Bujosevic, Dragan 1954-

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BUJOSEVIC, Dragan 1954-

PERSONAL:

Born 1954, in Belgrade, Serbia. Education: Degree in journalism, 1976.

CAREER:

Journalist. Editor-in-chief, Nin (news magazine); chief editor, Evropljanin. Television commentator and talk show host.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Prize for "Politika," 1984.

WRITINGS:

(With Ivan Radovanovic) 5. Oktobar: Dvadeset i ceteri sata prevrata (nonfiction), Media Center (Belgrade, Serbia), 2001, translation published as The Fall of Milosevic: The October 5th Revolution, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2003, also published as October 5th: A Twenty-four Hour Coup.

SIDELIGHTS:

Journalist Dragan Bujosevic collaborated with Ivan Radovanovic to write October 5th: A Twenty-four Hour Coup, also published as The Fall of Milosevic: The October 5th Revolution. More than sixty people were interviewed by the authors as they created their account of the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Milosevic offered his resignation after demonstrators took control of the parliament building and broadcast media, and the badly outnumbered police refused to carry out his orders to attack the demonstrators. Extradited to stand trial for crimes against humanity, he died in prison before testimony was completed.

Times Literary Supplement contributor Mark Almond felt that the authors' subtitle, A Twenty-four Hour Coup, "is all the more striking because they are supporters of the Democratic Opposition (DOS), which came to power. Without intimate contacts with the key DOS, they could not have written their book, but whatever their intentions, it casts a shadow across the naive presentation of the Serbian revolution as simply the upheaval of a long-suffering people against their deluded tyrant. Along with vivid pictures of the street scenes, the authors describe contacts with key security-service officers. It was not the cozy model of the Velvet Revolution which the DOS leaders followed in their thorough preparations to seize power." Economist reviewer Lenard J. Cohen commented that after reading this book, it was still not clear "what really happened. Was it a coup? Even the authors seem unsure." Library Journal reviewer Marcia L. Sprules advised that the authors' "vivid, fast-paced account gives a good sense of the chaos and excitement" surrounding the events in Belgrade on the day of the uprising against Milosevic.