, my secondary school. So I came back, completed my education, but it started studying sociology in '66, very challenging, fascinating group of professors who were Marxist, but of a very different orientation than was the official Marxism. So they were already in those years understanding that some were not really totally on the line, on the party line is, of course, Yugoslavia at that time is one party state, although not in the Soviet system, but outside because Tito had this conflict with Stalin in 1948. So '60, '66, again, very interesting year.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1571.0,1633.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"When I started studying in '68, the student movement and the new left movement broke out throughout the western world and not only western world, that is what we know best. Students in Chicago, students in New York, in all over the state, in France, in Germany, and I was very sad that everything everywhere, everything is happening. It just Serbia that not, doesn't see anything like that. I remember my conversation with my dad to this before it all erupted. When he said, I said, \"This is incredible. I want to move where there is real life that is real fight.\" He said, \"If you take the streets, they will shoot at you.\" I said, \"You're so conservative, you are talking nonsense.\" Two days later, it all happened. Students of Belgrade, out of a very trivial reason, got together, decided to go into the city center, the police stop them. They were shot at. Of course, this provoked a very, very serious reaction. So this was the very beginning of the 1968 movement at the Belgrade University, but also to at other universities who basically in solidarity with us started the Roman movements in Zagreb, in Sarajevo.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1633.0,1730.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So this was a very, very crucial moment, of course, of my generation. This was the moment that pushed me into kind of a dissident mode. Not because we were dissident by default, but because basically when we saw what is going on and that, in fact, we already supported some of those dissident movements in Poland with the Polish Spring when some of the most outstanding philosophers, sociologists were kicked out of the universities, and such as [Leszek] Kołakowski, such as Balman had to leave the country. So we were already part of this debate. So when this whole thing erupted in Belgrade, of course I was there. I was in the first action committee. I was there to out this whole story together with my husband and my colleagues from the sociology and philosophy department, contrary to many other political leaders of the world, Josip Broz Tito was much smarter. He went on the— [the protests] started June 3rd, on June 9th, he gave a big speech saying, \"The students are right. The students are right. We have to reconsider, of course there is a few percent who are wrong because they are the bad bugs on this horse.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1730.0,1844.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We immediately knew at that very moment that we will be the \"bad bugs.\" This is how it happened, and this is how the trials started. As I said, my husband was, in fact, in 1972, from 1972 to 1974, for four years in ... it was called a \"hard.\" He got a \"hard\" jail sentence. There were normal jail sentences and \"hard\" sentences. So he had his \"hard\" one for two years. Of course this determined in many ways our future because basically we simply, we found ourselves in a struggle for—","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1844.0,1898.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"At the beginning of the student movement, we in fact, were upset that they were lying, that they were supporting a socialist project, the project on equality, a project on human rights, and this is simply not true. But basically we, on that wave of dissent, we were more and more realizing that you can't have any of those values realized, or becoming a reality, in a one party state. That in fact, what we need is political pluralism. Of course, this was Tito's Yugoslavia. There was much, much more freedom than all the other countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain. But—there was a \"but\"— you didn't touch politics. If you touched politics, you go to jail. Our passports were taken.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1898.0,1968.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So this also, this determined also, of course, our intellectual life, our perspectives, instead of becoming academics, which was also absolutely entering the academia to teach there, to work there, which was impossible because we were not morally and politically \"correct.\" We went into research work. My husband Milan [Nikolić], studied one year at Brandeis, started his PhD, and I was also preparing my PhD in the '80s. We received a scholarship. He was there in '70, '72 —no, sorry, in '79 and '81. Then in '88, we in fact received a scholarship from Soros, George Soros's foundation, both of us to go there and to kind of finish our PhDs. But in the meantime, of course, so many things started happening in the '80s.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=1968.0,2044.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nTito died in 1980, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2044.0,2047.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nHe died in 1980, but we were already, of course, on the proscribed list, and then in the '80s, the first civic initiative started to be created.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2047.0,2060.