VP Biden’s speech at the State dinner in Belgrade last week included a reference to Serbia’s leading role as a regional stabilizer. Newspaper articles in the US used phrases like “new relations” and a “new page”. “Serbia Welcomes Biden on Balkan Tour” stated The New York Times. To many in DC this was a surprise. [...]
Ukraine means borderland in all Slavic languages; historically it has been the frontier between Eastern and Western Slavs, Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Eastern Europe. Multiple forms of state organization have defined Ukrainian identity in contradictory, self-negating and contested ways. The principality of Kievan Rus was the first major political and urban setting in Russian history, [...]
