The siege of Sarajevo lasted 1,425 days. "Being under siege" meant accepting the fact that the former way of living has disappeared and that the abnormal is becoming normal. Continuing a normal life, creating even in limited circumstances, for all citizens of Sarajevo under siege was as important as water, bread or medicine. Theatre professionals, directors, actors, set and costume designers created a cultural miracle without the basic means for work. The news from Sarajevo spread to the world that theatre did not die during the siege. Moreover, the theatre scene produced its unique and unrepeatable expression, created in hopeless conditions.

Premiere of „Shelter“

„The play did accomplish something that we could not expect at that moment, and this is expressed in the words of one Sarajevan woman who watched the play 10 times and wrote the following note in our book of comments: ‘Thank you, actors of Sarajevo, for helping us not go crazy.’ Let me put it this way, for the first time in my considerable experience, I realized that the theater can truly function as what psychiatrists call psychodrama, as a method of diagnosis and therapy. As the creators of this play, we were presented with an ethical dilemma that we had to solve: is it ethically appropriate, and if so, to what degree is it appropriate to do theatre in moments when all around us people are suffering and dying. Of course, this dilemma lasted only a short time. Until we realized that show, as well as the enormous theatre production that was initiated by that show, did an exceptional amount of good for Sarajevans, both as some sort of therapy, and as an affirmation of our struggle and resistance in Sarajevo, because the play very quickly reached the pages of the foreign press, the world media. And at the time it was treated as a sort of cultural wonder, at least that's when it began to be referred to as a cultural wonder.“ - Safet Plakalo, Writer

Destruction

Sarajevo under siege also defended itself with a culture of living and thus contributed to mental survival. In a situation of total destruction, without electricity, without water, without basic means for work, the theatre survives. The theatre plays, which premiered during the siege, were created on the ruins and ashes of a city and saved a world from its complete destruction. These works became relics of a spaceless time and, as such, the performances of these plays remain unrepeatable.

Premiere of „Shelter“

„Some of the people who came who perhaps had never been in the theatre, but who were commanders of the defence of Sarajevo at the time. The field telephones of the commanders were ringing with military calls, while the actors were doing the performance of their life, I guess. I do not know exactly how many shells fell that day because I’m not a statistician, but the explosions were heard during the performance. Not only a couple of shells fell nearby, but a great number. The best part about it was that a person who was hungry or thirsty at that moment enjoyed the fact that the actors had the strength to tell their story about Sarajevo during the war.“ - Zoran Bečić, Actor

Mapping of the Siege of Sarajevo

National theatre - The Neo-renaissance building built in 1898 is located by the Post Office bridge which was a dangerous sniper zone. Regardless of the continual danger from the snipers and shelling, the theatre staged performances which filled the cold auditorium that had not been heated for years. The repertoire consisted of all kinds of plays from Greek tragedies to contemporary plays or the Japanese No plays.

Adaptation

Survival through work and creation becomes the basic rule of every individual during the siege of the city. Theatre actors and directors worked during the entire siege of Sarajevo, they gathered in theatre rooms, practiced texts, and participated in a collective creative ritual, thus resisting the destruction of civilizational values. Among the theatre productions that were created during the war are the plays "Shelter", "In the Country of Last Things”, "Waiting for Godot", "Alcestis", "Hair", "No Theatre" and many more. The International Theatre Film Festival, formerly MES, played a special role in the creation of plays, festivals and theatre events. In addition, the youngest theatre in Sarajevo, the Sarajevo War Theatre SARTR, was founded in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo. In the period from 1992 to 1995, around 2,000 plays were performed on the theatre stages of Sarajevo.

