ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates what young Belgraders thought of their foreign counterparts' activities—and especially, though not exclusively, those of the West. It discusses partially inspired by Paulina Bren's "1968 East and West: Visions of Political Change and Student Protest from across the Iron Curtain," which similarly discusses Czechoslovak students' opinions of Western student rebellion in 1968. The chapter focuses on 1968, a turning point for Belgrade youths' own activism and cultural production, and in their interest in the outside world. It argues that for the politically and culturally active youth of Belgrade global community of their peers—for better and for worse—and not just a fashionable way of expressing individuality or dissatisfaction. The chapter draws on Belgrade's student press, a key means by which the city's youth stayed informed. It deals with a vignette wherein a Belgrade University student saw protest in Madrid as a reassuring sign that Spain was a normal European society.
