Disinformation From A Historian's Perspective
A short fiction of what happens when the expert reflects on who she is becoming
The university press office smelled of coffee and toner cartridges. Zoran Donovan placed his manuscript on the desk, his knuckles white against the black binder. Silver hair fell across his forehead as he leaned forward, the lines around his eyes deepening like geological fault lines.
"We need substantial revisions, Professor Donovan." Elizabeth Carver said, sitting opposite him. She slid his manuscript document across her desk, manicured fingers retreating quickly as though she had to avoid contamination. Pearl earrings caught the fluorescent light as she tilted her head. “Your comparisons between Yugoslav state propaganda and current political rhetoric are too... direct."
"You mean accurate," Zoran said, feeling a familiar tightness in his chest.
"Potentially inflammatory. The board suggests framing this as a personal memoir rather than academic analysis,” Elizabeth said, sighing at Zoran’s truth. He glanced at the manuscript title: Unchanging Echoes: Disinformation Patterns from Yugoslavia to Twitter.
Three decades of research.
One final warning.
"Your concerns about historical patterns are valid," Elizabeth continued, not meeting his eyes. "But drawing explicit parallels between Radio Television Belgrade and… certain… modern media outlets requires more nuance."
Nuance. The word they used when truth became inconvenient.
"The Centre for Information Integrity opening next month has a different methodology. More contemporary," She said as she tapped a glossy brochure. "Perhaps you could collaborate with Dr. Weston."
Zoran lifted the brochure between thumb and forefinger as if handling something unclean. The centre's tagline glowed beneath the university letterhead in sleek blue font: Understanding Cultural Expression in Information Spaces.
Cultural expression is an interesting choice of words. Zoran thought to himself. But is still is propaganda.
His hand trembled slightly as he stood. The leather chair groaned as he pushed away from the desk. The manuscript seemed heavier now as he tucked it under his arm, the weight of silenced voices.
"Thank you for your time."
Outside, autumn leaves spiralled down from campus maples, copper and crimson against stone paths. Zoran paused by the memorial fountain, watching light fracture across water. His reflection wavered, ghostlike, an old man with shoulders curved by decades of carrying memories no one wanted to hear.
"Professor Donovan?"
A young woman approached, clutching a laptop to her chest. Alina Nkusi, his graduate assistant. Her dark eyes carried a watchfulness that Zoran recognized the perpetual vigilance of those who have witnessed how quickly normality can shatter. She had been a child in Rwanda in 1994, her family among the few who escaped when radio broadcasts transformed neighbours into murderers.
"The publisher called again," she said. "They need your decision on the revisions by Friday."
Zoran nodded absently, eyes fixed on the fountain. "Do you know why they built this?"
Alina blinked. "For the students who died in the protest?"
"1970. The National Guard shot four students at Kent State. The university erected this monument eight years later, once the controversy cooled. They call it a memorial for peace now, not a reminder of state violence against dissenters."
"Language evolves," Alina said.
"No. We change language to avoid confronting unchanging truths." Zoran said as he withdrew his hand from the water. "You understand this. The Rwandan radio called it 'clearing the bushes' and 'cutting down the tall trees.' Never murder. Never genocide. Even though that is exactly what happened."
Alina's posture stiffened. "My dissertation committee said comparing Rwanda to modern media frameworks was 'reductive.'"
Zoran looked at her and smiled with the patience of trauma that he could only share.
"Because truth is inconvenient when it reveals patterns we are currently repeating."
In his office, Zoran removed a faded photograph from his desk drawer, carefully, as one might handle a fragile bird. In that photo, a woman named Mira smiled.
Zoran held the picture with as tenderness he would never find anywhere else. The memory of his wife was held in this would never fade, even though the photo weathered. She stood on the seawall in Split, one hand holding her fluttering scarf, the other extended toward the camera. Toward him. Her Serb Orthodox cross glinted at her throat, the symbol she would later clutch when explaining why she must return to "her people."
March 1992. One month before.
His office phone rang, startling him. He slid the photograph back into its drawer as if hiding evidence. The department chair, Robert, whose voice always carried the careful diplomacy of someone who had risen through academia without ever taking a dangerous stand.
"Zoran, have you reconsidered the revisions? The press committee meets tomorrow."
"I cannot remove historical comparisons that are factually accurate."
Robert sighed audibly. "This is about Jameson Industries, isn't it? Their donation built that centre."
"This is about documented patterns of disinformation."
"Your manuscript explicitly connects their media subsidiaries to tactics used by Milošević."
"Because they use identical techniques."
"Which you recognize because of what happened to Mira." Robert's voice softened. "The committee questions if your personal experience clouds your academic judgment."
