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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Initiative to ban photo exhibition “Serbian Woman” attack on historic memory

Belgrade, 10 November 2025

The Ministry of Culture condemned the public signs and announcements of the initiative to ban the photo exhibition “Serbian Woman”, which was planned to be opened in Vukovar on 11 November on the occasion of Armistice Day.

The Ministry of Culture also expresses deep regret for the reckless attack on historical memory, freedom of expression, contempt for the role of women in the horrors of war in which the whole world burned for the first time in its history for four whole years, as well as the arrogant trampling over one of the most sublime occasions on the world calendar, the day when peace came, at the end of the terrible First World War.

Unfortunately, it is obvious that neither the celebration of world peace, nor the role of women in war, which should not offend anyone, nor the global demand for respect for the right to freedom of expression and culture, represent an obstacle to the motive that is, unfortunately, prevalent and inexorable in present-day Croatia, to ruthlessly persecute everything Serbian, even the word Serbian, openly and cynically.

Moreover, what reveals the depth of cynicism is the belief that the very occasion or title of the exhibition is provocative.

Namely, it is an explicit belief that it is legitimate to say that the name Serbian, as undesirable, erases, say, among other things, the significance of Armistice Day and the role of women in it.

One would expect such impulses to be at least shyly or superficially concealed.

However, this is not happening, and what is clearly at work is the burden of revisionism, which, once it begins to falsify and distort history, drags with it its terrible burden of carelessness.

The deep sorrow and anxiety caused by this situation stems from the fact that the historical experience of the Serbian people in older and more recent history recognises the prohibition and persecution of culture, a kind of culturicide, not only as a symbolic outpouring of hatred, but also as an introduction to the suffering of epic proportions to which the Serbian people have been exposed several times in their history, according to a statement from the Ministry of Culture.