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I was, for example, initiating a group in '83, a pro-abortion group, because all abortion was, in all the socialist countries, de facto completely legal and not even a problem in itself. With the falling apart of the ideology of the one party state, you had, of course, a rise everywhere, including in my own country of traditionalist patriarchal culture, which of course was always around. Interestingly enough, one of its first outcries was the anti-abortion, anti-abortion movement. So I remember that I just came back from London where I spent three months for a study stay, a study trip. I really got to know better the women's movement, the whole gender topic, and how important it is. So I came back [to Belgrade] and I initiated a group of women to get together and in fact, to put a very serious agenda, on why women's rights are human rights and why women's reproductive rights must be among the basic human rights.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2060.0,2156.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So that was one of my new activisms that would be called Civil Society activism and so on. This was the '80s. In the '80s, beginning of '90s, we started the Be Women Lobby with the women in parliament. A lot of different things were happening parallel to a very strong growing antiwar movement where I was very much involved, together with the human rights issues. By the way, my husband was [for the] second time in jail for a month in 1980, '82, because of a demonstration of solidarity with [Polish] Solidarity. Then, for a third time in 1984, there was a big trial for '84, '85, they were accused. It was the Trial of [the Belgrade] Six.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2156.0,2226.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They were accused of getting rid of the constitutional order and so on. So it looked like that, it would be a major [prison] sentence for all of them, but things were already changing. Under huge pressure coming from the west, really huge pressure, including Ernest Mandel, who by the way, was [Milan's] mentor for his PhD work at Brandeis University. So all kinds of things were happening in the same time and a very, very intensive period. At the end of the day, we arrived to the almost beginning of the wars.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2226.0,2274.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We were in the States in the '88- '89 school year when Milošević, the former President of Serbia, and others—already started in fact, destroying Yugoslavia. We were totally out of our minds. Instead of working on our PhDs, we were writing articles, we were publishing in Telos, New Politics, Across Frontiers, New York Times, you name it. We were in fact doing completely different things because after all, I mean, what is a PhD even compared to all these needs. So I once received an award from the Albert Schweitzer Institute in Connecticut, and I was asked to give a speech on myself. So I started it with the sentence, I have to explain to you why I never became, never made my PhD. Simply, there were other things that ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2274.0,2342.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nThere were a few other important things.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2342.0,2346.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nYeah, and then in then in '90 '91, George Soros decided to open a foundation in Belgrade. He was suggested by different people, especially Hungarian dissidents, who knew me well in Budapest, that he should talk to me. So he did, and he asked me whether I will be the executive director of his foundation. He came to sign the contract with the then Yugoslav government nine days before the war started on June 17, '91. So I must tell you, Emily, it sounds completely crazy, but I have forgotten about it— because the war started, and it seemed to me that my entire life collapsed. So the following few months, I really have forgotten about Soros foundation, about my entire conversation almost with him. Then slowly it came back and slowly the foundation started to be established.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2346.0,2429.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It grew then from the end of '91, beginning of '92, on an immense, immense trajectory at the highlight of the foundation, we had more than 70 staff with branch offices in Pristina, in Novi Sad, and Podgorica, with a really very serious budget. In '92, '93, up to '96, '97, for the big democratic—broad democracy movement, we were almost the only donor in the whole country. So it was a fantastic job, a really fascinating [lesson in] how to support individuals, how to support independent research in civil society that was basically born out of a civil war. I mean, unbelievable.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2429.0,2491.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In the same time, of course, the country was falling apart. So George Soros understood very soon that it was impossible to have something that encompasses the whole of Yugoslavia. So he started creating further foundations in Croatia—independent foundations in Croatia, Slovenia, then in Macedonia, and then in Sarajevo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2491.0,2520.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He who never wanted to go in the humanitarian business gave the largest individual humanitarian nation in history. In 1993, $50 million. It was no one else before that did it as an individual. Then of course, in '99, during the after NATO intervention, after the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, the Kosovo Foundation branch office became independent. So did the branch of it in Podgorica, Montenegro. I remained in the [Open Society] Foundation until 2003. In fact, when I met John Mroz, I was still in the Foundation. In 2003, October, I founded the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence. I will never forget a board meeting when Martti Ahtisaari, who was the head of our board, opened the board meeting among other things by saying, \"Here's this young lady beside me. She decided to educate the Serbian political class on how to make them good politicians, please let us all support her.\"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2520.0,2615.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nThat's great.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2615.0,2615.