Polsslag

Polsslag

Hoe één popsong Oost-Europa hoop geeft

PETER VERMEERSCH is a professor of political studies at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, and a writer of narrative non-fiction. His work explores minority politics, memory politics, and pro-democracy movements in Central and Eastern Europe. He has also written extensively on ethnic conflict, reconciliation, restorative justice, Roma activism, and the politics of commemoration in Southeastern Europe.He holds a PhD in Political Science (2002) and MA degrees in Slavic Languages, Eastern European Studies, and Cultural Studies. His academic career has taken him to Kraków, Warsaw, Prague, and Sarajevo, and he has been a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.As an author, he has published narrative non-fiction books with the Dutch literary publisher De Bezige Bij and regularly contributes essays, reportage, and non-fiction to journals and magazines in both English and Dutch.

POLSSLAG, de soundtrack

Luister op
Spotify ⎜YouTube ⎜ Soundcloud ⎜ Apple Music
of via de links hieronder

KINO — Peremen! (‘Veranderingen!’ 1986) — hoofdstuk ‘De song’, vanaf p. 23JANKA DJAGILEVA — Po tramvajnym reljsam ('Langs de tramrails’, 1989) — p. 30THE BEATLES — Back in the USSR (1969) — p. 37KINO — Leto ('Binnenkort eindigt de zomer') (1990) — p. 46TOR BAND — Finita La Commedia (2020) — p. 83NIZKIZ — Pravily (‘Regels’, 2020) — p. 83DAJ DAROHU! — Baiu-Bai (2020) — p. 83LJAPIS TROEBETSKOJ — Belarus Freedom (2008) — p. 83LJAVON VOLSKI — Try čarapachi (‘Drie schildpadden’, 2000) — p. 83LEONARD COHEN — The Partisan (1969) — p. 84JACEK KACZMARSKI — Mury (‘Muren’, 1978) — p. 84PAVEL ARAKELJAN — Cracked dirty stone (2025) — p. 121PETER GABRIEL — Biko (1980) — p. 130IGOR LEVIT — Prelude Nr. 1 in C majeur, D. Sjostakovitsj (2021) — p. 140OKEAN ELZY — Jak nikoly (‘Zoals nooit tevoren’, 2024) — p. 141KINO — Koekoesjka (‘Koekoek’, 1990) — p. 145PUSSY RIOT — Putin’s ashes (2023) — p. 147MOLTSJAT DOMA — Soedna (‘po’, 2018) — p. 163JOANNA STINGRAY — Love is no Joke (1978) — p. 147SHORTPARIS — Jablonny sad (‘Appeltuin’, 2021) — p. 186IC3PEAK — Dead but pretty (2021) — p. 187POMIDOR/OFF — Ja vychazjoe (‘Ik ga naar buiten’, 2020) — p. 205YEGOR ZABELOV — Niti V (2020) — p. 207LITTLE BIG — Hypnodancer (2020) — p. 228IRDORATH — Zorami (‘Sterrenlicht’, 2023) — p. 236IRDORATH — Vaŭkalak (‘Weerwolf’, 2025) — p. 240

LUISTER VERDER
hypnotiserende tracks van hedendaagse bands uit Belarus en meer

> Tien protestnummers uit Belarus: een geannoteerde hitlijst op Beehy.pe [ENG]> Lees de Special over Belarussische rockmuziek van Dekoder [DE]> Luister naar de 'Belarusian summer playlist' van Meduza [ENG]

Video's

Irdorath, augustus 2020, Minsk
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Deejays in Minsk, augustus 2020
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Wanneer de bloemen niet zwijgen, 2021
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Challenging Lukashenko, 2023
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Cemra, Lazaret, 2023
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Viktor Tsoj in Assa, 1986
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Het reünieconcert: Kino in Minsk, 2021
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Bone music, de documentaire
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Josef Koudelka, interview, 2014
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Margarita Levchuk zingt 'Peremen!'
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Beelden

Hieronder een kleine greep uit de vele snapshots die ik tijdens het onderzoek voor het boek nam in Belarus, Polen, Letland, Duitsland en België.

Bekijk meer veldwerkfoto's uit Belarus hier.

Ander fotografisch werk: hier en hier.

De omslagfoto van Polsslag is van de hand van Julia Autz. Haar reeks While I was waiting (2017-2019) bestaat uit portretten van jonge mensen in Belarus. Ze schrijft: 'By showing intimate moments I want to give an insight into their lives: I want to show what it means and how it feels to live under these circumstances. All of my photographs were taken before summer 2020 and show the situation prior to the protests: a hopeful waiting for change.'

Volg het werk van Julia op Instagram.

Lees meer

bibliografie

BIO

Peter Vermeersch is a scholar and a writer who teaches political studies at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). His research focuses on minority politics, memory politics, democratisation, and pro-democracy movements in Central and Eastern Europe. Over the years, he has written extensively about ethnic conflict, reconciliation and restorative justice, Roma activism, and the politics of commemoration in Southeastern Europe.In addition to academic writing, he regularly ventures into essays, reportage, and books of narrative non-fiction—published in both Dutch and English. His books in Dutch, Ex (2014), Aantekeningen bij een moord (2019), and Polsslag (2025), have been published by De Bezige Bij. Narrative essays by him have appeared in journals like The Sociological Review, New Writing, and McSweeneys, and he has contributed to De Standaard and De Correspondent.

