Sarajevo Red Line | |
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Genre | Memorial Event |
Location | Marshal Tito street, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
Creative team | |
Director and Author | Haris Pasovic |
Set Design | Lada Maglajlic |
Costume Design | Oshyosh – Irma Saje Vanja Cira |
Music Director | Merima Ključo |
Artistic Director of "Art Vivo" | Danijel Zontar |
Performers | Ensemble “Art Vivo” Jasna Diklić |
Soloists | Ivica Šarić Aida Corbadžić |
Accordion | Merima Ključo |
Music | All arrangements and compositions by Merima Ključo and Danijel Žontar |
School Choirs | Sarajevo Elementary and High school students |
Art Director (Design) | Bojan Hadžihalilović |
Poster Design | Vedad Orahovac |
Video Design | Antonio Ilić |
Photography | Midhat Mujkić |
Brochure Design | Enes Huseinčehajić |
Other information | |
Accountant | Sanela Brcic |
PR Manager and Production Assistant | Bruno Lovric |
Program Manager | Lejla Abazovic |
Executive Producer | Ismar Hadziabdic |
Producer | Haris Pasovic |
Official website |
Sarajevo Red Line (locally: Sarajevska Crvena Linija) is the name of the memorial event organized in cooperation between the City of Sarajevo and East West Theatre Company which commemorated the Siege of Sarajevo's 20th anniversary. It was held April 6, 2012, in the main Sarajevo street and it consisted of a large chair installation, street exhibition of war posters and a concert. Authors describe Sarajevo Red Line as a drama and music poem dedicated to the Sarajevo citizens killed during the 1992-96 siege of their city. [1] [2]
The central event of Sarajevo Red Line was staged near the Eternal Flame monument. [3]
From the stage near the flame down the Maršal Tito Street, 11,541 empty red chairs were arranged in 825 rows (as an audience). This red “audience” stretched for 800 meters and ended in the area between the building of the Presidency of BiH and Ali-pasha’s Mosque. 11,541 empty chairs symbolized 11,541 victims of the war which, according to Research and Documentation Center were killed during the Siege of Sarajevo. [4] [5] 643 of the chairs were small, representing the slain children. On some of them, during the day-long event, passers-by left teddy bears, little plastic cars, other toys or candy. [6]
The program consisted of poetry and music. It was performed by Merima Ključo, internationally renowned accordion player, along with the Sarajevo classical music choir, Art Vivo led by Danijel Žontar, composer and choir’s artistic director, soloists; Ivica Šarić, Aida Čorbadžić, Ivan Šarić, Amir Saračević, Dragan Pavlović, Leo Šarić and Deniza Đipa. The program also included a large school choir consisting of 750 students from Sarajevo elementary and high schools. [7] [8] At the end of the ceremony, they lined up among the red chairs and sang John Lennon's legendary song: "Give Peace a Chance.". [9] The plan for the Sarajevo Red Line, was first publicly presented on March 27 at the Sarajevo City Hall by a team of artists and officials.
The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sentenced two former Bosnian-Serb generals for overseeing the siege of Sarajevo. Stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević were both found guilty of terrorizing civilians in Sarajevo and sentenced to life imprisonment and 29 years' imprisonment respectively. The siege of Sarajevo lasted 44 months and is considered today the longest in modern history. Most of the people killed in the city were hit by snipers and bombs fired from the surrounding Serb-held mountains.
The April 6, 2012 commemoration was the first time that Sarajevo has put on an official program of this scale in memory of the victims of the siege. [10]
In 2014, an exhibition of photographs from the Sarajevo Red Line opened in Istanbul, Turkey. [11]
During the Siege of Sarajevo, 380,000 people were left without food, electricity, water or heating during 46 months, hiding from the 330 shells a day that smashed into the city. On April 6, 1992, around 40,000 people from all over the country – Muslim Bosniaks, Christian Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats – poured into a square further down the red street demanding peace from their quarrelling nationalist politicians.
The European Community had recognized the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia as an independent state after most of its people voted for independence. However, the vote went down along ethnic lines, with Bosniaks and Croats voting for independence, and Bosnian Serbs preferring to stay with Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.
The ethnic unity being displayed on the Sarajevo square irritated Serb nationalists, who then shot into the crowd from a nearby hotel, killing 5 people and marking the start of the 1992-1995 war. The Serb nationalists, helped by neighbouring Serbia, laid siege to Sarajevo and within a few months occupied 70% of Bosnia, expelling all non-Serbs from territory they controlled.
Bosniaks and Croats – who started off as allies – subsequently turned against each other, so that all three groups ended up fighting a war that made half of the population homeless and left the once-ethnically mixed country devastated and divided into mono-ethnic enclaves. [12]
It is estimated that during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 100,000 people were killed. Thousands of people were raped and hundreds of thousands of people were forced out of their homes or fled before a peace accord was signed in 1995. During nearly four years of siege, an average of 329 grenades fell on Sarajevo each day. The daily record of 3,777 grenades was tallied on July 22, 1993. [13]
Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo Canton, East Sarajevo and nearby municipalities is home to 555,210 inhabitants. Located within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of the Balkans, a region of Southern Europe.
The siege of Sarajevo was a prolonged blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. After it was initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav People's Army, the city was then besieged by the Army of Republika Srpska. Lasting from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996, it was three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad, more than a year longer than the siege of Leningrad, and was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
Doboj is a city in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated on the banks of the Bosna river, in the northern region of Republika Srpska. As of 2013, it has a population of 71,441 inhabitants.