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nThat's basically and I'm sorry I took such a long time, but this is, that's ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2615.0,2626.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nI'm biting my tongue because I want to ask you so many more questions, but we'll move to the EastWest Institute and then I will beg you to write your memoir later. So you mentioned that was a really very helpful, so I can see now sort of the path that leads you to this board meeting with the Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan. You said you remembered this presentation really well. I wonder if you, can you tell me a little bit about what you talked about specifically to bring to bear that this is such an important, it was so important to include Serbia in this plan.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2626.0,2666.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nWell, I of course don't remember the presentation, but I remember that the main thing was of course, of what was happening in my country. So I told them my video, why the bombs are falling also in Belgrade. In fact, I was always in this fear. I [went] twice to the States during this period. My major fear was whether they will let me go in the country [Serbia] again. My family was [in Serbia]. My friends were here, and I was in fact terrified whether they will let me in [Serbia], not whether they will let me out. So I told them, in fact, my major idea was that there are people who are fighting for a different Serbia. That I'm worried that basically this intervention will, and it happened, will inspire or bring a process, which is well known also in theory—I think it was Johan Galtung, the founder of peace research studies, who for the first time coined the phrase \"rallying around the flag.\" That was really our major fear—that because of this bombing, Milošević will in fact gain [support] instead of losing it because people will rally around the flag. Thank God, it didn't last too long. We were afraid it would last longer. We even initiated with a couple of my colleagues and friends a petition—that was in April [1999] when we let civility prevail—where we basically said that we absolutely condemn ethnic cleaning done by Milošević and his power structure in Kosovo, but we also condemn the NATO bombing because, this is not the way democracy will be brought to Serbia.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2666.0,2817.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Basically that was the story. So I in fact, appealed to [the Mott Foundation Board] to understand that there are people who want a different country with different values and that I'm here with them just to pass this message [on]. So this is what made John Mroz change his initial opinion. Then in fact, the Bratislava process became one of the 10 stories in the, I'm sure you have that small booklet for the anniversary of the EastWest Institute. I think it was the 20th anniversary, 20th or the ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2817.0,2856.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nI think it was the 20th.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2856.0,2858.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\n20th anniversary, and there were 10 success stories and one was the Bratislava process. So I am very, very proud of it. I think I managed to help them to understand the complexity of this whole story. I mean, Bill White was the executive director of Mott Foundation at that time. Of course he knew a lot about politics and everything, but most of the members were family members of Charles Stuart Mott and people living in Flint their whole life. I don't even think that they knew Yugoslavia was on the map before I came to talk to them. But it was a really wonderful experience because they—I managed to get their attention and I managed to reach out to their souls, to their heart and souls so it was both, it was really a wonderful.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2858.0,2935.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nSounds amazing. Yes. I want to ask a little bit about the Bratislava process. I've talked to Stephen Heintz and actually I've had one interview with Vazil Hudak and we're doing another follow up interview— I'm talking to him tomorrow.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2935.0,2954.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nI saw him on Friday.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2954.0,2956.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nYeah!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2956.0,2956.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nThe head of the Jefferson board.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2956.0,2959.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nRight, right. I think that the Bratislava Process is such an interesting moment because it feels like something that would be really hard to achieve today. So I would love to know what it felt like to be part of those meetings and if you have any memories of any specific moments from those meetings.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2959.0,2984.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nOh yeah. I mean, look, every single meeting was different. We started, we started in July '99, when we had a very, very important meeting. We met several times. We met in Budapest, we met in Strasbourg, we met in Bratislava. They had a meeting. There was only one I was not present at— when I was in the States, in New York at the sabbatical—in Monte Negro. But I must say for me, somehow, the most memorable one was the one in the Council of Europe in November, 1999 with the full room of diplomats and pretty high level individuals from political fields such as Carl Bildt, such the former—the only, until very recently, the only woman secretary general of the Council of Europe, Catherine Lalumière, fascinating lady from France, a very close collaborator of François Mitterand, the famous French president.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=2984.0,3068.