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Letter by Zdravko Grebo from May 1993 (extract), informing about the creation of Radio ZID and asking for international support, May 1993 (Archives MESS Festival)
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Letter by Haris Pašović to a theater in Stockholm, 17.8.1993 (Archives MESS Festival)
MESS Festival
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Panel with Tadeusz Mazowiecki during the 4th Assembly of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly in Tuzla in 1995,  organised in cooperation with the Forum of Tuzla Citizens  (extract of the HCA brochure “Unite the citizens, unite the nations”)
Forum of Tuzla Citizens

Radio Zid

The independent radio station ZID (The Wall) was created in late 1992 by Zdravko Grebo, Law Professor at the University of Sarajevo, who had emerged since 1990 as one of the leading public intellectuals in Sarajevo. Grebo was a key figure also in other initiatives, for example as BiH-representative of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly and as first director of the Open Society Fund BiH.

Radio ZID saw its mission to preserve Sarajevo’s civic spirit and urban culture attacked and threatened by war and nationalism. Run by only a few full-time employees and a lot of volunteers, the station was broadcasting 24 hours a day, with a wide variety of programs. Different artists and intellectuals had their own shows, and ZID was particularly committed to support the very active music underground scene in Sarajevo. The most iconic event in this regard was the “Rock under the siege”-concert organized in January 1995. But Radio Zid participated also in the organisiation of many other local and international events, such as the “Hiroshima 45 -Sarajevo 1993”-Days, or the Laibach-concert in 1995.

Also thanks to Grebo’s good international connections, Radio ZID became internationally known as one of the symbols of Sarajevo’s spiritual resistance against the siege and all forms of nationalism, not so much because the radio station expressed explicit political positions (what it didn’t), but by its mere incarnation and promotion of alternative culture, urban and cosmopolitan values and sense of humor in a context of violence. Radio ZID also benefited from moral and material support from different international groups and initiatives, especially in order to establish and improve its technical equipment. In autumn 1994, for example, Radio ZID received its own generator so that it was not dependent anymore from other (often unreliable) electricity sources within the besieged city ;  this donation had been made possible thanks to a campaign launched in the Netherlands, especially by the Amsterdam-based solidarity group “Press Now”.

More Information

Larisa Kurtovic, The Paradoxes of Wartime “Freedom”: Alternative Culture during the Siege of Sarajevo (2012)

Category: Stories Tags: Civic groups, Culture, Media
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How to act

Građanske grupe, Kultura, Mediji

Solidarity map

Bosna i Hercegovina, Sarajevo

Chronology

1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996

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4th HCA Assembly in Tuzla, 1995, booklet cover (Personal archives Bernard Dréano)

Helsinki Citizens Assembly

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Photo by Zoran Kanlić (Archives History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Laibach-concert

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Message from IKV/Interreligious Church Council, 1993 (Archives MESS Festival)

“Hiroshima 45 – Sarajevo 93

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Cover and extract of the 1994 annual report of the Open Society Fund Bosnia and Herzegovina (Open Society Fund BiH, Digital Archive)

Open Society Fund Bosnia and Herzegovina

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100 stories about solidarity initiatives in Europe with citizens of Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 war.

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History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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