Sarajevo Red Line (''locally: Sarajevska Crvena Linija'') is the name of the memorial event organized in cooperation between the City of
Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ), ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'' is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 2 ...
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.
Program
The central event of Sarajevo Red Line was staged near the
Eternal Flame monument.
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. 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.

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
Aida Čorbadžić (born 8 March 1976) is a Bosnian opera singer. She was born in Zavidovići and lives in Sarajevo. She primarily sings soprano. She received a special award at the secondary competition of music schools in Bugojno.
Education
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, 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. At the end of the ceremony, they lined up among the red chairs and sang
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer-songwriter, musician and activist. He gained global fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's ...
's legendary song: "
Give Peace a Chance
"Give Peace a Chance" is an anti-war song written by John Lennon (originally credited to Lennon–McCartney), and recorded with the participation of a small group of friends in a performance with Yoko Ono in a hotel room in Montreal, Quebec, C ...
.".
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 Stanislav Galić (Serbian Cyrillic: Станислав Галић; born 12 March 1943) is a Bosnian Serb soldier and former commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ...
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.

In 2014, an exhibition of photographs from the Sarajevo Red Line opened in
Istanbul
Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
,
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
.
History
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.
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.
Gallery
File:Sarajevo Red Line01.jpeg
File:Sarajevo Red Line 2.jpeg
File:Sarajevo Red Line 3.jpeg
File:Sarajevo Red Line 4.jpeg
File:Sarajevo Red Line 5.jpeg
File:Sarajevo Red Line 6.jpeg
References
External links
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{{Siege of Sarajevo
2012 in Bosnia and Herzegovina
April 2012 in Europe
Events in Sarajevo
Culture in Sarajevo