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So we had a large group from Serbia and Montenegro, very lively discussion where people were trying to really to, I would say that the attention was ...It was a Saturday when, by the way, the Council of Europe doesn't work, so they opened their premises, their palace for us..I'm here to say that the most memorable thing for me was that people were discovering a different voice, a different reality coming from Serbia, especially Montenegro and Kosovo, but especially Serbia.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3068.0,3124.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"This was simply a, how to say, ignored, neglected fact that there are some people who know very well that we need a different country, a different value system to be adopted. That yes, nationalism is defeated more or less, but how can we move from nationalism and from this huge mistrust that was developed during the '90s Balkan wars to something which will be a constructive result-oriented, but democratic result-oriented society. Of course, part of that whole process had to be also the reconciliation process. But reconciliation..Look, I learned one thing. Well, I learned many things during these decades and decades...Reconciliation needs time, needs, patience, needs so many other things to happen first. Needs for example, that the fate those people who disappeared were managed, don't have a grave, but simply disappeared, and there are still a few thousand such people in ex-Yugoslavia.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3124.0,3223.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"All these important facts have to be established— that the perpetrators need to be punished. Of course, we all know that not— never every single one of them were punished or sanctioned, but that it has to be made clear that this kind of criminal behavior is just something that cannot be accepted as part of normal life, part of anything that is really life oriented. So when I hear about \"pro-lifers,\" I always think of something else. I think of really how you fight for life instead, or that we are unfortunately experienced not only in the stories of our parents, but my own parents as well, but also in our own lifetime that we never expected it to happen. I mean, it's a very complex story that the Bratislava Process covered, but it was mainly future oriented. So as I said, it was very memorable, this meeting in Strasbourg in November.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3223.0,3325.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Then the other one, which I remember very well was again, in Bratislava in June 19—sorry, 2000. What I remember that some people said, \"It is just a matter of time, we are about to win this battle.\" Others were very suspicious, simply couldn't believe that this is going to happen. So the third very memorable [meeting] was in fact, was in Belgrade late fall, late summer, early fall of 2000. This was already the time when most of our foreign members were tasked because we had locals and foreign members were not given a visa. They couldn't come to that meeting. But we anyway organized it. I remember very well then at the very famous former governor, Dragoslav Avramović, was the head of Union for Change. This was a coalition of democratic opposition.He was at that meeting as well, and the number of party leaders.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3325.0,3419.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They were still thinking, this was, I'm trying to remember... this was still a month—I would say, no, it was summer. It was... something like a month and half before the elections in September 24th, and still the opposition was still jogging with the idea of going in four different columns. Then I remember that people from the Bratislava Process stood up and said very, very clearly, \"Either you go together or we are done. The elections will be lost.\" In fact, it was very much the resistance movement that was started by the students and the civil society who pushed the political parties to go together to create this democratic opposition of Serbia. Yes. It was very heterogeneous, yes. Of course it could operate together for a long run, but it was necessary to bring the citizens out to vote because as long as the opposition is divided and fractured as it is, by the way, today in Serbia, there is no way you can really bring change and change won't happen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3419.0,3513.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So they understood, and I really think that that meeting in the Hotel Intercontinental in Belgrade was a crucial point also where the Bratislava Process proved to be viable, proved to—exactly because we brought together very different actors, parties, union, civil society researchers, local self-government officials, they managed to bring all these people around the same table. We managed to, how to say, to live what we were preaching and we were preaching \"You must get together, get rid of your egos, because otherwise we will all be doomed.: I don't want to say that it all happened because of the Bratislava Process. Of course not. As I mentioned, Otpor, the resistance movement, was really growing by day, all kinds of civic activities and the initiatives by day, but still the Bratislava Process was the venue which brought these different actors together. I, until this very day, believe that this is the only way how you can bridge over these huge polarizations of the societies, your society, our society. I mean this is just destroying instead of building democracy and development.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3513.0,3623.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nSo we don't have very much time left. But I very quickly wanted to just ask you one more thing. At the beginning of our conversation, you said that of all the things you've been involved with, it was the East West Institute that was the most emotional. Can you tell me why?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3623.0,3643.