Zoran closed his eyes. The accusation always circled back to this.
"We value first-hand accounts from war correspondents. We seek out primary sources in historical research." He turned to look at the wall of books in his office, volumes documenting human patterns across centuries. "Yet experience becomes problematic only when conclusions threaten powerful interests."
That night, Zoran dreamed of Sarajevo.
He stands in their apartment with a small suitcase as Mira stood opposite him. The radio murmurs in the background. Radio Belgrade, which she has begun listening to obsessively. The announcer speaks of threats to Serbian heritage, cultural extinction, neighbours who secretly hate them. The voice smooth as oil, insistent as a fever.
"The broadcasts are lies, Mira. I show you the same patterns in my research," He said, holding out transcripts, analysis, evidence. Papers flutter between them like wounded birds.
She folds a sweater with precise movements, her wedding ring catching lamplight as her hands move with tempered disappointment. Her face, once soft with laughter, now set in lines of certainty. "Your research. Always your research. You think you understand my people better than I do because you studied books."
Her emphasis on "my people"—not "our people" as she once said, now cuts like glass.
"Not books. Evidence. Primary sources. The same language from Serbia now appears on television. The same dehumanization before every historical atrocity,” he said.
"You see enemies everywhere," she said, closing the suitcase. "Perhaps the problem is you cannot accept that sometimes nations must protect their identity."
He reaches for her hand. "Please come with me. Just until tensions ease."
"I will stay with my sister in Belgrade. When this passes, you will see how wrong you were."
The telephone rings, shattering the moment.
Zoran jerked awake, his actual telephone ringing beside his bed.
"Professor?" Alina's voice trembled. "You need to see something."
The Centre for Information Integrity occupied the renovated east wing of the history building. Construction barriers still surrounded the entrance like sentinels, yellow caution tape fluttering in night breeze. Through tall windows, the interior glowed with recessed lighting and sleek digital displays. Marble floors gleamed where wooden boards had once creaked under scholars' feet.
Alina led him through unlocked side doors, her footsteps quick and nervous, eyes darting down empty corridors. "They uploaded presentation materials to the department server. This draft white paper for their inaugural conference..."
She turned her laptop toward him, screen brightness illuminating their faces in the darkened building. The blue light caught the concern in her eyes, the determined set of her jaw. A document filled the screen: Rhetorical Sovereignty: Reclaiming Cultural Narratives in Digital Space.
Zoran scanned the abstract, blood pounding in his ears like distant artillery. His fingers tightened on the laptop edge as he read aloud: "'The framework distinguishes between legitimate cultural preservation discourse and malign information operations.'"
His voice faltered. "This exact phrasing—'legitimate cultural preservation'—was used by Belgrade television to justify Serbian nationalist broadcasts." He scrolled down, finger trembling. "'Communities require protective membranes of narrative integrity against external disruption.'"
Zoran inhaled sharply. "Radio Belgrade, March 1992: 'Our cultural narratives require protective boundaries against those who would dilute our identity.'" His voice dropped to a whisper. "Those 'protective boundaries' became checkpoints where people died."
He continued reading, each phrase triggering visceral memory. "'Rhetorical sovereignty may necessitate privileging certain community-affirming viewpoints'. This is verbatim from a Milošević speech justifying media censorship. 'Information filtration serves community cohesion'. The exact justification for shutting down opposition newspapers."
Zoran looked up, face ashen. "These aren't just similar concepts. These are the same words, only polished for academic publication."
"Look who funds this research." Alina scrolled to the acknowledgments, her finger trembling slightly on the trackpad.
Jameson Industries. Through their Freedom of Expression Foundation.
Zoran pressed his palm against the wall to steady himself, cold plaster against flesh. The room seemed to tilt, decades collapsing into a single moment. "In Yugoslavia," he whispered, voice scraping like stone against stone, "they had called it the Commission for Cultural Truth."
"And in Rwanda," Alina said quietly, "they called it the Ministry of Information Integrity. The same words. Always the same words."
Zoran straightened, decision crystallizing. "We must document these parallels before they remove this draft. This isn't just about my book anymore."
Morning found Zoran in the university archives, surrounded by newspapers. Not from Yugoslavia, but from America. Kent State, 1970.
He lined them up chronologically on the long oak table. The language evolution appeared before him like a map:
Students Shot During Violent Protest
Tragedy Strikes Amid Campus Unrest
Nation Mourns Kent State Victims
Memorial Honours Fallen Students
Peace Fountain Commemorates Campus History
The narrative sanitized with each passing year. Violence became tragedy. Protest became unrest. Shooting became falling. History became peace.
Just as Belgrade television had transformed "military operation" to "protective action" to "peace mission."
