Dejan Ristić (historian)

Dejan Ristić (Дејан Ристић; born 20 April 1972) is a Serbian historian, administrator, and politician. He became Serbia's minister of information and telecommunications on 2 May 2024.

Early life and academic career
Ristić was born in Belgrade, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He is a graduate of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy and has attended specialized education in Jerusalem and London on Holocaust research and public administration. His academic focus encompasses diplomatic history (including Serbia's relations with the United Kingdom and France), the Holocaust, the culture of memory, and the state's relationship with traditional religious communities in the twentieth century.

He has initiated and coordinated several projects under the auspices of UNESCO, co-authored national installations including "Military memorials and places of suffering from the Second World War" (2011), and attended professional and academic conferences in several countries. His book, House of Unburnable Words: National Library of Serbia 1938-1941 (2016) inspired the documentary film, Memories from the Ashes. He has also translated several works, including Jan Keršo's Hitler – Hubris: 1889–1936 and Hitler – Nemesis: 1936–1945.

Administrator
Ristić began working in Serbia's ministry of labour in November 2003; he was responsible for the protection of war memorials, places of suffering, and the culture of remembrance. He was appointed as acting director of the National Library of Serbia in January 2012 and served in this role until September 2013.

Rumours circulated in 2013 that Ristić would be appointed as Serbia's minister of culture, though ultimately Ivan Tasovac received the role instead. Ristić instead served as a state secretary in the ministry in 2013–14. He opened an exhibition on the Non-Aligned Movement at Belgrade's Museum of Yugoslavia in June 2014, describing the movement's ideals as "still important and justified."

He applied for director of the National Library in 2019 but was not included on the shortlist of candidates on the technical grounds that he "did not prove that he has at least ten years of work experience in culture, of which at least four years in leadership positions in a cultural institution." He submitted an objection to this decision.

In 2021, Ristić served on a committee that organized a cultural and artistic program for Victory Day, commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The program included verses from two songs commonly associated with Dimitrije Ljotić's fascist movement in Serbia. Ristić defended this decision on the grounds that their author had no connection to Ljotić's movement and that the works deserved to be reclaimed from historical misuse. Others criticized their inclusion.

The Serbian government appointed Ristić as director of Belgrade's Genocide Victims' Museum on 12 May 2021. In August of the same year, he sent a public letter to the Jerusalem Post newspaper protesting a recent article by David Goldman, whom Ristić accused of minimizing the number of Serb victims at the Independent State of Croatia's Jasenovac concentration camp in World War II.

Politician
Ristić appeared in the third position on the Serbian Progressive Party's Serbia Must Not Stop electoral list in the 2023 Serbian parliamentary election as a non-party candidate. This was tantamount to election, and he was indeed elected when the list won a majority victory with 129 out of 250 mandates. He took his seat when the assembly convened in February 2024. During his brief assembly term, he was a member of the labour committee and a deputy member of the education committee, the European integration committee, and the administrative committee.

On 30 April 2024, Ristić was announced as the minister of information and telecommunications in Serbia's new ministry under Miloš Vučević. He resigned his seat in the assembly on the following day and took office as minister on 2 May.

Books

 * Zaštita spomen-obeležja iz ratnih perioda (English: Protection of wartime memorials) (2003) co-author
 * Memorijali oslobodilačkih ratova Srbije: Pregled spomen-obeležjau zemlji i inostranstvu (English: Memorials of the liberation wars of Serbia : Overview of memorials in the country and abroad), Volume 2 (2005) co-author
 * Usud Karađorđeve Srbije: Priča o srpskim Termopilima: bitka na Čegru 1809 (English: The Fate of Karađorđe's Serbia: The Story of Serbian Thermopylae: The Battle of Čegar 1809) (2009)
 * Sećajte se mene moji jer me više nema (English: Remember me, my friends, because I'm gone) (2011) co-author
 * Kuća nesagorivih reči: Narodna biblioteka Srbije 1838-1941 (English: House of Unburnable Words: National Library of Serbia 1838-1941) (2016, rev. 2019)
 * Istorija srpske diplomatije: dokumenti: Srpsko poslanstvo u Londonu 1882-1902 (English: History of Serbian diplomacy: documents: Serbian Embassy in London 1882-1902), Volume 1 to 3 (2018/21) co-author
 * Istorija srpske diplomatije: dokumenti: Srpsko poslanstvo u Parizu 1881-1902 (English: History of Serbian diplomacy: documents: Serbian Embassy in Paris 1881-1902) (2018/21) co-author
 * Mitovi srpske istorije (English: Myths of Serbian History) (2019)
 * Zablude srpske istorije (English: Errors of Serbian History) (2020)
 * Legende svetske istorije (English: Legends of World History) (2020)
 * Sećanja iz pepela : Narodna biblioteka Srbije 1941-2021 (English: Memories from the ashes: National Library of Serbia 1941-2021) (2021)