Members of Government
Dejan Ristić
Minister of Information and Telecommunications
He was born in Belgrade on 20 April 1972. He is a historian, translator, screenwriter and one of the leading experts in the field of integral protection and management of cultural heritage.
He performed the duties of manager of the National Library of Serbia, director of the Museum of Genocide Victims, State Secretary for Culture and other.
He deals with diplomatic history (Serbian-British and Serbian-French relations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; Yugoslav-Algerian relations since 1954), the Holocaust, the relationship between the state and traditional religious communities in the 20th century, cultural history and the culture of memory.
He is the author of dozens of scientific works and books, among which the scientific monograph entitled "House of Incombustible Words: The National Library of Serbia 1838-1941" stands out, based on which "Filmske Novosti" made a documentary film, "Memories from the Ashes".
He is a participant in numerous international professional and scientific meetings. He attended specialised education in Jerusalem and London in the field of public administration and Holocaust research, as a scholarship holder of the British and Israeli governments.
He translated the works authored by Dr. Jan Kershaw "Hitler - Hubris: 1889-1936" and "Hitler - Nemesis: 1936-1945", prof. Dr. Susan Wise Bauer, "History of the Ancient World: First Civilisations", "History of the Ancient World: First Empires", "History of the Ancient World: First Transformations", two-volume "History of the Medieval World: From the Christianisation of Emperor Constantine I the Great to the First Crusade", as and professor Philip Khuri Hitti, "Makers of Arab history" (as co-translator).
He is a participant in international professional and scientific meetings held in Belgrade, London, Trondheim, Jerusalem, Vienna, The Hague, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Bratislava, Prague, Moscow, Oslo, Helsinki, Brussels, Leuven, Luxembourg, Haifa, Liechtenstein, Bucharest, Ljubljana and others.
He attended specialized education in Jerusalem and London in the field of public administration and Holocaust research.
He is the co-author of the National exhibition of the Republic of Serbia entitled "Military memorials and places of suffering from the Second World War", which won the first prize at the International Exhibition "Memorial 2011" (Moscow, 2011), as well as the exhibition "Petar I Karađorđević - King and Warrior". (Topola, Foundation of King Petar I Karađorđević, 2011) and "Remember me because I'm gone" (Belgrade, Historical Museum of Serbia, 2011).
He coordinated activities on the creation of nomination files for the entry of glory (intangible cultural heritage), the telegram by which Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in 1914 (movable cultural heritage) and stećak (immovable cultural heritage) on the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage.
During his work at the National Library of Serbia, he devoted special attention to the protection and enrichment of the national fund, professional work, publishing activities, as well as the improvement of international library cooperation. He established the model of the national library as a multifunctional institution of culture. In that period, the National Library of Serbia received a whole series of high awards, such as the Order of Happiness, second degree, the Outstanding Golden Beočug, the Award of the City of Belgrade for the best book in the field of humanities in 2012, as well as recognition at international book fairs in Belgrade and Podgorica, etc. He initiated and implemented the legal procedure for the introduction of the academic compulsory copy.
He established National Book Day.
He founded the Janko Šafarik National Award in the field of librarianship.
He founded the Foundation of the National Library of Serbia and the Foundation of the Museum of Genocide Victims.
During his duties as director of the Museum of Genocide Victims, in the period from 2021 to 2024, he carried out a complete reorganization of that national cultural institution, which underwent a rapid and comprehensive transformation under his leadership. The collections and funds of the Museum are enriched with several tens of thousands of first-rate valuable historical and other material sources that bear witness to the suffering of the Serbs during the Second World War, and especially during the genocide carried out against them by the NDH. At the same time, under his leadership, the Museum published dozens of scientific studies, realized dozens of exhibitions in Serbia and abroad (France, China, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro), organized more than a hundred educational programs in Serbia and other countries, produced several documentary-feature films...
He is personally responsible for the discovery of the list of Serbian children saved during the Dijana Budisavljević operation, as well as Directive no. 25, by which Adolf Hitler ordered the attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 28 March 1941, which are stored in the Museum of Genocide Victims.
He is the recipient of the "Seal of Matica Srpska", the Memorial Medal of the Ministry of Defense, the "Golden Badge of the Serbian Prison Service", the Letter of Appreciation of the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, the plaque of the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, the recognition of the National Museum of Serbia, the Museum of Science and Technology, "Film News", "Radoje Domanović" public library in Leskovac, NC "Defence" of the Ministry of Defence for the best associate...
He is married and the father of two children.