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nWell, because my relationship with John Mroz started in that very emotionally charged meeting at the Mott Foundation Board because the EastWest Institute was the first to acknowledge that what happened, that it is necessary to include Serbia in this joint struggle for a democratic Balkan region or Southeast Europe, that it is necessary to acknowledge that something important happened in Serbia. So this is, again, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that is Serbia. This is why the East West Institute decided to award then president of Yugoslavia, President Koštunica, President Vojislav Koštunica, with the EastWest Institute Leadership Award. In 2000, was it 2001, right? It was 2001, handed over to him by Martti Ahtisaari.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3643.0,3729.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So the East West Institute, as I told you, John Mroz informed me that I became a board member just after the October 5th uprising, the democratic uprising in Belgrade. So I mean, plus the entire Bratislava Process, where my conviction, my personal conviction that the only way how you can go ahead is to dialogue and putting very different actors around the same table. By the way, let me tell you, one of the members of the Bratislava Process was Boris Tadić from the Democratic Party, who then a few years later became the president of Serbia, before—it was before Serbia and Montenegro separated and after they separated, so in fact eight years, he was the president of Serbia. There were many people who played an important role. For example, Dragoljub Mićunović, I must say, the founder of the Democratic Party in 1919, in 19, sorry, 1989.One of the core of the— really the, he's still alive. He's 92 and he's still a bright, wonderful thinker of, I dare to say the most, the smartest political figure of our post-transition period.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3729.0,3846.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I mean, there were really important actors from politics, from civil society, from trade unions. For example, the first deputy prime minister of [Zoran] Đinđić's government was also very active member of our Bratislava Process, a number of important ministers. But the most important thing for me was that we can really make change only if people sit and are in a dialogue that, nevermind how different their opinions are, as long as they are ready to talk to each other. If there is no communication, if there is a gap that is just being widened and deepened, it is a dangerous move toward a black hole that will suck in the entire democratic progress that a country managed to do or is managing to do.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3846.0,3914.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That is my real worry nowadays when I look at the world. I must say also, when I look at the US elections, remember that we had having this conversation on November 7, 2022, and midterm elections are just to happen— I just heard on the news, more than 40 million people cast their ballots already in the mail. We know that there are very, very challenging times ahead. I mean, not only in the US, but in the entire world. There is a raging war in Ukraine and many, many—I mentioned COP [COP27], I mentioned the climate, I think I'm quoting right, Secretary General Gutierrez who talked about \"climate collapse.\" Until now, I don't think he used that word. So basically humankind is at the brink, and we are not able to convince people to give up their particular interest for common good. That can also mean survival of humanity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3914.0,3996.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So this is, again, a complex and long answer to your question, but somehow, all this I experienced in the East West Institute board meetings were absolutely fascinating with serious intellectual discussions. Yes, John Mroz was a leader of extraordinary qualities who was a master, an artist of bringing people together in a way that was almost done without any ... you had the feeling that there is no effort in it. It just happens, but it never happens. You have to put a huge effort in order to make this happen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=3996.0,4054.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nWell I think that is ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=4054.0,4056.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nI also want Emily, I want to mention, apart from Stephen Heinz, I need to mention another name who I befriended and who I really also intensively love. That is Sasha Havlicek. Sasha Havlicek is an unbelievable woman who I remember from the day one when she started working for the East West Institute, where she was doing incredible things to get from one piece of, one part to the other part of Southeastern Europe because she was active in trying to build bridges to bring together the people who otherwise didn't want to get together in the same room. Sasha is, of course, now running the Institute for Strategic Dialogue which became a very, very important institution. But Sasha was one of those people who I befriended and who put their heart and their knowledge into this whole story. This is why this story is such a wonderful story.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=4056.0,4141.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nYeah, it is. It sounds wonderful. Well, I'm going to stop our recording and then I will just want to, before I do that, thank you so much for chatting with me. This was a really fascinating conversation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=4141.0,4153.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SONJA LICHT\n\nYou, you're very welcome. I hope that Karen will also watch this interview at some point.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=4153.0,4159.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393/transcript/41353/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"EMILY WHALEN\n\nYes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1894/collection_resources/82645/file/173393#t=4159.0,4160.928"}]}]}]}