A new five-part drama series, broadcast by the Serbian national television RTS, has split the country. Based on archive images and documents, “Porodica” (The Family) shows the controversial arrest of Slobodan Milošević, former president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and his extradition to the International Court of Justice at The Hague exactly twenty years ago. Kept under wraps until its release, the production is “the first mainstream, big budget drama to feature Slobodan Milošević as a character,” according to Emerging Europe.
On April 1st 2001 the former Serbian president was arrested in his Belgrade residence. Prosecuted for corruption, charged with misappropriation of state funds and abuse of power, he was also prosecuted for war crimes during the Yugoslav civil war in the 1990’s. For 3 days his supporters prevented the police from making the arrest. The first president to be brought before an international court, Slobodan Milošević was charged on 66 counts, including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo between 1991 and 1999.
A presentation of facts which divides a nation
Viewers already know how the story ends, but the interpretation of what happened still divides opinion. Indeed reactions to the new series were not long in coming. Milošević’s children threatened to sue the production company Firefly if the series was not pulled. Zoran Živković, Serbian Prime Minister from 2003 to 2004, fulminated on Twitter: “The Porodica series is a lie, telling stupid things to benefit cretins.” Others accuse the series of ambiguity about the reasons for Milošević’s arrest and ignore the wider context of the events in Yugoslavia which led to the fall of the Miloševic regime. They criticize the series for “moral relativism, in other words for humanizing the character through his family history.”
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Sources: courrierdesbalkans.fr, emerging-europe.com, courrierinternational.com, leparisien.fr
