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Speaker 1: Call zone media.

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Speaker 2: Never forget 9-11 and never forget to listen to Behind

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Speaker 2: the Bastards, the podcast that you are all listening to now.

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Speaker 2: This is our 9-11 episode extravaganza, even though you'll be

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Speaker 2: hearing it probably several weeks after 9-11. So I don't

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Speaker 2: even know why I'm like temporalizing this because it's just

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Speaker 2: going to feel old when it hits you. You already

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Speaker 2: have had your 9-11 cake. You'll have opened all of

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Speaker 2: your 9-11 presents.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I'm feeling a little somber.

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Speaker 3: So if you feel a tinge of sadness in my voice,

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Speaker 3: that's me not forgetting.

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Speaker 2: That's Jamie remembering.

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Speaker 4: I'm always remembering.

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Speaker 5: The discourse today online was the worst of the right

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Speaker 5: being like, did you see Mom Donnie and AOC having

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Speaker 5: a giggle during the 9-11 tribute in New York? During

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Speaker 5: the sacred 9-11.

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Speaker 4: Tribute, yeah.

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Speaker 5: You're like, did you see that Donald Trump wasn't there?

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Speaker 2: I don't care.

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Speaker 1: I don't care about any of these things. I don't

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Speaker 1: care about any of these things. Nah, it's fine.

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Speaker 3: It is bizarre that, like, Of all of the days

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Speaker 3: that we– the thousands of days, we've been very insincere

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Speaker 3: about it.

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Speaker 4: We're like, we're going to do just one.

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Speaker 2: We're going to remember. We're going to remember.

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Speaker 4: And today we're going to remember for real, for real.

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Speaker 1: For real, for real.

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Speaker 2: I'm– What I remember on 9-11 is the film Big Trouble,

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Speaker 2: which was tragically delayed as a result of 9-11 because

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Speaker 2: it featured a plot line in which a nuclear weapon

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Speaker 2: was set off in a commercial airliner.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: And so, tragically, Tim Allen lost what would have been

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Speaker 2: one of his better comedy releases.

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Speaker 4: And we won't forget that.

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Speaker 2: I will never forget that, Jamie.

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Speaker 3: I'll never forget they changed the climax of Lilo and Stitch.

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Speaker 3: Stitch hijacked a plane.

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Speaker 4: And then they said we could not be having... We

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Speaker 4: can't have Stitch be doing Al-Qaeda activity. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You know what?

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Speaker 5: <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL>

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Speaker 5: <HAL> <HAL>.

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Speaker 4: <HAL> Oh, see, Sophie, that's not how you lead into this.

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Speaker 2: I was going to say, you know how there were

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Speaker 2: two towers on 9-11?

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Speaker 1: Oh, that's better.

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Speaker 2: Jamie Loftus has a book coming out called The Tower.

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Speaker 1: Wow, what a plug.

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Speaker 2: Jamie, you want to tell people about it? See, I'm ready.

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Speaker 2: I was ready to plug.

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Speaker 5: Wow.

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Speaker 4: Okay.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a secret third tower. And what if it

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Speaker 3: was a 9-11 book? What if it wasn't WT7? I've

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Speaker 3: been secretly remembering for years.

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Speaker 4: You have no idea. Yeah, no. My first novel's coming out.

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Speaker 3: It's about just one tower, but a beautiful tower. It's

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Speaker 3: a novel about an architect who falls in love with

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Speaker 3: her own blueprint. And then spends 20 years trying to

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Speaker 3: get the love of her life built so she can

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Speaker 3: leave her husband for the building.

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Speaker 2: Awesome. I'm excited to read it.

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Speaker 4: The highs are high. The lows are low.

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Speaker 2: The lows of writing a book are very low.

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Speaker 4: It's the hardest thing in the world. That said.

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Speaker 4: I'm sure by the time you hear this, I've figured

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Speaker 4: it out.

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Speaker 2: Jamie, it's very appropriate that you said writing a book

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Speaker 2: is the hardest thing in the world because the subject,

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Speaker 2: the bastard that we're talking about this week is an author.

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Speaker 2: And I think would agree with you, writing a book

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Speaker 2: is the hardest thing in the world, which is impressive

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Speaker 2: because he also committed a genocide. So maybe not the

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Speaker 2: best way to talk about it, but we're talking about

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Speaker 2: the Balkans this week and there's no easy way to

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Speaker 2: lead into a story about the Balkans. If you are

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Speaker 2: talking about the Balkans, you're talking about a lot of

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Speaker 2: people dying. That's just history in the Balkans.

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Speaker 3: There's always a part of me that thinks someday you're

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Speaker 3: going to come in hot with Saddam too. You know,

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Speaker 3: like there's always just a little, like there's another novel.

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Speaker 2: That's been found. They made another. Saddam's lost novel, like Tupac,

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Speaker 2: he keeps dropping novels like every 15 years after his death.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, on the centennial, we're going to get a new

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Speaker 3: romance novel.

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Speaker 2: R.I.P.

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Speaker 4: Saddam, you would have loved the romantic trend going on

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Speaker 4: right now.

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Speaker 2: We are talking about a dictator. Unlike Saddam, he was

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Speaker 2: not a novelist, but he was a poet, kind of

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Speaker 2: like Joseph Stalin. And he also did commit a genocide.

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Speaker 2: And in addition to that, he lived as a New

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Speaker 2: Age healer for years after committing a genocide. This guy

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Speaker 2: goes so many places. You are not ready for the

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Speaker 2: Radovan Karadzic story. That's who we're talking about this week.

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Speaker 2: Have you heard about Radovan Karadzic? No, I have not.

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Speaker 4: I can't say how.

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Speaker 5: Before we get started, I just want to highlight for

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Speaker 5: the Netflix viewers, Jamie's fantastic John Locke t-shirt that she's wearing.

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Speaker 5: That's for you, Sophie.

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Speaker 2: The one from the show?

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Speaker 4: From Lost, the bald one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.

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Speaker 1: The bald king from Lost.

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Speaker 2: That's from Lost, okay.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's low culture John Locke.

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Speaker 2: We're not going high today. It would have been really

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Speaker 2: funny if it was the same aesthetic, like fan cam shirt,

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Speaker 2: but it was like John Locke, the philosopher.

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Speaker 4: I am a thousand percent sure that shirt exists. It must.

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Speaker 4: It does. Yes.

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Speaker 2: All my philosophy girlies out there are just absolutely losing

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Speaker 2: their minds. And all of my Balkans girlies are going

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Speaker 2: to be losing their minds this week because, again, we're

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Speaker 2: talking about Radovan Karadzic, one of the people most responsible

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Speaker 2: for the Bosnian genocide, also a poet and an energy

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Speaker 2: healer who was really in Dariki.

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Speaker 4: So we're going to cover a lot of ground.

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Speaker 2: Sinister.

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Speaker 4: What a sinister multi-hyphenate situation that is.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean, cause in our country we're seeing like the

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Speaker 2: weird woo, you know, bullshit medicine stuff kind of as

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Speaker 2: a prelude to the fascism, right. Where it kind of

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Speaker 2: leads in and helps bring it for this guy. He

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Speaker 2: goes full fascist and then he becomes an energy healer.

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Speaker 2: It's an amazing journey. So I can't wait to talk

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Speaker 2: to you about Radovan.

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Speaker 3: That's how I always, I always think about like, uh,

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Speaker 3: george w as like a reverse hitler where he like

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Speaker 3: got the war crimes out of the way and then

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Speaker 3: retreated into painting.

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Speaker 2: Afterwards oh man i think hitler would have done better

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Speaker 2: painting if he'd taken the opposite route but then again

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Speaker 2: that what i mean is if he'd never painted because

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Speaker 2: he just shot himself first because he was a bad

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Speaker 2: painter i guess what i'm saying is george w bush

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Speaker 2: is a better artist than hitler you know i gotta

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Speaker 2: give bush that.

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Speaker 4: I mean, if we absolutely.

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Speaker 2: Have to give George W.

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Speaker 4: Flowers on 9-11, I guess so.

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Speaker 2: On 9-11.

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Speaker 4: I guess he's top of mind.

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Speaker 2: Look, Hitler's a better Hitler than George W. Bush was.

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Speaker 2: I'll say that, you know. That's true. It's not 100%

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Speaker 2: either way.

