Belgrade Pride () is an annual

pride parade A pride parade (also known as pride march, pride event, or pride festival) is an outdoor event celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture, queer (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, LGBT rights by country o ...

held in

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

to celebrate the

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

, and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

(

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

) people and their allies. After the first attempt in 2001, which was faced with hooligans

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and p ...

, authorities prevented further efforts to organize and register the event until 2010, when it was organized once again and faced attacks resulting in 100 injured. In 2013 the

Constitutional Court of Serbia The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Serbia ( sr, Уставни суд Републике Србије; Ustavni sud Republike Srbije) is the court authorized to perform judicial review in Serbia. It rules on whether the laws, decrees or o ...

had ruled that the 2011 ban was a violation of the

constitutionally A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princip ...

guaranteed right to

freedom of assembly Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ide ...

awarding damages to the organizers. The third pride parade was organized in 2014 (when the first Belgrade Trans Pride was organized in parallel) without any notable incident, after which the event is organized every year, except in 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. From 2016 onwards, the second pride event known as the Pride of Serbia, is organized in June to commemorate the

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...

. At the conference in

Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...

in 2019, Belgrade Pride was selected to host 2022 EuroPride in competition with ILGA Portugal,

Dublin Pride The Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride Festival is an annual series of events which celebrates lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) life in Dublin, Ireland. It is the largest LGBTQ+ pride festival on the island of Ireland. The festival culmi ...

and Pride Barcelona. Belgrade is the first city in the region as well as the first one outside of the

European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Ass ...

to host the event. On August 27, President

Aleksandar Vučić Aleksandar Vučić ( sr-Cyrl, Александар Вучић, ; born 5 March 1970) is a Serbian politician serving as the president of Serbia since 2017, and as the president of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) since 2012. Vučić served ...

announced he would not permit EuroPride to go forward, citing current tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, economic problems, and concerns that anti-gay protestors could disrupt the event. Organizers of EuroPride denounced the decision and said they would go forward with the event anyway. Vučić and the

Government of Serbia The Government of Serbia ( sr, Влада Србије, Vlada Srbije), formally the Government of the Republic of Serbia ( sr, Влада Републике Србије, Vlada Republike Srbije), commonly abbreviated to Serbian Government ( sr, � ...

then ultimately approved on 17 September that the parade could take place and an estimated 10,000 people participated in the parade walk. Incidents during the parade walk were orchestrated by opponents of Europride.

History

The first ever attempt at the organization of the event in Belgrade occurred in 2001, following the overthrow of

Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević (, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of ...

regime In politics, a regime (also "régime") is the form of government or the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of a government or institution and its interactions with society. According to Yale professor Juan Jo ...

; yet it ended up with the violent assault on the organizers and participants by sport fans and extreme

right wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authori ...

activists. Following the 2010 violence, the parade event was banned by the authorities citing concerns over public peace and order. At the same time,

Srđan Dragojević Srđan Dragojević ( sr-cyr, Срђан Драгојевић, , born 1 January 1963) is a Serbian film director and screenwriter, who emerged in the 1990s as a significant figure in Serbian cinema. From 2010 until 2017, he was affiliated with the ...

produced influential

tragicomic Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious ...

movie ''The Parade'' (2011) which attracted significant audience in Serbia and

former Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...

. Over the years, public attitude changed with two thirds of participants of the

Civil Rights Defenders Civil Rights Defenders (Formerly the Swedish Helsinki Committee) is an international non-governmental organisation based in Stockholm, Sweden that does human rights work with a focus on civil and political rights. They primarily work to support lo ...

research explicitly supporting the right to hold a pride parade in Belgrade. In 2021, requests to introduce law on

same-sex unions A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage ...

and stronger official responses to

hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...

and

hate crime A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demograph ...

s was the highlight of the event.

Gallery

Parada Ponosa Beograd 2015, 001.jpg, 2015 Belgrade Pride Belgrade Pride Parade 2018, 029.jpg, 2018 Belgrade Pride Belgrade Pride 2019, 62.jpg,

Prime Minister of Serbia The prime minister of Serbia ( sr-Cyrl, премијерка Србије, premijerka Srbije; masculine: премијер/premijer), officially the president of the Government of the Republic of Serbia ( sr-Cyrl, председница Влад� ...

Ana Brnabić Ana Brnabić ( sr-cyr, Ана Брнабић, ; born 28 September 1975) is a Serbian politician serving as the prime minister of Serbia since 2017. She is the first woman and first openly gay person to hold the office. She entered government a ...

at the 2019 event Belgrade Pride 2021, 13.jpg, 2021 Belgrade Pride Nataša Bekvalac on Belgrade Pride 2021.jpg,

Nataša Bekvalac Nataša Bekvalac ( sr-cyr, Наташа Беквалац, , born 25 September 1980) is a Serbian singer from Novi Sad. She made her recording debut in 2001 and has since collectively released five studio albums. Early life Bekvalac was born on 25 ...

at event in 2021

References

{{Pride parades LGBT rights in Serbia Pride parades in Serbia Events in Belgrade

History

Gallery

See also

References