In the winter of 1915, following the invasion of Serbia by the Central Powers, the Serbian Army retreated across the mountains of Albania and Montenegro together with thousands of civilians. Around 240,000 lost their lives. Today, the story of the retreat is little known, except in Serbia where it represents the heroic Serbian sacrifice in the Great War. In this book Alex Tomic examines the centenary events memorializing the First World War with the retreat at its core and provides a persuasive account of the ways in which the remembrance of Serbian history has been manipulated for political purposes. Whether through commemorations, ceremonies or grass-root initiatives, she demonstrates how these have been used as distractions from the more recent unexamined past and in doing so provides an important new perspective on the cultural history of commemoration.

Alex Tomic is a linguist and historian. She worked as a translator and interpreter at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia from 1994 until 2003, and served as chief of language services at the International Criminal Court between 2003 and 2020. Alex was awarded a PhD in history in 2021 at the University of Leiden. She currently lectures at different universities on the topics of translation and interpretation in international jurisdictions.