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Speaker 4: Jeez, what a rough lead-in. Doesn't George W.

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Speaker 3: like, doesn't he paint, like, his war crime? He, like,

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Speaker 3: paints injured veterans that are injured.

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Speaker 4: He paints a lot of us.

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Speaker 2: He's painted some injured veterans. That's not really a war crime.

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Speaker 2: That's just him being a shitty leader. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: But he also painted, like, Putin's face. He does a

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Speaker 2: lot of weird shit. I don't know. Anyway, speaking of

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Speaker 2: war crimes, let's talk a little bit about Balkan history, right?

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Speaker 4: Okay.

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Speaker 2: Because we can't just start talking about this guy's life.

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Speaker 2: There's too much complicated shit going on in the Balkans

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Speaker 2: that leads into this. So if you're not a map person,

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Speaker 2: the Balkans are kind of a chunk of Southeast Europe

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Speaker 2: leading up into Eastern Europe, but also in that southern

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Speaker 2: flank area. That includes like you've got Slovenia, you've got Croatia,

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Speaker 2: you've got Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, like all these different areas

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Speaker 2: are like parts of the Balkans. And it's historically just

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Speaker 2: like the most quarrelsome part of Europe in the early

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Speaker 2: modern era. Right. And a big reason for that is

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Speaker 2: that because of geography. The Balkans are the major European

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Speaker 2: battleground for most of the fighting between like the Muslims

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Speaker 2: and the Christians. Right. When you get the Ottoman Empire

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Speaker 2: trying to make their way into Europe, they take a

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Speaker 2: lot of the Balkans. And for a lot of like

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Speaker 2: the early modern period, much of the Balkans is like

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Speaker 2: governed from Constantinople. Right. It's like part of the Ottoman Empire.

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Speaker 2: And that leads to a lot of fucking conflicts, right?

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Speaker 2: Because people in like modern day Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia

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Speaker 2: are subjects of the Ottoman Sultan for a very long time.

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Speaker 2: And some of these people convert to Islam. And of course,

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Speaker 2: a lot of Muslims from Anatolia and elsewhere migrate to

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Speaker 2: the Balkans, particularly Bosnia, right? Bosnia develops a very sizable

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Speaker 2: Muslim population. They're called Bosniaks. Those are like the Bosnian Muslims, right?

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Speaker 2: And obviously, there's also a lot of Christians, quite a

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Speaker 2: few Serbian Christians specifically, say fuck you to the idea

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Speaker 2: of serving a sultan. And the mountainous highlands, particularly around Montenegro,

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Speaker 2: the term they use is like a shatter zone, right?

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Speaker 2: It's this area on the edge of an empire and

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Speaker 2: in between other empires or kingdoms. where usually it's very mountainous,

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Speaker 2: and so it's hard to, like, govern in the pre-modern period.

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Speaker 2: Before you have helicopters, you can't really govern these island regions, because, like,

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Speaker 2: if you have an army and guys just go up

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Speaker 2: 2,000 feet, it's like, well, your army will die before

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Speaker 2: they reach them. You can't march them into the mountains.

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Speaker 2: So you wind up with this big shatter zone in, like,

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Speaker 2: kind of Montenegro, where there's all these Serb clans who

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Speaker 2: wish to escape the Sultan's law, would, like, flee and fight.

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Speaker 2: modern historians tend to emphasize their primary issue with the

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Speaker 2: ottomans was not even religion as much as it was

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Speaker 2: taxation which is usually the case with stuff like this

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Speaker 2: even if it gets written up as a big holy

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Speaker 2: wars because oh no that guy wants to tax us

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Speaker 2: and we have mountains so we don't have to pay

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Speaker 2: taxes yeah there's a.

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Speaker 3: Yeah there's always a secret there's there's always a back

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Speaker 3: alley reason for actually doing it.

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Speaker 2: And it's usually taxes right um That's a big part

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Speaker 2: of it, at least. Still, these mountain Serbs develop a

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Speaker 2: reputation among other Europeans as their primitives, right? They're these

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Speaker 2: very savage, like, you know, warriors who don't build big

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Speaker 2: cities because they live up in these highland areas. But

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Speaker 2: they're also these noble warriors defending Christendom against the Islamic hordes.

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Speaker 2: They're like the shield of Europe, too. So they develop

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Speaker 2: both of those kinds of reputations. During this period of time,

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Speaker 2: Montenegrin Serbs largely clustered in small clan and tribal groups

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Speaker 2: under the leadership of people called dukes. These aren't royalty

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Speaker 2: in the traditional sense. They're often from like the same families,

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Speaker 2: prominent families. But the leaders are like, you don't tend

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Speaker 2: to get like super hierarchical by like birth names. like

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Speaker 2: governance structures in these mountainous areas where it's just kind

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Speaker 2: of who's best at killing, right? Because if like someone's

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Speaker 2: shithead son tries to rule everybody and they're not great

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Speaker 2: at killing, they're going to get killed.

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Speaker 4: They're going to get killed. No one's going to follow them.

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Speaker 4: We really got to bring that back.

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Speaker 2: We should bring that back. They had some things right.

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Speaker 4: We could kill the Nepo baby discourse once and for.

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Speaker 2: All if we were just allowed to kill people. Yes,

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Speaker 2: the mountain serbs have much to teach us about governance structures.

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Speaker 2: I'm always saying so.

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Speaker 3: So it's not like an electoral system and it's not it's.

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Speaker 2: Certainly not electoral. OK, OK. Often by like who who

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Speaker 2: will the most people like follow into battle because like

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Speaker 2: they know you're not an idiot. You won't get them

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Speaker 2: killed pointlessly.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so it's Instagram rules. Largest following list.

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Speaker 2: It's Instagram rules, exactly. Instagram is actually based off of

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Speaker 2: the way the Montenegrin Serbs handle politics in this period

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Speaker 2: of time.

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Speaker 4: My friend Mark is always telling me about that.

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Speaker 2: The birth of influencer culture. And one of the families

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Speaker 2: in kind of this part of modern-day Montenegro where there's

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Speaker 2: all these clans, one of the families that produces a

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Speaker 2: lot of dukes are the Karajiks, right? The Karajiks are

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Speaker 2: like this kind of, When I say family, it's almost

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Speaker 2: more of like a clan or a tribal group. And

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Speaker 2: in around the 13th century, the Karajik families moved to

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Speaker 2: a village called Pejika and develop a reputation for producing

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Speaker 2: an outsized number of these military leaders. In her pseudo

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Speaker 2: biography of Radovan Karajik, My War Criminal, Jessica, and we'll

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Speaker 2: talk about that title a little bit later. Jessica Stern

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Speaker 2: interviewed several members of the Karajik clan to hunt down

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Speaker 2: family lore behind Radovan. She was told many stories about

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Speaker 2: like one of the most famous early members of the family,

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Speaker 2: this duke named Sujo Karajic, who was a duke who

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Speaker 2: assassinated the local Turkish leader and had this epic poem

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Speaker 2: written about like him killing, assassinating this guy, right? The

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Speaker 2: Balkans in general are big epic. It's a big epic

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Speaker 2: poem place, right? There's a lot of oral traditions, particularly

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Speaker 2: among like the Serbs. And that's how they tend to

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Speaker 2: like pass on stories. You make you make a mixtape

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Speaker 2: about a cool guy who like does cool shit.

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Speaker 6: Right.

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Speaker 3: You know, you got to you got to put that

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Speaker 3: shit on wax. Sometimes you kill a guy so well

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Speaker 3: that your friend writes an EP about it.

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Speaker 2: I am excited after like several rounds of nuclear war

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Speaker 2: and stuff for like what the story of that guy

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Speaker 2: who blasted Shinzo Abe becomes like a thousand years in

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Speaker 2: the future when people don't know what like a 3D

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Speaker 2: printed gun was or whatever.

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Speaker 4: Yes.