Based at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the KU Leuven, he is part of the research unit LINES (Leuven International and European Studies). He earned his PhD in Political Science there in 2002 and holds MA degrees in Slavic Languages, Eastern European Studies, and Cultural Studies. Although he lives in Brussels now, his academic path has taken him through cities like Kraków, Warsaw, Prague and Sarajevo. In 2007 and 2008, he spent time as a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.He co-founded and co-directs the Forum on Central and Eastern Europe, a platform for exploring the histories, politics, societies, and cultures of the region in the broadest sense. He has served in leadership roles across academic and civic organisations, including as research coordinator for LINES (2014–2020), board member of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN), and coordinator of ASN’s Central Europe programme section. From 2012 to 2016, he also served on the board of PEN Flanders, part of the global PEN International network.On the literary front, he is a contributing editor for DWB, Belgium’s oldest Dutch-language literary journal. He has published poems in several literary magazines, collaborated with Passa Porta, the international house of literature Brussels, and worked alongside David Van Reybrouck to coordinate the Brussel Poets Collective (2008–2014), a project culminating in the European Constitution in Verse.

Below is a selection of published material. Tap here to view a complete list of publications. Please get in touch by email for a copy of any articles that are not open access.

Recent articles and essays



Featured peer reviewed work



From the archives

books / boeken

Polsslag (2025)

Polsslag (Pulse) is a gripping and thought-provoking work of literary non-fiction that unpacks how music can become a force of resistance under authoritarian rule. Taking as its starting point the story of a group of Belarusian musicians caught in the violent crackdown on dissent, the book traces the ways in which artists challenge autocracy, how cultural memory is contested and reclaimed, and how, even in exile, music carries the embers of democracy.Published in Dutch
Foreign rights: De Bezige Bij

Polsslag

Aantekeningen bij een moord (2019)

One morning Peter Vermeersch received a letter informing him that he had been randomly selected for jury service. What seemed to be a straightforward case of robbery soon turned out to be a much more complex affair.Published in Dutch
Foreign rights: De Bezige Bij

"Een doortastend, wetenschappelijk onderbouwd en toch emotioneel, zelfs intiem non-fictiewerk." — Annelies Verbeke, De Lage Landen"[Dit boek toont] hoe isolerend het kan zijn om alleen je eigen blik te hebben, maar ook hoe verbindend het kan zijn om ergens met andere ogen naar te kijken." — Nina Polak

Ex. Over een land dat zoek is
(2014)

Een uniek beeld van twee decennia recente geschiedenis op de Balkan, verteld met bijzondere aandacht voor het onverwachte detail. De helden zijn gewone mensen met ongewone verhalen. In dit prachtige, maar versplinterde gebied groeit het verlangen naar een prille, nieuwe liefde."wervelende, melancholische, dan weer hoopvol stemmende tocht door een even aangetast, verwond als vitaal deel van Europa." — Manon Uphoff, NRC"Een hoogstpersoonlijk geschiedenisboek. Een subtiele mix van reisimpressies, gloedvolle essayistiek en poëtische mijmeringen over de Balkan" — Juryverslag Provinciale Prijs Letterkunde voor Proza 2016

The Romani Movement (Berghahn Books, 2007)

In this study, Peter Vermeersch examines the recent attempts of the Roma in Central Europe and their supporters to form a political movement and to influence domestic and international politics. On the basis of first-hand observation and interviews with activists and politicians in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, he analyzes connections between the evolving state policies towards the Roma and the recent history of Romani mobilization."This book is invaluable for the analytical insights it brings to bear and as a rich source of empirical information on recent Romani mobilisation in Central Europe. This comprehensive, thoroughly researched and enlightening study, assisting better understanding and effectiveness of this process, is to be warmly welcomed." — Romani Studies

Edited books and collaborative book projects

Ongoing research projects

  • The role of community heritage in the process of post-conflict recovery (with Gisèle Gantois and Ana Dević). More information here

  • Remembering as Resistance: Inclusive Commemorations Versus Competitive Victimhoods After Mass Atrocity in the Post-Yugoslav Space (with Ana Dević). More information here

  • Recognition and Acknowledgement of Injustice to Strenghten Equality (RAISE). More information here

  • Minority activism in Perilous Times: The Politics of Being Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian in Poland.

  • Forum on Central and Eastern Europe (FCEE). More information here



PhD advisor

  • Jens Meijen (ongoing), Challengers, Prophets, and Underdogs: How Political Actors Use Public Policy for Image-building.

  • Charles Warner (ongoing), A Soldier’s Experience for Society’s Peace: Combat Veterans and Post-Conflict Resolution in Southeast Europe.

  • Steven Langendonk (ongoing), Decoding China's Behavior in International Organizations.

  • Ann-Mireille Sautter (ongoing), Deliberation in Unlikely Places.

  • Marialena Avgerinou (ongoing), Transnational Collaboration in Civil Society across Europe.

  • Terry Savage (2020), Recovering Truth and Transforming Conflict.

  • Niels Smeets (2019), The Green Challenge: Exploring Explanations of Russia's Renewable Energy Policies.

  • Ana Milosevic (2019), Signaling values: Europeanisation and Memory Politics in Croatia and Serbia.

  • Ivan Grubanov (2016), Unnation.

  • Zeynep Yanasmayan (2013), Turkey entangled with Europe? A qualitative exploration of mobility and citizenship accounts of highly educated migrants from Turkey.

  • Heleen Touquet (2012), Escaping ethnopolis: postethnic mobilization in Bosnia-Herzegovina.



Recent master courses

Chaleux
Bretagne
Sijsele
Dublin