The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started on 6 April 1992, following a number of earlier violent incidents. The war ended on 14 December 1995 when the Dayton accords were signed. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, and the Republika Srpska, the latter two entities being proto-states led and supplied by Croatia and Serbia, respectively.
The Sarajevo Canton, officially the Canton of Sarajevo, is one of the ten cantons of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its cantonal seat is the city of Sarajevo, also the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This article is about the Demographic history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and deals with the country's documented demographics over time. For an overview of the various ethnic groups and their historical development, see Ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Dražen "Žera" Žerić is a Bosnian singer and one of the founders and lead vocalist of famous Bosnian band, Crvena Jabuka.
The Croat–Bosniak War was a conflict between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, supported by Croatia, that lasted from 18 October 1992 to 23 February 1994. It is often referred to as a "war within a war" because it was part of the larger Bosnian War. In the beginning, the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) fought together in an alliance against the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS). By the end of 1992, however, tensions between Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats increased. The first armed incidents between them occurred in October 1992 in central Bosnia. The military alliance continued until early 1993, when it mostly fell apart and the two former allies engaged in open conflict.
Haris Pašović is a Bosnian theatre director. Over the course of his career, he has also worked as a playwright, producer, choreographer, performer, and designer. He is best known for his productions of Wedekind's “Spring Awakening”. He is the artistic leader of the East West Theatre Company in Sarajevo and tenured Professor of Directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo.
The Bosniaks are a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia, which is today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who share a common Bosnian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Kosovo as well as in Austria, Germany, Turkey and Sweden. They also constitute a significant diaspora with several communities across Europe, the Americas and Oceania.
Ethnic cleansing occurred during the Bosnian War (1992–95) as large numbers of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats were forced to flee their homes or were expelled by the Army of Republika Srpska and Serb paramilitaries. Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs had also been forced to flee or were expelled by Bosnian Croat forces, though on a restricted scale and in lesser numbers. The UN Security Council Final Report (1994) states while Bosniaks also engaged in "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law", they "have not engaged in "systematic ethnic cleansing"". According to the report, "there is no factual basis for arguing that there is a 'moral equivalence' between the warring factions".
The siege of Mostar was fought during the Bosnian War first in 1992 and then again later in 1993 to 1994. Initially lasting between April 1992 and June 1992, it involved the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) fighting against the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia. That phase ended in June 1992 after the success of Operation Jackal, launched by the Croatian Army (HV) and HVO. As a result of the first siege around 90,000 residents of Mostar fled and numerous religious buildings, cultural institutions, and bridges were damaged or destroyed.
Merima Ključo is a Bosnian concert accordionist and composer. In 1993 she moved to the Netherlands as a refugee of the Bosnian War. Currently she is a Bosnian-Dutch citizen. After receiving a Genius visa in 2011 she became an American resident and is based in Los Angeles.
On 5 April 1992, in response to events all over Bosnia and Herzegovina 100,000 people of all nationalities turned out for a peace rally in Sarajevo. Serb Democratic Party (SDS) snipers in the Holiday Inn in the heart of Sarajevo opened fire on the crowd, killing six people and wounding several more. Suada Dilberović and an ethnic Croat woman Olga Sučić were in the first rows, protesting on the Vrbanja bridge at the time. The bridge on which Sučić and Dilberović were killed was later renamed in their honor. Six SDS snipers were arrested, but were exchanged when the SDS threatened to kill the commander of the Bosnian police academy who had been captured the previous day, after the Serb paramilitaries took over the academy and arrested him.
Around 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, 1 March 1992, a Bosnian Serb wedding procession in Sarajevo's old Muslim quarter of Baščaršija was attacked, resulting in the death of the father of the groom, Nikola Gardović, and the wounding of a Serbian Orthodox priest. The attack took place on the last day of a controversial referendum on Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence from Yugoslavia, in the early stages of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav Wars.
The Exodus of Sarajevo Serbs was the migration of ethnic Serbs from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, between January and March 1996 after the Dayton Agreement that concluded the Bosnian War (1992–95).
Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina has gained international notoriety for its diverse range of street art and associated subcultures. The city has a long history of street art that was first tied to various subcultures in the 1970s and 1980s. During the Bosnian war political and anti-war street art was one of the main artistic focal points of the besieged city. Today, Sarajevo is a European center for street art and hosts two international festivals dedicated to the art form.
The Bradina massacre was the mass murder of at least 48 Bosnian Serb civilians by joint Bosniak and Bosnian Croat forces on May 25, 1992, in the village of Bradina, located in the municipality of Konjic, during the Bosnian War.
Marshal Tito street, or Tito's street, is one of the main streets in Sarajevo, located in the Centar Municipality. The street is named after Josip Broz Tito, the former President of Yugoslavia.
The siege of Žepa was a three-year long siege of the small Bosnian town of Žepa which had lasted from the summer of 1992 – July 1995 during the Bosnian War. It was initially besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) until it switched to the VRS. Throughout the siege, Žepa was part of the Srebrenica–Žepa link in eastern Bosnia. From April 1992 – February 1993, the ARBiH and the civilians of Žepa successfully resisted the Bosnian Serb army due to applying to guerrilla warfare.