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Speaker 2: Looking forward to what people say about that one. So

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Speaker 2: the Karajic family and Radovan as a kid is going

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Speaker 2: to grow up being weaned on stories of like his famous,

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Speaker 2: you know, relative who was this great war leader, leader,

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Speaker 2: He was also told a lot about another one of

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Speaker 2: his ancestors, Vuk Karadzic, who was a writer and folklorist

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Speaker 2: born in 1787. And Vuk is credited with helping to

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Speaker 2: form and shape a lot of modern, the modern, he

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Speaker 2: helps invent Serbian grammar to a significant extent. This is

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Speaker 2: one of those languages where people have been speaking it

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Speaker 2: for a while, but once we start like writing books

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Speaker 2: and publishing them, there's like a couple dudes who figure

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Speaker 2: out like, how are we going to write stuff? Like,

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Speaker 2: what are the rules of our language? No one sat

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Speaker 2: down and decided that really.

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Speaker 3: That is, like, such a great hack into getting your

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Speaker 3: random story kind of, like, codified into history, is if

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Speaker 3: you can, like, write something down that is actually desperately

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Speaker 3: needed to preserve the culture, it doesn't even matter if

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Speaker 3: the story's good.

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Speaker 2: Is a good story not important? What matters is that

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Speaker 2: somebody wrote it down. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: We figured out Blue Perfect.

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Speaker 2: And he also writes, Vuk writes a collection of Balkan

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Speaker 2: fairy tales that are some of the first... grim stories,

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Speaker 2: like Jacob Grimm is inspired to do a lot of

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Speaker 2: the Grimm's fairy tales. If you think about a lot

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Speaker 2: of really dark Grimm fairy tales, some of them are

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Speaker 2: Serbian in origin.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're so right.

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Speaker 2: Not a lot of happy stories told by the Serbs.

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Speaker 3: For good reason. The Grimm's lifted stuff like crazy. I

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Speaker 3: just didn't know from here specifically.

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Speaker 2: Some of it's from the ancestor of this weird genocide

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Speaker 2: guy we're going to be talking.

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Speaker 5: About this week. The Grimm's a little grim. It was

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Speaker 5: right there, sorry.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very true, Sophie. So in the centuries to come,

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Speaker 2: Many Serbs would need the distraction of fairy tales, even

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Speaker 2: dark ones, because their life was even darker, right? World

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Speaker 2: War I, as you might remember, was kicked off by

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Speaker 2: a Serb partisan in Sarajevo who shot the Archduke of Austria-Hungary.

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Speaker 2: When the Central Powers invaded Serbia to get revenge, Serbia

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Speaker 2: lost more than 265,000 soldiers in the war, which was

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Speaker 2: a quarter of their mobilized army. And in comparison, France

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Speaker 2: and Germany both lost, like, I think France loses like 16%

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Speaker 2: of their mobilized army. Germany loses like 15%. And you

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Speaker 2: know how horrible the casualties are for France and Germany

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Speaker 2: in World War I. Serbia loses a quarter of their

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Speaker 2: mobilized army, right? So it's even worse. And between half

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Speaker 2: a million and 800,000-ish civilians are also killed. Now there

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Speaker 2: has been and still is a great deal of debate

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Speaker 2: over like how many Serbs die in World War I.

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Speaker 2: But in a 2021 paper for the University of Belgrade,

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Speaker 2: Slobodan Markovic estimated that between 21 and 27.65% of the

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Speaker 2: entire Serbian population dies in that war. It kills a

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Speaker 2: quarter of all of the Serbs that exist.

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 2: That's a pretty good estimate.

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Speaker 3: Lord.

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Speaker 2: That's not good. That's pretty rough, right?

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Speaker 4: No. No, that's putting up genocide numbers. That is really scary.

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Speaker 4: It is.

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Speaker 2: And there's genocidal elements to that war.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So it's pretty bleak. It's a dark time. And it's

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Speaker 2: got to get even darker because on March 27th, 1941,

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Speaker 2: pro-fascist elements within the... World War II starts, obviously, just

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Speaker 2: as a little bit of a prelude, right?

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Speaker 4: Sure, sure, sure.

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Speaker 2: And kind of after World War I, because Austria-Hungary breaks up,

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Speaker 2: you have the establishment, I think, of the 20s of Yugoslavia, right?

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Speaker 2: That's when it becomes a thing. And it's independent for

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Speaker 2: a while. And at the outbreak of World War I,

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Speaker 2: Germany attempts to kind of co-opt the government of Yugoslavia,

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Speaker 2: and there's pro-fascist elements within the government who's agreed to

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Speaker 2: sign an armistice with Germany, right? So initially, it looks

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Speaker 2: like Yugoslavia is going to be kind of on the

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Speaker 2: Axis side of things, not as like a full member

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Speaker 2: of the Axis, obviously, but as like one of kind

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Speaker 2: of their allied states. But then, per History.com, quote, Yugoslav

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Speaker 2: air officers, aided by the British Secret Services, toppled the

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Speaker 2: country's pro-Axis regime. In response, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler launched

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Speaker 2: a massive invasion of the country that began on April

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Speaker 2: 6th with the bombing of Belgrade. The Yugoslav defenders, made

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Speaker 2: up of various politically unstable nationalities, were routed by the

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Speaker 2: hordes of German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian troops invading their country.

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Speaker 2: On April 17, Yugoslavia surrendered and was divided, except for

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Speaker 2: the puppet state of Croatia, between the four invading Axis powers.

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Speaker 2: The occupying troops aggravated the traditional religious and national differences

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Speaker 2: in the region, and the Serbs were especially brutalized. And

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Speaker 2: this is, things get so ugly in the Balkans, and

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Speaker 2: Serbia in particular, during World War II.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 3: Right. Right.

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Speaker 2: But we don't it's also that the degree to which

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Speaker 2: what happens in the Balkans during World War Two is

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Speaker 2: horrific and not talked about is it's much more extreme

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Speaker 2: because everyone knows Poland.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I was going to say that this is yet

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Speaker 3: another sort of glaring gap in my American public schooling where.

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Speaker 2: We do not talk about this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely bashed over the head with World War Two

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Speaker 3: and the entire regions are just completely ignored. Right.

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Speaker 2: And there's an argument to be made. If you're talking

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Speaker 2: about what things are why the Germans lost the war, well,

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Speaker 2: one possible argument is because Germany has to invade the Balkans, Yugoslavia.

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Speaker 2: Because that's one of the things that delays in Greece, too,

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Speaker 2: that delays them invading Russia. They have to push back

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Speaker 2: until later in the year, Operation Barbarossa, and that That

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Speaker 2: is part of why Operation Barbara, I don't think it

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Speaker 2: would have worked either way, right? But because they're later,

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Speaker 2: that means they don't get as far before the winter hits, right?

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Speaker 2: It's one of these things that delays Hitler, that he

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Speaker 2: didn't want to do. He wanted to not have to invade.

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Speaker 2: So it is really important to the overall progress of

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Speaker 2: the war, too. Now, there's a lot of ugly things

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Speaker 2: going on in Yugoslavia during.

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Speaker 5: World War II.

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Speaker 4: This is maybe an all-timer bleak start to the episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Thank you for letting me have my George Bush moment earlier,

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Speaker 4: I guess.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

403
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Speaker 2: I won't say it gets bleaker, but this is a

404
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Speaker 2: Serbian story, so it stays at a pretty high level

405
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Speaker 2: of bleak the entire time.

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 5: Sure.

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for the George Bush joke for me.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, the worst of all of the different bad actors,

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Speaker 2: and there's a lot of them, in World War II,

413
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Speaker 2: was the fascist, in the Balkans, was the fascist independent

414
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Speaker 2: state of Croatia. As I said, Croatia gets to be

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Speaker 2: independent because, like, the people in charge of Croatia are

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Speaker 2: basically Nazis, right? They have a militant movement that winds

417
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Speaker 2: up in charge over there and is active in other

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Speaker 2: parts of the Balkans called the Ustashi.

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Speaker 5: And.

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Speaker 2: They do. They're like they're like the fucking Nazis with

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Speaker 2: like a little bit of extra pep in their fucking step.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 2: Obviously, they're targeting Jews and Roma. And that's who they

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Speaker 2: massacre first. And they the massacre of Jews in Yugoslavia

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Speaker 2: is like pretty nightmarishly like extensive. But they don't stop there. Also,

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Speaker 2: they're also massacring Serbs. As I said, there's a genocide

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Speaker 2: against the Serbs during World War Two, or at least

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Speaker 2: an attempted one. And the Bosniaks, these Bosnian Muslims are.

