This Is Serbia Calling: Rock 'N' Roll Radio and Belgrade's Undergound Resistance

by Matthew Collin

This is the story of a courageous group of young people living under Milosevic's repressive 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's a book about a group of idealists who started out wanting to play good music over the airwaves but had to negotiate two wars, economic sanctions, police violence and government crackdowns, armed gangsters and neo-Nazi politicians.

They called themselves Serbia's "lost generation"; the government called them traitors, spies and terrorists. Despite police raids and state censorship, they refused to be defeated, and kept on broadcasting their message. This is Serbia Calling 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. The book ends with the fall of Milosevic and B92 going back on air.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, History, Politics

245 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Max Renn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its the rock and roll that pulls you in and the underground glamour... and it is irresistible, the idea that pop music can really matter, can really change the world. from 'give peace a chance' and 'anarchy in the uk' to 'do they know its christmas' and vaclav havel grooving to the velvets... rock and roll's rebellion is always looking for its word-made-flesh moment that proves that sound waves moving through the air... a hook and a bassline... can start a revolution or a paradise on earth. This book does a fair job making the case that for a certain time, in Belgrade, the rock and roll really mattered... and i must admit, i really really want to believe it did, but then i would.

But what emerges out of this book is less a celebration of dancing in the streets than a diagnostic of a society, drugged by nationalism and xenophobia, in the process of shutting down. A document of exactly what that shutting down looks like here and now, in our time, in our cities, to people who dance like us, dress like us and yes, listen to the same music we do. Strewn throughout this book are moments of clarity that we would do well to recognize as the governments and economic interests, in our respective countries, continue to take pages from the Milosevic playbook and run them. For this, this book is invaluable. For all the creepy creeping deja-vu and blunt recognition.

I started reading this book during the 2008 election period and it was uncanny the way that the Mccain/Palin campaign seemed to resemble a re-tooled Milosevic political machine and the ways he used fear and hatred in an attempt to divide and conquer his own people, minus the tanks, and even if that crisis was averted, this time, it is unsettling to realize that the economic situation is still running on a parallel track, that with a little misfortune and a nudge or two, totalitarianism 21st century style could be right back on track and in style, despite our self-proclaimed technological and political savvy.

Make no mistake, Milosevic's Serbia was an excellent laboratory for powermongering in the post-everything era and even if for this experiment, the funding was pulled and the lab was shut down, it doesn't mean that the lessons learned still aren't useful for those that would find them so. Just ask the Bush administration alumni and the architects of celebrity culture (thank you Rupert Murdoch).

But i digress, back to the rock and roll... Do I agree that B92 needed rock and roll to do what it did? I dont know...I'll let you decide that. But, if i'm speaking truth to power, i'll take Public Enemy or even Eddie Cochran over Toby Keith, our own little turbofolk balladeer, in my 'street fighting man' playlist, as i take to the streets, any day.

[Nikita Velichko · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Serbia had become a nation of twitching paranoiacs, afraid for the future and hardly able to cope with the present.”

“‘In an autocratic system, everyone who thinks differently is a traitor or a spy’”

[Jonfaith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fate often delivers, but it requires a punch in the face for its trouble. A girl once bought me this book. I read it in Heathrow and over the Atlantic. The future would dictate that I would answer Serbia's call. I went there and wound up married. That was a long time ago. Life can be rather good.

My line about "answering" refers to the original title -- Serbia Calling, a pedestrian nod to The Clash. I still like the book and think about its layered anecdotes: The KLF burning a million quid etc etc.

[nadja · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much to say about this, but I'll try to keep it brief.
I got this as a gift from a very thoughtful friend, whom I had told about my internal conflict regarding informing myself fully on the events of the 90s. I was always scared to delve into any Serbian texts about the events, in the case that they were heavily biased towards 'our' side, but given the course of events, I wasn't too eager to go and read about it all from a Western source either. As for asking friends and family, I was sure I wouldn't be able to get enough differing viewpoints to really get the entire picture.

Now this still is the first book I've read on the topic, so I cannot be certain that it deserves absolutely all the praise I want to give it, but I feel like it was the perfect way to absorb the story for the first time. I think it does a good job of capturing so so much about the Serbian mentality in the 90s (things I am more familiar with than the explicit timeline of events). And many of these things of course remain there to this day. It really put into words (and English ones at that) some things that I've tried to explain to people about my home country ever since migrating.
As I've said above, this is an incredible view into the Serbian mindset, and how it has shaped our history and present. In my opinion it would be valuable enough to read even if it didn't double up as a history lesson on the atrocities of the 90s (if you're interested in that sort of thing, of course).
It's also more character-driven than I expected, and all the people interviewed do an amazing job of painting a picture of how individuals felt.