Susan Sontag in Sarajevo

„In the summer of ’92 some professionals tried to get various projects going which would mark a continuity of life in the city, a continuity of creativity. Something that in that time of siege would have as much meaning for us as bread or medicine or water or anything else that is vital for normal human needs. In the summer of ’92, FAMA started their Survival project then there was the performance of ‘Shelter’ in September ’92. Then, ‘Hair’, in winter ’92. And when I came to Sarajevo we started to organize the International Theatre and Film Festival MES, and one of the first performances was ‘Alcestis’ in August ’93. And at that time, sometimes in ’93, there was snow in the winter. Then in April or a bit earlier Susan Sontag came to Sarajevo. We agreed then that she should come again in the summer of ’93 and produce a performance of ‘Waiting for Godot’. The premiere was sometime in the middle of August and made a great stir not only in Sarajevo but beyond. It was the first time that a cultural event in Sarajevo made page one of the Washington Post and also the first time that the news got out that something else not just dying was happening in Sarajevo.” - Haris Pašović, Director

Programme of The International Theatre and Film Festival Sarajevo

Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot (17.8.1993)
Executive Producer: Hariš Pašović
Director: Susan Sontag

“'The play could have been written for Sarajevo', said the American author Susan Sontag of 'Waiting for the Godot', which she is directing in the besieged city.

'The rehearsals in the Youth Theatre are a cameo of life under siege. There is no electric light. Actors pore over their lines by the light of two candles and a lamp donated by Soros Foundation. The rehearsal stopped when the cast heard one of Sarajevo's best-known actors had been killed that day by a shell in the market. The actors are all hungry. 'They sit down when they are not acting because they are weak', Ms Sontag said.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/a-long-wait-for-godot-1458649.html

FAMA Collection - Visual Archives 1992-1996 (MES "No Teatar", Ines Fančović)

An actor loses two kilos per performance

„Well today, it’s no problem whatsoever to lose two kilograms and then go somewhere after the show and immediately make up for those two lost kilos. But when you lose two kilos in addition to ten lost before that, then those two kilos are like losing ten today, I guess, but who knows. Anyway, I’m still alive. Well, that was, how should I put this, a romantic feeling with a special meaning. Kind of like when you have dinner with someone who is very dear to you, and you light a candle to make it more special. When I see a candle today, there’s no way that I could light them and prepare an upbeat night, you know? With a cheery atmosphere and all that. But then candlelight had its own charm. Acting under candlelight, in front of an audience that’s following you as if you are lit up by a hundred kilowatts, is a feeling that I as an actor will probably never have again.“ - Admir Glamočak, Actor

Premiere of „Waiting for Godot“

„The premiere of 'Waiting for Godot' was on 17 August ’93 at 2 o'clock and the next performance at 18 o'clock in the afternoon. After a month of work, we finally saw what we had accomplished. I was responsible for the scenery and the costumes. After a month’s work in all kinds of conditions getting the performance ready it seemed to us, we had the feeling that it was good. The performance begins with a replica of 'Nothing can be done', but we had managed in spite of everything to do something. We only had candles and I had conceived the whole scenery on the relations between light and dark. We worked with 12 candles and with aluminium foil that we all knew as UNHCR’s and improvisation with a tree, because a tree is an essential element. We needed quite a lot of small props that it was difficult to get hold of but which were essential for the production. Let's say a horsewhip, quite simple small things were a problem. Until practically the last week we couldn't get some things, some picnic baskets to put carrots in and a chicken. Susan Sontag was getting desperate because those little props didn't arrive until the very last week. The whole things began to look to her hopeless, then in the last week everything was somehow solved.“ - Ognjenka Finci, Architect and Designer

Recycling

The citizens of Sarajevo realized that they had to create an alternative way of life in order to survive. One of the important aspects of this new way of life was the repurposing of objects in order to replace everything that was not available during the siege. Improvisation, invention and recycling became tools for survival and work. In the absence of props and basic means of work, theatre directors and actors find alternative methods of creating the theatrical illusion on stage. Old theatre costumes are used, repurposed, used clothing and household items are brought in, and UNHCR's protective window foil is given a completely new purpose.

