The start of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is considered to be April 6, but where do the roots of the siege of Sarajevo and the preparations for aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina actually lie?
"If April 6 is taken as the symbolic start of the war, then the roots of the siege of Sarajevo must be sought much earlier, in the prolonged and planned militarization of the area, political radicalization, and strategic positioning of forces that had already turned the city into an operational target. Even before open combat actions, Sarajevo was a highly militarized urban environment. In its territory and immediate surroundings, there were between 18,000 and 20,000 soldiers and officers of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), with a dense network of barracks and the key fact—the presence of the Command of the Second Military District of the JNA, one of the most important operational commands in the former Yugoslavia. Thus, Sarajevo already had the status of a strategic hub. This foreshadowed an internal element of destabilization: the activation of armed groups at a critical moment, aimed at cutting off communications and paralyzing institutions. In other words, Sarajevo was already in a phase of latent encirclement: militarily, logistically, and operationally prepared, while the formal start of the siege merely represented the transition from a covert to an overt phase of action," said Dedović.
April 6 represents a key date in considering the history of the city of Sarajevo, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Understanding the specifics of the military-political context, what are the most significant determinants of the Sarajevo Operation of 1945 in relation to the three-year siege of Sarajevo (1992–1995)?
"April 6 carries multi-layered historical symbolism, but its meanings in different epochs cannot be equated without serious analysis of the military-political context. In April 1941, the army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia capitulated to a far superior opponent, and Sarajevo was occupied without resistance. During most of World War II, the city remained under the control of German and Ustaša forces, with a strong repressive apparatus that systematically terrorized the civilian population. Although partisan and Chetnik formations occasionally operated in the wider Sarajevo area, the urban space itself was not the scene of continuous combat actions. The violence was primarily of a police-repressive, rather than a classic military, character.
However, April 1945 brought a completely different operational picture. German forces were in retreat, exhausted, and without a realistic possibility of organizing prolonged defense. Faced with the onslaught of partisan units, which at that moment had the initiative, logistics, and moral advantage, the German-Ustaša forces assessed that persistent defense of Sarajevo would mean operational encirclement and a final collapse within the city itself. In this sense, the Sarajevo Operation represents a relatively short-lived but strategically significant liberation of the city in the final phase of the war, under conditions of the general collapse of the occupation system. In contrast, the siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995 belongs to a completely different type of warfare. It was not an episodic operation at the end of a conflict but a prolonged, systematically planned, and executed military campaign.
For the political and military leadership of the Serbian Democratic Party, the siege of Sarajevo represented one of the key strategic objectives: control of the capital, paralysis of state institutions, and psychological pressure on the entire population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, while the Sarajevo Operation of 1945 symbolizes the end of an occupation regime and the military collapse of retreating forces, the siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995 represents an example of a modern siege strategy against an urban center, aimed at exhaustion, isolation, and political subjugation. It is precisely in this difference—between a final liberation operation and a prolonged siege campaign—that the key to understanding the different historical meanings of the same date lies," said Dedović.
How does the increased interest of world media and the domestic public in the phenomenon of "Sarajevo sniper safari" affect broader historiography and the understanding of the siege of Sarajevo, as well as the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
"The phenomenon of the so-called 'Sarajevo safari' represents just one, albeit extremely morbid, episode within the 1,425 days of the siege of Sarajevo. Compared to the daily use of artillery, which on some days exceeded several thousand shells, the systematic exhaustion of the population, the killing of civilians—including children and people in lines for water and bread—and the complete severance of the city from basic life-sustaining flows, this is a segment that cannot bear the full interpretive weight of the siege. Nevertheless, precisely because of its shocking nature, this phenomenon has attracted strong attention from the international and domestic public.
Consequently, there is a risk that the complex structure of the siege, as a prolonged military strategy aimed at exhaustion, isolation, and psychological pressure, is reduced to individual, media-attractive episodes. This pushes key elements into the background: the continuity of violence, the scale of destruction, and the systematic violation of international humanitarian law norms. Although certain forms of institutionalized memory exist today—through educational programs, public lectures, and memorial practices—a coherent and long-term strategy for a culture of remembrance is lacking. Particularly noticeable is the absence of strong narrative forms, such as feature films or widely accessible interpretive projects, that would adequately articulate the entirety of the siege experience and thus balance the fragmented and often sensationalist portrayals in the public sphere," added Dedović.
The expert public is quite divided when it comes to the failed attempts to break the encirclement around the city and the siege of Sarajevo. Why did these operations fail?
"The main operational objective of the First Corps of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was to continuously create conditions for the deblockade of Sarajevo. However, analysis of available archival material and military sources leads to the conclusion that, under the given circumstances, such an outcome was not realistically achievable. The key limiting factors were the pronounced material and technical superiority of the enemy, as well as the complete control of the dominant heights around the city by the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska. This established a solid operational encirclement, enabling surveillance, fire control, and rapid response to any breakthrough attempt. Under such conditions, offensive activities by the Army often resulted in high losses with minimal territorial gains, further straining already limited resources. Precisely for this reason, there remains division in the expert and broader public today. One part of interpretations emphasizes the necessity of an active approach and attempts to break through, while the other points to the real operational limitations and the cost of such attempts. According to some estimates from that period, the Army leadership believed that, with the continuity of development and strengthening of capacities, conditions for a serious deblockade could only be achieved in a later phase of the war, even beyond its actual duration. From a historiographical standpoint, it cannot be said that research on this topic is premature. On the contrary, the availability of archives, testimonies, and existing literature enables ever deeper and more critical analysis. However, this is a complex issue that requires continuous re-examination, free from simplified narratives and hindsight," said Dedović.
To what extent is archival material thematizing the defense and siege of Sarajevo available?
"Archival material thematizing the defense and siege of Sarajevo is today extremely accessible and, in comparative terms, ranks among the most extensive and detailed collections for studying the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Sarajevo itself, a significant portion of the material is held by the Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law at the University of Sarajevo, while a special place is also occupied by the archive of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which is largely digitized and available to researchers worldwide. This very accessibility enables research beyond classical archival frameworks, directly from one's own workspace. The corpus of sources is extremely diverse: from operational orders, combat reports, maps, and dispatches, to medical documentation testifying to the consequences of the siege on the civilian population. Additionally, there is a large number of documents from UN forces, etc. In this sense, along with Srebrenica, the siege of Sarajevo represents one of the most documented events of the war, opening space for layered, critical, and methodologically grounded historiographical analysis," concluded Dedović.