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Speaker 2: they wind up on both sides, right? Because a big chunk,

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Speaker 2: like the leadership of the independent state of Croatia sees

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Speaker 2: the Bosnia, the Bosniak Muslims as Muslim Croats, right? So

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Speaker 2: like they're, they're, they're, they're Muslim, but they're like part

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Speaker 2: of their Aryan, right? And they're offered Aryan status. And

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Speaker 2: a big chunk of like leaders within the Bosniak community

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Speaker 2: kind of take up and work, agree to work alongside

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Speaker 2: and fight alongside the independent state of Croatia. And particularly

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Speaker 2: in some heavily Muslim areas like Bosnia and The Ustasha

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Speaker 2: are something like 50% Muslim, right? Now, this has been

439
00:21:09,109 --> 00:21:11,820
Speaker 2: twisted by racists in the present, and you'll hear claims

440
00:21:11,859 --> 00:21:14,659
Speaker 2: that the Ustasha were like 90% Muslim and that the

441
00:21:14,740 --> 00:21:17,139
Speaker 2: Nazis in Yugoslavia were Muslim. They have these, you know,

442
00:21:17,180 --> 00:21:21,040
Speaker 2: Muslim genocide in Yugoslavia, and that 90% of the Muslims

443
00:21:21,100 --> 00:21:24,159
Speaker 2: fought alongside the Ustasha. This is all nonsense, right? The

444
00:21:24,220 --> 00:21:27,960
Speaker 2: Ustashi are primarily clerical fascists, and they are Catholics, right?

445
00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:32,399
Speaker 2: That is the primary religion behind the Ustashi, right? And

446
00:21:32,420 --> 00:21:35,770
Speaker 2: the Ustashi do offer tolerance to Islam for a variety

447
00:21:35,790 --> 00:21:38,869
Speaker 2: of complex reasons, but mostly out of military necessity. More

448
00:21:38,890 --> 00:21:42,430
Speaker 2: to the point, the Ustashi also massacre Muslims, right? A

449
00:21:42,470 --> 00:21:44,710
Speaker 2: lot of Muslims fight against them. A lot of Muslims

450
00:21:44,730 --> 00:21:48,149
Speaker 2: get put in concentration camps and wiped out. I want

451
00:21:48,170 --> 00:21:51,350
Speaker 2: to read a quote from an article for the Yasenovitz

452
00:21:51,590 --> 00:21:55,570
Speaker 2: Concentration Camp Memorial. Quote, The first Muslims were imprisoned in

453
00:21:55,630 --> 00:21:59,310
Speaker 2: Ustasha camps in 1941. They were mostly communists or opponents

454
00:21:59,330 --> 00:22:02,230
Speaker 2: of the Ustasha regime, who would have grown significantly in number.

455
00:22:02,590 --> 00:22:05,480
Speaker 2: The first group of Muslims was deported to Camp 3, Brickworks,

456
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:09,379
Speaker 2: in mid-November 1941. The group consisted of 116 Jews and

457
00:22:09,420 --> 00:22:12,780
Speaker 2: communists from the Sarajevo area, amongst whom there were 16 Muslims.

458
00:22:13,180 --> 00:22:15,530
Speaker 2: Over the next few years, the number of imprisoned Muslims grew.

459
00:22:15,690 --> 00:22:18,050
Speaker 2: They were communists and members of the People's Liberation Movement

460
00:22:18,070 --> 00:22:22,129
Speaker 2: from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina. especially from Sarajevo, Banja Luka,

461
00:22:22,230 --> 00:22:25,310
Speaker 2: and parts of Bosnian Pozovina and central Bosnia. Only a

462
00:22:25,369 --> 00:22:28,290
Speaker 2: few managed to evade death. So they wipe out a

463
00:22:28,450 --> 00:22:32,630
Speaker 2: lot of Muslims, too. It's not as simple as like, oh,

464
00:22:32,770 --> 00:22:35,449
Speaker 2: the Muslims fought for the Ustashi. A bunch of them

465
00:22:35,470 --> 00:22:38,119
Speaker 2: fought against it. A bunch of them were genocided. But

466
00:22:38,150 --> 00:22:39,980
Speaker 2: this is going to get twisted in kind of a

467
00:22:40,020 --> 00:22:44,420
Speaker 2: lot of modern-day right-wing historiography about the period. Sure, sure.

468
00:22:44,460 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 3: I mean, we're so invested in Islamophobia, people will take

469
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:50,020
Speaker 3: it wherever they can find it.

470
00:22:51,020 --> 00:22:54,060
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of complicated reasons for why a

471
00:22:55,030 --> 00:22:57,090
Speaker 2: big chunk of Muslims thought the Ustashi were the people

472
00:22:57,130 --> 00:23:01,390
Speaker 2: to back. And there's also other stuff. As I said,

473
00:23:01,410 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 2: there's a lot of different horrible groups fighting in Yugoslavia

474
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:07,119
Speaker 2: in this period. One of the more complicated participants in

475
00:23:07,140 --> 00:23:10,340
Speaker 2: the fighting were the Chetniks. The Chetniks are essentially a

476
00:23:10,500 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 2: Serb-dominated royalist militia. They are fighting. They want independence from

477
00:23:15,100 --> 00:23:17,479
Speaker 2: the Nazis who have invaded their country, but they want

478
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,899
Speaker 2: independence to put the ousted royal family back in power.

479
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:24,149
Speaker 2: And the royal family are not nice people, as royal

480
00:23:24,210 --> 00:23:27,530
Speaker 2: families generally are not. And the Chetniks become known for

481
00:23:27,550 --> 00:23:30,870
Speaker 2: their use of brutal insurgent and terrorist tactics. which they

482
00:23:30,890 --> 00:23:33,290
Speaker 2: do use against the Ustasha, who had it coming, but

483
00:23:33,330 --> 00:23:35,510
Speaker 2: also against any Croats they could get their hands on.

484
00:23:35,910 --> 00:23:39,470
Speaker 2: Bosniaks and Muslims in Herzegovina and elsewhere were also slaughtered.

485
00:23:39,790 --> 00:23:42,310
Speaker 2: The nationalistic goals of the Chetniks set them against the

486
00:23:42,430 --> 00:23:46,470
Speaker 2: Axis long-term, but they also fought alongside the Axis, too,

487
00:23:46,550 --> 00:23:50,550
Speaker 2: strategically supporting Nazi efforts, particularly when the Nazis wanted to

488
00:23:50,609 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 2: wipe out a group of people that the Chetniks wanted slaughtered, right?

489
00:23:54,340 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 2: Because they're kind of thinking about the post-war period. This

490
00:23:55,890 --> 00:23:58,100
Speaker 2: is a fucking nightmare. It's horrible. This is a fucking nightmare.

491
00:23:58,119 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 2: It's horrible.

492
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,870
Speaker 3: This is because, I mean, you just you hear this many,

493
00:24:03,950 --> 00:24:08,270
Speaker 3: this many horrible motivations and you're just like, well, civilians

494
00:24:08,330 --> 00:24:10,250
Speaker 3: are not going to be doing well.

495
00:24:10,290 --> 00:24:11,810
Speaker 2: There's no civilians in this war.

496
00:24:12,070 --> 00:24:12,310
Speaker 6: No.

497
00:24:12,330 --> 00:24:12,750
Speaker 2: Yeah.

498
00:24:13,270 --> 00:24:15,610
Speaker 4: So it doesn't sound like it's just. Oh, God.

499
00:24:16,390 --> 00:24:19,450
Speaker 2: The other thing you'll get. So generally, as a rule,

500
00:24:19,590 --> 00:24:23,130
Speaker 2: when you hear about like German soldiers and like their

501
00:24:23,170 --> 00:24:25,890
Speaker 2: opinion on like where they were stationed during World War Two,

502
00:24:26,250 --> 00:24:27,949
Speaker 2: the worst place you can get is the east. You

503
00:24:27,970 --> 00:24:30,949
Speaker 2: want to be anywhere but the east. German soldiers who

504
00:24:30,970 --> 00:24:33,960
Speaker 2: wind up in the Balkans are like asking to go

505
00:24:34,060 --> 00:24:37,300
Speaker 2: east sometimes because it's so bad because I will take

506
00:24:37,340 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 2: my fucking chances with the Russians. Like get me away

507
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 2: from these people. Like one of the chief weapons that

508
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,270
Speaker 2: the Astasha are using to like do their genocide is

509
00:24:48,330 --> 00:24:51,169
Speaker 2: just this like glove with like a razor blade on

510
00:24:51,210 --> 00:24:54,109
Speaker 2: the hand that they just jab into people's necks hundreds

511
00:24:54,150 --> 00:24:56,070
Speaker 2: at a time. They just throw them down in front

512
00:24:56,090 --> 00:24:57,850
Speaker 2: of me. I'll cut their fucking necks with this hand

513
00:24:57,910 --> 00:25:02,609
Speaker 2: knife thing. Like, it's awful stuff. Like, I cannot exaggerate

514
00:25:02,650 --> 00:25:05,450
Speaker 2: how fucking ugly the war in the Balkans is.