I do want to highlight two things. The first is that I have first-hand experience of being around people that behave like this, and I've seen and/or felt a lot of the longstanding effects of the events here. It has certainly heightened the value of the book to me, and you might not feel like the author does as good of a job capturing it all, or explaining it well.
Secondly, despite officially progressing in chronological order, when certain future events are very relevant to what is being discussed, those events do get mentioned. It can lead to a slightly muddled back-and-forth experience. In the author's defence, there is a clear and succinct timeline of events in the appendix (that I would've referred to during reading had I known it was there).
There are times that a mention of a future (or past) event like this throws the tempo and tension of a series of events off, but I think there's enough real-life drama in the actual story to not require too much manicuring to get into an engaging format.

With this as a foundation, I'm now really looking forward to reading a lot more about this in the future, even from sources known to be biased or controversial. I'm also looking forward to penciling in the events that my family and friends experienced into the timeline, and to finally have a more holistic view of the stories I've known about for so long.

Now onto something a bit more relaxing :)

[Åsmund Ådnøy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alle ungdomsgenerasjoner får en definerende krig å forholde seg til. Min ungdomstid falt sammen med konflikten i Jugoslavia, men jeg har ofte tenkt at jeg ikke fulgte godt nok med. Jeg prøver å gjøre opp for meg ved å lese noen bøker om emnet.

Denne boka skildrer 1990-tallets Serbia sett gjennom livet til radiostasjonen B92. Den ble opprettet på myndighetenes nåde for å vise Jugoslavias myke profil sammenlignet med resten av Øst-Europa. Boka viser hvordan Jugoslavia aldri så på seg selv som en del av østblokken, men fnøys av land som Ungarn og Tsjekkoslovakia. På 1990-tallet snudde alt, da Budapest og Praha ble europeiske turist-kjæledegger samtidig som Jugoslavia reiv seg selv i stykker innenfra. B92 i Beograd ble en av få motstemmer mot et regime som kjørte landet i grøfta med nasjonalisme-fanen høyt hevet. Boka heroiserer ikke kanalen ut av alle proporsjoner, heldigvis.

Konflikten i Jugoslavia er for stor til å få plass i én bok. Forfatter Matthew C0llin avgrenser boken til den serbiske opplevelsen av 1990-tallet, men jeg kunne ønsket litt mer om hvordan tiåret artet seg i resten av det tidligere Jugoslavia. Forfatteren og intervjuobjektene virker lite interessert i det.

Alt i alt er dette en leseverdig oppfriskning av 1990-tallets konflikt på Balkan, for oss som ikke fulgte med da den skjedde. Bonus: Bakerst i boka er det en år for år-liste med B92-stabens favorittplater fra 1990-tallet.

[Ian Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

While far from an exhaustive history of Serbia's most turbulent period, this book offers a solid overview for readers like me who were too young to follow these events on the news when they were happening in the '90s, all centered on the independent radio station that was the voice of dissent and opposition. Indeed, reading this book in 2025, I noticed more than a few parallels between Milosevic's authoritarian, anti-bureaucratic, media-squashing, narrative-spinning political machine and the early months of the second Trump administration -- is there a playbook somewhere that these dictators are all following, or do each of them think they're coming up with this garbage on their own?

In all seriousness, read this book if you want to understand authoritarianism in the age of TV and internet -- and get ideas about how to oppose it.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, the sense of place and chaos comes through strongly. It’s a shame that that link between social activism and radio seems lost. Reading this made me feel a little sad because in the Uk in 2022 we seem to have lost a lot of our alternative voice.

[Adam Bashaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book because I thought it might be interesting. I had no idea how much it would inspire me to get involved with democracy. I strongly recommend this book.

[Tolk · Rating 5 out of 5]

For most Europeans, the war in Serbia was just a bit of news on TV. Very few of us are probably aware of the fact that the struggle for freedom actually lasted ten years - as they went by unnoticed by the west. What we might have noticed was 24 September 1999. That day, NATO started bombing Serbia in a last attempt to stop Miloševič from attacking Kosovo. But the countless demonstrations against Miloševič were not seen on TV. Nor was the struggle of Radio B92 or of the activist group Otpor ('Resistance'). This book tells the story of Radio B92. But also the story of people who stayed in their country to fight for it without weapons and those who left it because it did not leave them air to breath. How would I have decided if I had been in their position? I don't know and I am glad I never had to take this decision.

