Dejan Ristić (historian)

He has translated several works, including Jan Keršo's Hitler – Hubris: 1889–1936 and Hitler – Nemesis: 1936–1945.

His book, House of Unburnable Words: National Library of Serbia 1938-1941 (2016) inspired the documentary film, Memories from the Ashes.

Dejan Ristić (Дејан Ристић; born 20 April 1972) is a Serbian historian, administrator, and politician.

He is acting director of Belgrade's Genocide Victims' Museum and has served in the National Assembly of Serbia since February 2024 as an independent delegate endorsed by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

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 includes 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 published widely in these fields.

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 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.

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 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 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 condemning a recent article by David Goldman, whom Ristić accused of having minimized the number of victims at the Independent State of Croatia's Jasenovac concentration camp in World War II.

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 seats.

He took his seat when the assembly convened in February 2024 and is now a member of the committee on labour, social issues, social inclusion, and poverty reduction; a deputy member of the committee on education, science, technological development, and the information society; a deputy member of the European integration committee; and a deputy member of the committee on administrative, budgetary, mandate, and immunity issues.

He has again been discussed as a candidate for minister of culture.