Dimension of Europe Lunch Lecture - Christian Costamagna

Democracy and the Transatlantic Community: Serbian Perceptions, NATO's Actions, and Lessons Learned

This lecture explores Serbian perceptions of the transatlantic community during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Based on declassified Yugoslav and Serbian sources, it reconstructs how Western democracies and NATO’s actions, particularly the 1999 intervention, were debated in Belgrade. By analyzing these contested views of democracy, sovereignty, and legitimacy, the presentation reflects on the broader implications for transatlantic relations and the current challenges facing liberal democracies.

Christian Costamagna earned his PhD in Historical Sciences in 2013 from the University of Oriental Piedmont (Vercelli), with a doctoral dissertation on political reforms in Serbia and Yugoslavia and the rise to power of Milošević during the late 1980s. He also holds an MA in International Relations and Human Rights from the University of Turin.

In 2011, Christian interned at the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade, and in 2012, he spent a visiting semester at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. With a strong regional focus on the former Yugoslav region, he has participated in numerous international conferences, seminars, and summer schools, and has lectured at universities. In 2014–2015, he served as an Adjunct Professor of Contemporary History and History of Eastern Europe at the University of Oriental Piedmont.

Christian has been a fellow at several prestigious institutions, including the New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study (NEC) in Bucharest, the Center for Advanced Studies in South Eastern Europe (CAS SEE) at the University of Rijeka, the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives in Budapest, and the EEGA Leibniz Campus at the University of Leipzig (Department of History).

His primary research interests, focused on the recent past, include the causes of the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Kosovo War, and Serbian politics in the 1990s. He is also a keen observer of contemporary political developments in the Western Balkans.