His phone vibrated. An email from Elizabeth:
Final notice regarding manuscript revisions. Please confirm changes by 5pm or publication will be postponed indefinitely.
Attached was a document outlining required "adjustments." Every specific comparison between Yugoslav propaganda techniques and modern examples systematically removed.
Through the archive window, Zoran watched the Centre for Information Integrity's new sign being installed. Workers carefully placed the university seal beside the Jameson Industries logo.
Zoran made copies of the white paper draft, his hands steady with purpose now. He would need evidence when they inevitably removed it from the server. The similarities were too precise to be coincidence. Someone at Jameson Industries had studied the Belgrade playbook, whether knowingly or not.
This wasn't just academic anymore. The consequences of silence were written in Mira's absence, in the watchful shadows behind Alina's eyes. In the sanitized language that allowed violence to repeat while everyone pretended not to recognize the pattern.
He dialled Alina's number. "Meet me at the faculty senate. Bring your laptop."
The faculty senate meeting buzzed with beginning-of-semester energy. Bodies shifted in wooden chairs arranged in concentric circles. Voices murmured about curriculum changes, parking policies, renovation updates. Coffee and cologne mingled in the air. Zoran sat motionless amid the motion, a stone in a stream, watching the university president at the central podium. His prepared statement weighed in his pocket like a grenade.
After the greetings and pleasantries, the faculty president adjusted her glasses, scanning the room. "Professor Donovan has the floor."
Zoran rose from his seat. Conversations fell silent as colleagues turned toward him. Some faces showed curiosity, others wariness. He had rarely spoken at these meetings. He approached the podium slowly, each step deliberate, oxygen seeming thin despite the cavernous room. The microphone waited, black and patient, ready to carry his words or swallow them.
"I will retire at the end of this semester," he began.
Surprised murmurs rippled across the room.
"Before I depart, I must raise concerns about our new Centre for Information Integrity. Their framework for analysing information distinguishes 'cultural preservation rhetoric' from propaganda. This categorization mirrors exactly how Serbian state media justified nationalist messaging before ethnic cleansing began."
The room fell silent. Zoran placed a printed copy of the white paper on the podium.
"This draft from the Centre uses precise terminology from Radio Belgrade in 1992." His voice grew stronger as he pointed to highlighted sections. "'Protective membranes of narrative integrity' is not academic innovation. It is recycled language that preceded violence. In Rwanda, similar phrases on radio preceded genocide. This is disinformation repeating itself, just like history does.”
He saw Alina nod slightly from her seat, confirming his words.
"In 1992, I taught in Sarajevo. My wife believed Radio Belgrade's 'cultural preservation' narratives. She died because official sources she trusted told her there was no danger." Zoran removed a folded page from his pocket. It was transcripts from Radio Belgrade broadcasts. "The same phrases that appear in this Centre's framework appeared here, before thousands died."
Zoran removed his reading glasses, folding them with deliberate precision. He raised his eyes to meet the gaze of Dr. Weston. The centre's young director sat near the front, legs crossed, tablet balanced on one knee. His tailored blazer and calculated casualness spoke of TED talks and media appearances rather than archive dust and primary sources.
"I submitted research documenting how these rhetorical patterns repeat through history." Zoran's accent thickened slightly as emotion rose in his throat. "The university press requested I remove all specific modern comparisons despite factual accuracy. They suggested my personal experience makes me biased rather than informed." His hand rose unconsciously to his chest, where invisible shrapnel from a war most in this room had only seen on CNN still seemed to lodge between his ribs.
He placed a stack of papers on the podium.
"This is my unrevised manuscript. I have also uploaded digital copies to several academic repositories. I believe this university must confront uncomfortable parallels rather than renaming them. History does not change when we change what we call it."
Twilight painted the campus purple as Zoran walked toward the parking lot. Shadows stretched like memories across manicured lawns. His chest felt lighter than it had in years, as if speaking truth had physically lifted some long-carried weight.
The fountain burbled quietly, water catching last light in crystalline arcs. Students sat around its edges, faces illuminated by phone screens, their fingers scrolling, pausing, tapping. Consuming information, believing some, questioning some. Particles of light and darkness flowing into young minds still forming their understanding of truth.
In his pocket, Zoran felt the worn photograph of Mira, edges soft from decades of touching. The paper warm against his fingers like a living thing. He no longer needed to look at it to see her face—the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed, how she tucked hair behind her ear when thinking deeply, the stubborn lift of her chin during their final argument.
She would have eventually recognized the pattern too. Her intelligence was always sharper than his, her perception keener. Her scepticism would have eventually turned toward the voices feeding her fear.
If only there had been time.
If only words like "cultural preservation" hadn't drowned out words like "stay" and "love."