515
00:25:06,100 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's pretty fucking horrible.

516
00:25:09,020 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 2: It's pretty bad.

517
00:25:10,740 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 3: Such a simple device that also sounds like it would

518
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:16,980
Speaker 3: take so long to kill someone.

519
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:19,300
Speaker 2: It would take a lot of time to get through

520
00:25:19,340 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 2: a lot of people doing it that way. But bullets

521
00:25:21,660 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 2: are expensive, you know?

522
00:25:23,780 --> 00:25:25,850
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure. And this you can just make at home.

523
00:25:26,950 --> 00:25:29,109
Speaker 2: Well, and that's, you know, the Nazis have that problem, too.

524
00:25:29,130 --> 00:25:31,420
Speaker 2: They're like, shooting a whole bunch of people is really

525
00:25:31,460 --> 00:25:33,940
Speaker 2: bad for our troops. Their, like, brains break after a

526
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:36,700
Speaker 2: while if they're just killing civilians with guns. And also,

527
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 2: we don't have unlimited bullets. That's why, like, gas chambers

528
00:25:39,140 --> 00:25:42,139
Speaker 2: and shit become popular, part of why. The Ustasha are

529
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:43,700
Speaker 2: just like, what about hen knife?

530
00:25:45,420 --> 00:25:48,790
Speaker 3: What if it was harder and, like, that sounds like

531
00:25:49,150 --> 00:25:52,690
Speaker 3: the quickest route to breaking your brain is having to, like,

532
00:25:53,030 --> 00:25:55,709
Speaker 3: kitchen glove knife someone repeatedly.

533
00:25:55,730 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. nobody fighting for that particular group had a soul

534
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,620
Speaker 2: by the time the war started they had already seen

535
00:26:02,740 --> 00:26:05,580
Speaker 2: thousands of deaths i yeah i guess.

536
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,120
Speaker 3: It's like that's not you don't put that glove on

537
00:26:08,220 --> 00:26:10,780
Speaker 3: for your first kill i suppose.

538
00:26:10,380 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 6: No god no you don't start with the knife glove

539
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:18,139
Speaker 6: yeah it's pretty haunting stuff the balkans um so the

540
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 6: whole well you just made a t-shirt Yeah.

541
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 2: And I love the Balkans. I've spent a lot of

542
00:26:23,770 --> 00:26:26,070
Speaker 2: time there. It's a wonderful part of the world. Great food.

543
00:26:26,109 --> 00:26:28,750
Speaker 2: Anytime you get a coffee, there's a cigarette with it.

544
00:26:28,930 --> 00:26:32,120
Speaker 2: It's great nowadays. But yeah, they've had a rough history.

545
00:26:32,140 --> 00:26:32,420
Speaker 5: Yeah.

546
00:26:33,770 --> 00:26:36,850
Speaker 2: The whole ethnic and religious situation in the Balkans in

547
00:26:36,890 --> 00:26:39,050
Speaker 2: World War II and the details of everything that happened

548
00:26:39,070 --> 00:26:41,330
Speaker 2: are way too complicated for me to cover in more

549
00:26:41,390 --> 00:26:44,810
Speaker 2: depth during what is the prelude to a completely different genocide.

550
00:26:45,310 --> 00:26:47,109
Speaker 2: But there's a myth I do need to bust before

551
00:26:47,150 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 2: we go on because you will hear claims online that

552
00:26:49,540 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 2: the Ustasha were so viable that even the SS were

553
00:26:52,660 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 2: horrified by their actions, that they went too far for

554
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:57,660
Speaker 2: even the SS. And the idea that they went too

555
00:26:57,700 --> 00:27:00,199
Speaker 2: far for the worst Nazis is very viral and it's

556
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,869
Speaker 2: also untrue. Most of this rumor is due to the

557
00:27:02,910 --> 00:27:07,470
Speaker 2: fact that one specific Nazi, an Austrian named Edmund Gleis-Horstenau,

558
00:27:08,510 --> 00:27:11,470
Speaker 2: did attempt to halt the Ustasha's atrocities. He was like

559
00:27:11,510 --> 00:27:14,190
Speaker 2: a German diplomat who was stationed there. And he sent

560
00:27:14,210 --> 00:27:16,030
Speaker 2: a bunch of complaints to Berlin. And it were like,

561
00:27:16,050 --> 00:27:18,410
Speaker 2: these guys are going a little bit off, a little

562
00:27:18,430 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 2: bit out of pocket. And so a Nazi was horrified.

563
00:27:22,670 --> 00:27:26,460
Speaker 2: But like Himmler wasn't. Hitler wasn't. Like Berlin completely ignored

564
00:27:26,500 --> 00:27:28,580
Speaker 2: his complaints. They were like, yeah, it's fine that we

565
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:31,750
Speaker 2: don't give a shit. Like we're the Nazis. And so

566
00:27:31,790 --> 00:27:34,910
Speaker 2: you can find SS reports describing the bestial manner that

567
00:27:34,950 --> 00:27:38,210
Speaker 2: the Ustashi used against, quote, helpless old people, women, and children.

568
00:27:38,650 --> 00:27:41,150
Speaker 2: But there's no evidence that like Himmler himself or anyone

569
00:27:41,260 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 2: high up in the SS gave a shit. And you

570
00:27:43,340 --> 00:27:46,780
Speaker 2: can also find, you can find similar individual SS men

571
00:27:46,859 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 2: writing about horrifying crimes other SS guys committed. This is

572
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 2: also true with Oscar Durlwanger. So it's not that the

573
00:27:53,580 --> 00:27:55,860
Speaker 2: Ustashi were too horrible for the SS. It's that there's

574
00:27:55,880 --> 00:28:00,160
Speaker 2: always some guys who are like a little bit, like softer.

575
00:28:01,010 --> 00:28:04,150
Speaker 3: Yeah that's like of course there are nazis who are

576
00:28:04,369 --> 00:28:08,730
Speaker 3: also like oh this cowardly and can yeah like.

577
00:28:08,950 --> 00:28:11,869
Speaker 2: I didn't i didn't know we were doing this yeah.

578
00:28:12,150 --> 00:28:14,410
Speaker 3: Yeah that that is like a piece of information that's

579
00:28:14,490 --> 00:28:16,820
Speaker 3: designed to go dishonestly viral.

580
00:28:16,940 --> 00:28:21,150
Speaker 2: Yes exactly Now, at most, what it is fair to say,

581
00:28:21,190 --> 00:28:23,919
Speaker 2: as I pointed out, is that the brutal hand-to-hand nature

582
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 2: with which a lot of the killing gets done in

583
00:28:26,260 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 2: the Balkans does nauseate a lot of SS guys. But

584
00:28:29,140 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 2: even Himmler got sick visiting Auschwitz, and that doesn't mean

585
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 2: he wasn't okay with it, right? Anyway, back to the Balkans. So,

586
00:28:38,100 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 2: Balkan World War II history knowers will be livid at

587
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 2: me not yet discussing in detail and arguably the most

588
00:28:43,050 --> 00:28:46,110
Speaker 2: important partisan militia of that period, which is the communists.

