Amazon.co.uk Review
This is Serbia Calling is a fascinating portrait of how Serbia's "lost generation" expressed their resistance through the few channels left open to them. B92, an avant-garde Belgrade radio station run by a motley, courageous group of enthusiasts, provided a focus for young people who had "grown up thinking things were about to get better but had seen them get much, much worse".
War has come to rely heavily upon control of the media and the Balkans were were no exception. "Turbo folk", a tacky hybrid of Euro-pop and Serbian folk songs, emerged as the soundtrack to nationalism. Brash and corny, its young stars dated gangster politicians and filled the screens of the state-controlled TV stations. Just as symbolically, rock and roll, techno and rap joined the soundtrack for the resistance. In a country gripped by madness, young people alienated by ethnic hatred clutched at B92's anarchic broadcasts. In such brutal times, B92 was a lifeline--proof there were others out there too. In describing so much musical common ground, Matthew Collin, author of the successful history of British dance culture Altered State, conveys all the more powerfully the full bewildering horror of Serbia's disintegration. In this context, the familiar, from gangsta-style to ecstasy culture to absurdist satire, takes on new layers of depth and meaning. Vivid and moving, This Is Serbia Calling brings across the power of music to stave off despair and the terrible shame of how Europe ignored and betrayed Yugoslavia for so long. --Rebecca Johnson.
Synopsis
This is the story of a courageous group of young people living under Milosevic's represssive rule, who waged a 10-year battle for freedom, armed only with a radio transmitter, some rock'n'roll records and a dream of truth, justice and another kind of life. It is a book about a group of idealists who want to play good music over the airwaves, but have to negotiate two wars, economic sanctions, violent police and government crackdowns, armed gangsters and neo-Nazi politicians. They called themselves Serbia's "lost generation", the government called them spies, traitors and terrorists. Despite police raids and state censorship, they refused to be defeated and kept broadcasting their message. This record chronicles a decade (1990-2000) in which B92, an extraordinary radio station, through its use of rock music, email and the Internet, kept alive the voices of dissent.