Alexandria (full name: Biblioteka Alexandria, or “Alexandria Library”) is the first international book review in Serbia. Its focus is on literature and on the history of contemporary ideas. Alexandria was founded in April 1998 byVreme - a highly admired weekly newspaper in Serbia, and Dusan Velickovic. The magazine is printed in Latin letters, on recycled paper, in a 23 x 32 centimeter format. It is a two color publication with a glossy, full-color cover. Very soon Alexandria will become an independent publication, with Vreme as its founding organization.

Alexandria was conceived as a book review that combines aspects of both serious periodicals and popular magazines. The magazine focuses on domestic and foreign books of many genres, singling out those that may soon take a significant place in contemporary thought. Another distinctive feature of Alexandria is the magazine’s ability to find common themes in seemingly disparate disciplines - politics, history, philosophy, literature and art. In Alexandria, core principles such as democracy, civil society, multicultural studies, and individual freedom of expression are at the heart of the magazine’s editorial vision. The need for a literate magazine of ideas like Alexandria is clearly evident in a region where normal (and responsible) intellectual communication has been among the casualties of the conflicts in the region. In fact, marginalization of creative intellectual life is among the prime causes of the current conflicts. That is why Alexandria - as a magazine - advocates an open flow of creative and significant ideas liberated from ideological and nationalistic strangleholds. Only with such editorial values - put plainly into practice in its pages - can Alexandria advance political and cultural life in Yugoslavia. The magazine’s syndication relationship with Foreign Policy magazine and the Washington Post Book World also contribute to its editorial aims.

Editorial Content

Alexandria boasts a number of permanent columns: Millenium; Manuscript; Reviews; Civil Society; Biography; Ideas; Short Story; Film; Rock ‘n’ Roll. These columns run the gamut from serious considerations of geopolitics and economics to features on literary and other cultural figures to wry looks at the intellectual strands that critics find in works on Prozac and pop music. Among the main topics covered in the 1998 issues of Alexandria were: the global economy; young Serbian writers’ handling of the recent wars in Bosnia and Croatia; extracts and commentary on Tim Judah’s The Serbs -- History and Myth; competing Western views of Kosovo and its history; the civil society movement; NATO and Yugoslavia; gender politics; Montenegrin history and the coming fin de siecle. Alexandria published substantial and relevant extracts for its audience from important published works such as Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism; D.M. Thomas’ Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life; Miranda Vickers’ Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo; Carole Pateman’s The Sexual Contract and Carl E. Schorske’s Thinking With History. In addition, Alexandria has also printed extracts from yet-to-be published works by John Keane, Predrag Palavestra and Predrag Simic. The magazine has also features essays and contributions from Jeffrey Sachs, George Soros, Lawrence Freedman, John D. Treadway and others.

Editorial Staff

Apart from its full-time editor-in-chief and a secretary, Alexandria’s staff also includes six contributing editors based in Belgrade, and another two contributing editors based in Paris and Washington, D.C. A number of leading Serbian intellectuals and foreign authors have also contributed. Technical and documentation services have been supplied by Vreme.

Circulation

In 1998, Alexandria published eight issues - including one double issue. The magazine’s average circulation is 3,000 copies, and it is sold for 20 dinars a copy. Alexandria is primarily distributed in Serbia and Montenegro, with copies also distributed in Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. The magazine current boasts more than 100 individual subscribers and 200 institutional subscriptions. The magazine’s potential audience includes educated readers of many different age groups throughout the region.

Comment on Alexandria

Alexandria’s first publication last spring was greeted by comment in all independent media organs in Serbia, and in a number of state-controlled media outlets as well. The independent Montenegrin daily Vijesti has reviewed each issue of the magazine. Alexandria has also served as a topic for discussion on Serbian television (RTS, Studio B and NTV Mreza) and radio programs. A program devoted to Alexandria was broadcast on Radio 101 in Zagreb, and it was honored on the rostrum of a conference devoted to 50th anniversary of human Rights Declaration in Pula, Croatia in December, 1998 as well.

Alexandria has been supported by Open Society Institute (Budapest), Open Society Fund (Belgrade) and Fund for Central and East European Book Projects (Amsterdam).

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