But B92 was also about fun, punk and not being conformist. But how can you be all that if people in your country rely on you for true information they don't get anywhere else. Tough question....

Amidst the serious programming were plenty of silly stunts [...]. But there was also a lot of hard-edged, bitterly dark humour. This was the period when Miloševič's mass rallies of nationalist Serbs all across Yugoslavia were reaching boiling point. A demonstration was organized in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia - a city noted for its lack of Serb inhabitants. A B92 presenter began randomly calling numbers in Ljubljana, introducing himself as "Voja, your old friend from the army", and asking whether he could come and stay at their house that Saturday and bring twelve Serb friends with him. The recipients of the call, naturally, were horrified at the prospect of a dozen redneck nationalists descending upon them - but their reactions exposed what the rest of Yugoslavia thought of Serbia's populist frenzy.

[chucklesthescot · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the story of B92, a student radio station in Serbia that tried to resist the censorship of Milosevic in the run up to the Balkan wars that destroyed Yugoslavia.

There were good bits in this book that told you about how Milosevic seized power and started to impose his regime on the people, spouting racial hatred in the same way that Hitler did. There were paragraphs here and there about the start of the war and what was happening which was really interesting.

However most of the book was, as indicated, about the actual radio station. There was a lot about the history of the station, the life story of its founders and all their fights for control which were a bit boring and long winded. The other dull bit was the emphasis on telling us about every single song that was ever played on the station. This was starting to annoy me by the time we were a third of the way through the book.

I'd have liked a bit more about the war and less about the music itself which added nothing to the story. It's probably a book that will appeal to those who were radical students in their day, rather than people like me who are interested more in the war itself.

[Kathleen (itpdx) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting story about youth culture and an independent radio station (and more) in Belgrade during the Milosevic era and wars.

The book felt a little disconnected to me. I think part of it was that the author uses extensive quotes from people involved. The quotes are sometimes in past tense (looking back) and sometimes are in present tense.

Also there is a lot of discussion of the music play list and the conflict between the news people and the music presenters. And somethings that seem very important to me are treated briefly--like setting up a network of stations that broadcast B-92's programs in the rural areas and establishing and maintaining contacts in other countries to gather news.

I did really like the descriptions of what it was like in Belgrade during this time.

[Calli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was...what's a word for frustrating and gut-wrenching and amazing? With great music thrown in?

Telling the story of the insane political turmoil through the lens of a rebellious, fringe, punk radio station was a genius idea. It makes sense because the radio station was in some ways directly involved in the changes, but it also reflects the overall feelings of frustration and rebellion and questioning authority that so many were going through at the time. Brilliantly researched, well-written, and engaging. Provided me with so much more information about the Serbian Civil War and a glimpse of the complexity of the political situation that is still ongoing.

You should read this. It was great.

[Danielnylinnilsson Nylin Nilsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Close to being the perfect book... It tells an exremely important story - that of Milosevic's rie to power, and how he ran down Serbia to a pariah state, all seen through the eyes of the rock'n'roll radio station B92.

In addition to that, it is written on the best kind of british journalistic storytelling prose.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

the story of an independent Serbian radio station trying to remain independent throughout the Yugoslav conflict despite pressure from Milosevic's Serbian authorities to tow the party line and play patriotic songs. The djs on the station were often criticised for playing very avant-garde music instead of more commercial chart fodder..but they wouldn't compromise, an inspiring tale.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read -- watching Belgrade youth culture from before Milosevich to during and after. The independent radio station was the watchtower -- exciting and with a window for all who might be peering through the peep hole of encroaching totalitarianism.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romantic picture of the rebels who helped bring Milosevic down. I still have only a fuzzy understanding regarding the death of Yugoslavia and the related wars, but this helped me understand the degree of opposition faced by the regime, especially in Belgrade

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring book about rebellion in Milosevic-era Serbia. A great fusion of music, politics, and rebel-culture. This book renewed my hope in people's ability to resist.

[Jessica]

Also called This is Serbia Calling. (Polysyllabic, Hornby)

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an education.