Hunger in Sarajevo

„We went to find the costumes, because we couldn't afford to make new ones. I picked one costume from the wardrobe of that tailor shop and tried it on, and turned sideways toward the mirror, and Kaća said, oh great, it's good, we'll take it. It had only one sleeve. When I turned around to the other side, the dress was so asymmetric, and me so thin so I asked what we were going to do with this ‘Biafra’ detail. As absurd as it may sound, the war was one of the most beautiful parts of my life. It is horrible to be face to face with death all the time, with tragedies, with injuries. But, there was another side as well, that purity of emotions, which we shared with each other. Everything was clear, everything was simplified, and that made it human. Which was wonderful. When someone was scared, he said that he's scared, when he loved someone, he would show that. If we wanted to help each other, we would act as if we did. As much as we could under the circumstances.“ - Minka Muftić, Actress

The new normal

The siege of Sarajevo showed that a person can survive a disaster and remain a human being. Sarajevo chose culture as its weapon of defence against terror. Citizens walked the streets under the impact of grenades and snipers to perform their daily tasks of survival, play sports, go to concerts, theatre plays and exhibitions as a way of personal resistance and defence of human civilization. A new normal has set in. One civilization disappeared, and a completely new one was simultaneously established in its wake.

What are your lost illusions?

"A better order of things, in which the actor is the central figure of the play."

Describe your day and work.

"Rehearsals, performances, thinking, learning texts."

What are you afraid of?

"Idleness, spiritual emptiness."

- Vladimir Jokanović, Actor

Thank you, actors of Sarajevo, for helping us not to go crazy.

- Sarajevski ratni teatar SARTR, knjiga utisaka

Appeal to the artists of the world

„We succeeded in that we were organized and in that the actors were able to come to the theatre between the shells and sniper fire. There weren’t many of us. We made a point of going every day. I was one of those who, with great yearning, with great need, and with a certain amount of stubbornness. You know, I think that those people up in the mountains had an idea, a way in which they wanted to break that, and us was by taking away our human dignity. Theatre workers were fighting that very battle, the battle for human dignity. If we had chosen not performing as a means of resistance, I believe that human dignity would have been in greater danger. We did the right thing; there was an oasis of illusion in the theatre, the illusion that normal life exists. I say illusion because it lasted for two hours. - Jasna Diklić, Actress

Perception

The need to establish some kind of balance in the midst of chaos arose spontaneously. In order to maintain mental health, every citizen of the besieged Sarajevo tried to keep himself in balance by bringing his old way of life to the now changed conditions.

Then...

Premiere of „Alcestis“

„It is hard to figure out what classical tragedy is. And what tragedy is, in general. But tragedy was all around us; we were a part of tragedy. So it was easy to figure out the meaning of life and death and 'Alcestis' is exactly about that, to figure out what death is and how. I played one of the Alcestis, because it was a version where there were a lot of those women. She is a woman who sacrifices herself. Who agrees to die instead of her husband? All of us had been in those situations. Would I agree this time to go and fetch water and would my husband stay at home, or would my children, it is not important. All of us were sacrificing ourselves for somebody. So it was one feeling which was familiar to us. Death was not some far-away notion any more.“ - Amina Begović, Actress

Now...

The reward was mainly spiritual

„Exactly 30 years have passed since the play 'Alcestis'. It's the year 1994, summer. Haris Pašović staged the play 'Alcestis' in the Youth Theatre. Back then I talked about that play. What did it mean to us to even go to the theatre and do a play? The only reward was that we worked and played. So, there was no material reward.The reward was maily spiritual. Back then I said that the play 'Alcestis' is a question of sacrifice. Who is willing to take that sacrifice to go to death for whom? It was Alcestis who decided that she would do it for her husband. And then it occurred to me, actually now, at this time, when I reached that age, it occurred to me that my father-in-law, whom we all call grandfather Suljo, who at the beginning of the war put his son and his son-in-law in front of him, because we all lived in the same apartment, ten of us, four of them small children. He placed them before him and said, 'I have already lived my life.' At the same time, I must emphasize that he was then as old as I am now. 'And I will go for water, I will get wood and I will go in search of food. If something happens to me, you take care of your wives, my wife and your children. Because it is more important that the mothers are the ones who stay to take care of the children until the end.' At that time, of course, it was not as clear to me as it is today, the fact that a man was ready to sacrifice himself in order to leave his offspring safe. Thank God, we played theater, we enjoyed it, and in the end no one had to sacrifice himself for anyone. And that's the bottom line." - Amina Begović, glumica