589
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,930
Speaker 2: And this is because our bastard Radovan Karadzic's father, Vuko,

590
00:28:50,270 --> 00:28:52,910
Speaker 2: fought for the Chetniks against the communists. So he's a

591
00:28:52,950 --> 00:28:55,850
Speaker 2: member of this kind of right-wing Serbian militia that fights

592
00:28:55,870 --> 00:28:59,190
Speaker 2: the Nazis sometimes, but also fights alongside the Nazis, especially

593
00:28:59,230 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 2: when they want to kill communists. And the primary people

594
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 2: they hate are the communists, right? So our bastard's dad

595
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 2: may have fought the Nazis. I haven't seen any evidence

596
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:10,700
Speaker 2: of this. It's probably a lot more likely that he

597
00:29:10,740 --> 00:29:15,100
Speaker 2: wanted to kill communists and Muslim Croats, right? So after

598
00:29:15,180 --> 00:29:18,860
Speaker 2: Yugoslavia fell to the Nazis, Josep Broz Tito formed a

599
00:29:18,900 --> 00:29:22,590
Speaker 2: resistance group made up of members of the former, of

600
00:29:22,650 --> 00:29:25,230
Speaker 2: the illegal communist party of Yugoslavia, right? There'd been a

601
00:29:25,650 --> 00:29:29,070
Speaker 2: communist party in Yugoslavia that's illegal. And these guys are like,

602
00:29:29,170 --> 00:29:32,170
Speaker 2: you know, probably mostly book nerds as communists tended to

603
00:29:32,210 --> 00:29:34,630
Speaker 2: be at the period. And Tito's just one of, he's,

604
00:29:35,090 --> 00:29:36,750
Speaker 2: we'll do an episode on him at some point. He's

605
00:29:36,810 --> 00:29:39,250
Speaker 2: one of the most interesting men who ever fucking lived.

606
00:29:39,330 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: I could easily do a two-part behind the bastards on

607
00:29:41,660 --> 00:29:43,860
Speaker 2: Tito but I would also have to have Margaret do

608
00:29:43,900 --> 00:29:46,220
Speaker 2: a two-part episode of cool people who did cool stuff

609
00:29:46,500 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 2: to accurately depict Tito's life he's that kind of guy

610
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 2: where it's like yeah he's like he was a dictator

611
00:29:52,260 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 2: but he was also pretty amazing that's that actually.

612
00:29:56,200 --> 00:30:00,830
Speaker 3: Sounds like an incredible uh game of volleyball We'll do

613
00:30:00,890 --> 00:30:01,470
Speaker 3: it one of these days.

614
00:30:01,510 --> 00:30:05,140
Speaker 2: Nightmare, that's great. For this week, we're not talking much

615
00:30:05,220 --> 00:30:07,100
Speaker 2: about Tito. What you need to know about him is

616
00:30:07,140 --> 00:30:10,950
Speaker 2: that he turns his former political party into a partisan

617
00:30:11,070 --> 00:30:15,380
Speaker 2: army strong enough that They win. Yugoslavia is the only

618
00:30:15,460 --> 00:30:19,660
Speaker 2: nation that gets conquered by the Nazis and independently frees themselves.

619
00:30:20,020 --> 00:30:21,979
Speaker 2: They don't have to be. Now, obviously, they receive some

620
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,390
Speaker 2: assistance and stuff, but they don't have to be liberated.

621
00:30:24,530 --> 00:30:27,570
Speaker 2: There's not foreign troops who have to free. They do

622
00:30:27,650 --> 00:30:31,270
Speaker 2: it because they're that good. Like Tito is very, very

623
00:30:31,350 --> 00:30:32,860
Speaker 2: effective as a partisan leader.

624
00:30:33,630 --> 00:30:35,050
Speaker 4: Can I ask something, like.

625
00:30:35,190 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 3: Very, very tiny-brained question? Why do we not learn about

626
00:30:40,660 --> 00:30:43,380
Speaker 3: this area of World War II? What is the function?

627
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:44,740
Speaker 2: Because it's way too complicated.

628
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 4: Okay.

629
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:49,070
Speaker 2: None of this, and afterwards even, in, like, the Cold War.

630
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,380
Speaker 2: Yugoslavia doesn't cleanly slot into any boxes, right? Because they

631
00:30:53,420 --> 00:30:56,220
Speaker 2: were communists, so you'd think they cleanly... But also, Tito

632
00:30:56,260 --> 00:30:59,550
Speaker 2: literally threatened to have Stalin murdered after Stalin... Stalin kept

633
00:30:59,590 --> 00:31:01,950
Speaker 2: sending assassins to kill Tito because Tito wouldn't do what

634
00:31:01,970 --> 00:31:05,390
Speaker 2: he wanted. And Tito eventually was like, if you keep sending...

635
00:31:05,470 --> 00:31:07,390
Speaker 2: You've sent like seven of these guys to kill me.

636
00:31:07,450 --> 00:31:09,610
Speaker 2: I've killed them all. If you send any more, I'll

637
00:31:09,630 --> 00:31:11,670
Speaker 2: send one man to kill you and I won't have

638
00:31:11,690 --> 00:31:13,950
Speaker 2: to send another. Like, this is at the height of Stalin.

639
00:31:13,970 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 2: That's who Tito is. Tito doesn't give a fuck. Like...

640
00:31:20,220 --> 00:31:21,860
Speaker 2: You know who would have hated ads?

641
00:31:22,900 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 4: Probably Tito. I guess anyone in this. Yeah, probably Tito.

642
00:31:25,820 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably most of the communists in this story, but

643
00:31:27,580 --> 00:31:33,410
Speaker 2: certainly Tito. Yeah, definitely the communists. Yeah, yeah, basically, yeah.

644
00:31:33,610 --> 00:31:35,310
Speaker 4: Tito would not buy this.

645
00:31:35,870 --> 00:31:37,150
Speaker 2: He probably wouldn't.

646
00:31:37,270 --> 00:31:38,270
Speaker 4: Make of that what you will.

647
00:31:45,300 --> 00:31:47,610
Speaker 2: And we're back. Although, again, one of the complicated things

648
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,590
Speaker 2: about Yugoslavia is that there are some points where they're

649
00:31:50,610 --> 00:31:53,260
Speaker 2: trying to align themselves closer to the West. So, again,

650
00:31:53,540 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 2: they don't fit super cleanly into any of the boxes.

651
00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 2: That in our very simple histories, we like to assign

652
00:32:00,300 --> 00:32:00,900
Speaker 2: states to.

653
00:32:01,180 --> 00:32:03,420
Speaker 3: Okay, so we just don't learn about it because we

654
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 3: would have to teach children that more than one thing.

655
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 2: Can be true. I see, I see. It's also, it's

656
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:12,790
Speaker 2: impossible to learn about Tito without being like, well, that's

657
00:32:12,830 --> 00:32:15,110
Speaker 2: kind of amazing. And you really don't want that with

658
00:32:15,150 --> 00:32:17,750
Speaker 2: like a communist dictator during like the Cold War era.

659
00:32:18,890 --> 00:32:21,290
Speaker 3: That's how I feel when a lot of people describe

660
00:32:21,310 --> 00:32:25,190
Speaker 3: their fathers, where you hear some real atrocities followed by like.

661
00:32:25,550 --> 00:32:27,010
Speaker 4: Man, but he was a great guy.

662
00:32:27,030 --> 00:32:27,770
Speaker 2: Tell me how to fish.

663
00:32:28,690 --> 00:32:29,510
Speaker 4: Ruined my life.

664
00:32:31,170 --> 00:32:33,540
Speaker 2: I learned how to fish. And Tito, I mean, the

665
00:32:33,580 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 2: thing about him is that after the war, he governs

666
00:32:35,780 --> 00:32:39,700
Speaker 2: for decades Yugoslavia up until like 1980. He's running it

667
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:41,300
Speaker 2: from the end of World War II up to I

668
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 2: think 1980 is when he dies. And this is the

669
00:32:43,780 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 2: only period of time pretty much that like the Balkans

670
00:32:46,940 --> 00:32:50,830
Speaker 2: is one united thing. And it's because Tito's very good

671
00:32:51,030 --> 00:32:55,130
Speaker 2: at keeping this incredibly quarrelsome area together, right? He's going

672
00:32:55,150 --> 00:32:57,740
Speaker 2: to ultimately be unsuccessful. He tries to create this sense

673
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 2: of Yugoslav nationality. As you might guess by the fact

674
00:33:01,340 --> 00:33:03,580
Speaker 2: that there's no Yugoslavia today, it doesn't work out in

675
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 2: the long run, right?

676
00:33:07,460 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 6: Yeah.

677
00:33:08,620 --> 00:33:12,820
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, that's enough backstory for us to finally turn

678
00:33:12,860 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 2: to the actual subject of these episodes.

679
00:33:15,260 --> 00:33:16,780
Speaker 4: God, that was a really.

680
00:33:17,310 --> 00:33:19,970
Speaker 3: Brutal journey to the beginning of the episode.

681
00:33:19,990 --> 00:33:21,570
Speaker 2: Long and ugly prelude.

682
00:33:21,590 --> 00:33:22,930
Speaker 4: Kind of an old timer.

683
00:33:23,130 --> 00:33:25,709
Speaker 3: The last, oh man, sometimes we get some fun ones.

684
00:33:25,730 --> 00:33:27,450
Speaker 3: Sometimes there's a witch at the beginning.

685
00:33:27,550 --> 00:33:29,130
Speaker 2: No, millions are already dead.

686
00:33:29,150 --> 00:33:32,370
Speaker 4: This time millions are dead. Okay.

687
00:33:32,410 --> 00:33:32,690
Speaker 3: Yeah.

688
00:33:32,710 --> 00:33:36,290
Speaker 2: Okay. So Radovan Karajic was born on June 19th, 1945

689
00:33:36,290 --> 00:33:40,910
Speaker 2: in Pejica, which is a tiny Montenegrin village that Wikipedia

690
00:33:40,970 --> 00:33:44,690
Speaker 2: notes is, quote, inhabited exclusively by the Karajic family. Yes.

691
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,330
Speaker 2: So everyone's kind of related in this larger family group

692
00:33:48,370 --> 00:33:53,950
Speaker 2: in this small town. Maybe a few dozen people, right? Incest?

693
00:33:54,530 --> 00:33:55,890
Speaker 4: Question mark?

694
00:33:56,370 --> 00:33:58,750
Speaker 2: It's not family quite in the same sense. I think

695
00:33:58,770 --> 00:34:01,810
Speaker 2: these are more like a tribal group. Yeah, they're all

696
00:34:01,850 --> 00:34:04,270
Speaker 2: kind of related, definitely. There is going to be incest

697
00:34:04,290 --> 00:34:05,430
Speaker 2: in this story. Yes, Sophie.

698
00:34:05,450 --> 00:34:06,610
Speaker 4: It's like an improv group.

699
00:34:07,330 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 2: There's attempted incest in this story. Not quite Targaryens.

700
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:11,570
Speaker 1: Got it.

701
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, and kind of, again, Radovan

702
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 2: comes into the world right at the end of World

703
00:34:18,260 --> 00:34:21,620
Speaker 2: War II after about a million Yugoslavians die in the war.

704
00:34:21,980 --> 00:34:24,509
Speaker 2: Mostly like Serbs are the largest number of that. A

705
00:34:24,610 --> 00:34:27,009
Speaker 2: lot of Serbs get killed in Yugoslavia and a lot

706
00:34:27,050 --> 00:34:29,609
Speaker 2: of Serbs get killed by Croats in particular. So there's

707
00:34:29,630 --> 00:34:31,710
Speaker 2: going to be anger over like what was effectively a

708
00:34:32,030 --> 00:34:35,330
Speaker 2: Serbian genocide that gets committed by these people who you're

709
00:34:35,370 --> 00:34:39,609
Speaker 2: now countrymen with some of them, right? Yeah, I mean,

710
00:34:39,630 --> 00:34:40,730
Speaker 2: that's just gonna simmer.

711
00:34:41,739 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 4: That has to be like categorically true, right?

712
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 3: Like there just was a massive genocide that it sounds

713
00:34:48,820 --> 00:34:51,820
Speaker 3: like most of the world was just ignoring because it

714
00:34:51,860 --> 00:34:52,779
Speaker 3: was World War II.

715
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:53,580
Speaker 5: Yeah.

716
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:55,800
Speaker 2: There was a lot of genocides going around. The Balkans

717
00:34:55,860 --> 00:34:58,300
Speaker 2: are complicated. None of it was easy to talk about.

718
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,390
Speaker 2: So yeah, Radovan comes into the world in 45 and

719
00:35:02,430 --> 00:35:04,710
Speaker 2: his father Vuko, who again had fought with the Chetniks,

720
00:35:04,730 --> 00:35:05,650
Speaker 2: had been born in 1912 and he was not a

721
00:35:05,670 --> 00:35:09,969
Speaker 2: nice man. An analysis of Radovan's life published by the

722
00:35:10,030 --> 00:35:13,270
Speaker 2: Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry Law noted after

723
00:35:13,310 --> 00:35:16,860
Speaker 2: the war that media accounts described Vuko as, quote, a

724
00:35:16,910 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 2: poor tramp and a tenderent journeyman with a history of

725
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:24,739
Speaker 2: incest and theft. And this is slightly incorrect, right? But

726
00:35:24,780 --> 00:35:28,140
Speaker 2: the truth is actually a little worse. He didn't, he

727
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,450
Speaker 2: aspired to incest. He never quite made it happen, right?

728
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,280
Speaker 4: I do think that's better. I do think that's better.

729
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:39,549
Speaker 2: Well, you hear about what happens, Jamie. Maybe I should

730
00:35:39,570 --> 00:35:40,689
Speaker 2: read this story to you first.

731
00:35:41,540 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 4: What do we mean about failed incest guy? Okay.

732
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 2: He tries to marry his fifth cousin, right? Which is

733
00:35:48,100 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 2: legal at the time. Anything further than like third cousins

734
00:35:51,260 --> 00:35:53,140
Speaker 2: is legal. So it's not like illegal incest.

735
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:53,399
Speaker 4: I know.

736
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,990
Speaker 3: Anytime you need to pull out the law, it's like

737
00:35:56,010 --> 00:35:58,300
Speaker 3: when you're talking to someone or like you're in an

738
00:35:58,410 --> 00:36:01,270
Speaker 3: argument on Twitter and someone's like, actually, it's okay that

739
00:36:01,310 --> 00:36:01,750
Speaker 3: I said that.

740
00:36:01,770 --> 00:36:03,250
Speaker 4: And then they send you a picture of a map.

741
00:36:03,610 --> 00:36:03,890
Speaker 4: You're like.

742
00:36:03,930 --> 00:36:04,330
Speaker 5: Like, no.

743
00:36:04,390 --> 00:36:07,109
Speaker 2: Right, right, right. Yeah, or they're making a strong point

744
00:36:07,130 --> 00:36:08,390
Speaker 2: about age of consent law.

745
00:36:08,430 --> 00:36:08,669
Speaker 3: Yeah.

746
00:36:08,890 --> 00:36:09,930
Speaker 4: Exactly, exactly.

747
00:36:09,969 --> 00:36:11,770
Speaker 2: That wasn't creepy that I said that.

748
00:36:12,630 --> 00:36:12,870
Speaker 3: Yeah.

749
00:36:12,910 --> 00:36:13,710
Speaker 2: Yeah.

750
00:36:13,950 --> 00:36:15,610
Speaker 4: If you need a map, you're a pervert.

751
00:36:16,650 --> 00:36:19,469
Speaker 2: There's a couple different versions of the story of what

752
00:36:19,550 --> 00:36:22,950
Speaker 2: happens with Vuko and his fifth cousin. In the version

753
00:36:23,030 --> 00:36:26,790
Speaker 2: told by his family, this cousin does not love him back.

754
00:36:26,830 --> 00:36:28,730
Speaker 2: He's in love with her. And they're both cowherds. So

755
00:36:28,750 --> 00:36:31,250
Speaker 2: they spend a lot of time together. And one day

756
00:36:31,310 --> 00:36:33,690
Speaker 2: he tries to kiss her and she pushes him off

757
00:36:34,090 --> 00:36:37,290
Speaker 2: and the gun that he was carrying accidentally goes off

758
00:36:37,390 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 2: and hits an artery in her leg. And he tries to,

759
00:36:40,110 --> 00:36:42,820
Speaker 2: they're very specific, he tries to plug the wound with tobacco,

760
00:36:43,140 --> 00:36:45,859
Speaker 2: which was apparently a folk remedy for cuts, but she

761
00:36:45,900 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 2: bled out. You should not use tobacco as a folk

762
00:36:48,620 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 2: remedy for an arterial wound.

763
00:36:51,060 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 4: Oh, so he attempted incest and then killed her?

764
00:36:54,860 --> 00:36:58,700
Speaker 2: Yeah, he definitely killed her. The family version of the

765
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,810
Speaker 2: story is, yeah. It was an accident. Let me go

766
00:37:01,830 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 2: with the other first. The family version is he loved her.

767
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:06,900
Speaker 2: She didn't love him back. And his gun just went

768
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:10,210
Speaker 2: off by accident as she's like pushing him away. There's

769
00:37:10,270 --> 00:37:12,830
Speaker 2: a second version of the story. And in the family

770
00:37:12,850 --> 00:37:15,089
Speaker 2: version of the story, the girl's family, after he kills her,

771
00:37:15,130 --> 00:37:18,330
Speaker 2: the girl's family understands it's an accident. But because of

772
00:37:18,370 --> 00:37:21,440
Speaker 2: his negligence, Vuko goes to prison for a year. Now,

773
00:37:21,500 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 2: Jessica Stern, the author of My War Criminal, does not

774
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:28,110
Speaker 2: totally buy this story and finds a contemporary news article

775
00:37:28,250 --> 00:37:31,290
Speaker 2: about the killing. And this news article claimed that Vuko

776
00:37:31,390 --> 00:37:34,529
Speaker 2: and Zhella, who's his fifth cousin, were both in love, right?

777
00:37:34,550 --> 00:37:37,210
Speaker 2: So it's different from the family story. But her parents

778
00:37:37,310 --> 00:37:39,590
Speaker 2: wanted her to wait to marry him until he finished

779
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 2: his compulsory military service. As Stern summarizes, quote, Zhella promised

780
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 2: to marry Vuko, but in keeping with her parents' wishes,

781
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 2: insisted on delay. Vuko, on the other hand, wanted to

782
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,589
Speaker 2: get married immediately. One day, Gela asked Vuko to meet

783
00:37:52,610 --> 00:37:54,490
Speaker 2: her at the top of the large hill above the village.

784
00:37:54,890 --> 00:37:57,129
Speaker 2: Vuko went to meet his cousin, as requested. He brought

785
00:37:57,170 --> 00:37:59,730
Speaker 2: a revolver, as well as the cows. He pressed once

786
00:37:59,790 --> 00:38:02,270
Speaker 2: again for Gela to marry him. When Gela refused, he

787
00:38:02,350 --> 00:38:04,570
Speaker 2: shot her. The bullet went through both of her thighs,

788
00:38:04,650 --> 00:38:07,330
Speaker 2: damaging the blood vessels. She died soon afterwards due to

789
00:38:07,370 --> 00:38:10,130
Speaker 2: the loss of blood. Vuko did not confess to the crime,

790
00:38:10,170 --> 00:38:12,529
Speaker 2: but told the court that the shooting was accidental. He

791
00:38:12,570 --> 00:38:14,870
Speaker 2: testified that his revolver had fallen out of his pocket

792
00:38:14,930 --> 00:38:16,950
Speaker 2: as he was seating himself next to his cousin Gela.

793
00:38:17,330 --> 00:38:19,170
Speaker 2: He said that Jella had asked him, why are you

794
00:38:19,230 --> 00:38:21,569
Speaker 2: carrying that devil with you? Then she grabbed the gun

795
00:38:21,630 --> 00:38:23,710
Speaker 2: and threw it away from where they were sitting. Vuko

796
00:38:23,750 --> 00:38:26,770
Speaker 2: testified that the gun hit a rock and accidentally discharged,

797
00:38:26,890 --> 00:38:29,670
Speaker 2: fatally wounding Jella in the thigh. The court did not

798
00:38:29,730 --> 00:38:34,939
Speaker 2: accept Vuko's version of what transpired. Yeah, no shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

799
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,100
Speaker 2: Of course they don't. That's the worst lie I've ever heard.

800
00:38:38,180 --> 00:38:40,060
Speaker 2: That's the most obvious lie.

801
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,580
Speaker 3: He's like creating like an whatcha say kind of scenario

802
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 3: for what happened with the gun.

803
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:47,870
Speaker 2: He really is. That's ridiculous.

804
00:38:48,190 --> 00:38:48,710
Speaker 1: Stop.

805
00:38:48,950 --> 00:38:52,550
Speaker 2: Stop. He's found with like a letter on his person.

806
00:38:52,790 --> 00:38:58,779
Speaker 5: That was the most impeccable reference I've ever heard.

807
00:38:58,800 --> 00:38:59,819
Speaker 4: Oh, my God.

808
00:38:59,860 --> 00:39:02,140
Speaker 3: If someone's dramatically shooting, I'm going.

809
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:03,060
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.

810
00:39:03,460 --> 00:39:07,280
Speaker 5: If you didn't get that reference, message me on blue sky.

811
00:39:07,340 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 5: I'll send you the video. Oh, my God, Jamie.

812
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:11,820
Speaker 4: Sorry, Robert.

813
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 2: Sorry, Robert.

814
00:39:12,580 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 4: That was amazing.

815
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:14,320
Speaker 1: The court.

816
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:17,890
Speaker 2: The court actually has access to a letter that Vuko

817
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:20,250
Speaker 2: had in his bag when he gets taken into custody,

818
00:39:20,270 --> 00:39:23,150
Speaker 2: in which he threatens to kill Zhella and then himself

819
00:39:23,310 --> 00:39:26,509
Speaker 2: if she doesn't marry him immediately. And it read in part, quote,

820
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,060
Speaker 2: Dear Zhella, if our marriage cannot be proclaimed, then thank

821
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 2: you for burying both of us in the black ground.

822
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:33,570
Speaker 2: And Vuk was like, well, yeah, I wrote that letter,

823
00:39:33,620 --> 00:39:35,590
Speaker 2: but it was to scare her into marrying me. I

824
00:39:36,070 --> 00:39:37,170
Speaker 2: wouldn't have actually killed her.

825
00:39:37,190 --> 00:39:38,870
Speaker 4: I like that he is.

826
00:39:38,910 --> 00:39:40,750
Speaker 2: The fact that I killed her was a clear accident.

827
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:44,850
Speaker 3: No matter what, no matter what, there is no doubt

828
00:39:44,930 --> 00:39:48,390
Speaker 3: that he shot her in the thigh and killed her.

829
00:39:48,410 --> 00:39:50,049
Speaker 2: He definitely shot her in the thigh and killed her.

830
00:39:50,489 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 4: I like that there is no interpretation of it.

831
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, no, but so he definitely killed her,

832
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:56,900
Speaker 3: but it was actually an accident and he was just.

833
00:39:57,100 --> 00:39:59,189
Speaker 4: Trying to trick her into marrying him.

834
00:39:59,210 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I guess, not that it doesn't matter which

835
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,380
Speaker 3: version of the story is true, but I'm going to

836
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,230
Speaker 3: go with the least charitable one.

837
00:40:10,260 --> 00:40:13,259
Speaker 2: He definitely killed her. Yeah, probably not the nicest one.

838
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 3: And it sounds like he kind of, I mean, a

839
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:21,320
Speaker 3: shot to the thigh feels quite personal, I feel.

840
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:22,740
Speaker 2: Yeah.

841
00:40:22,820 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 3: That is not giving an accident if you have just

842
00:40:26,700 --> 00:40:28,300
Speaker 3: rejected someone's advance.

843
00:40:29,010 --> 00:40:32,620
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So, again, not a great dude, no matter

844
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:34,819
Speaker 2: which version of the story is true. And Vuko gets

845
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:39,030
Speaker 2: released from prison right at the start of the Axis invasion, right?

846
00:40:39,180 --> 00:40:41,430
Speaker 2: That's what gets him out of being locked up. And

847
00:40:41,450 --> 00:40:44,210
Speaker 2: that's when he joins the Chetniks. And then after the war,

848
00:40:44,430 --> 00:40:47,469
Speaker 2: right after his son is born, the communists wind up victorious.

849
00:40:47,510 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 2: And he gets arrested and imprisoned for another year because

850
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,660
Speaker 2: he fought against the communists a bunch. Or another five years.

851
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 4: Who did he.

852
00:40:53,790 --> 00:40:56,210
Speaker 3: Who did he end up with after he killed his

853
00:40:56,310 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 3: cousin for sexually rejecting him?

854
00:40:58,010 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 2: He has to marry a, he has to, so everyone

855
00:41:00,260 --> 00:41:02,980
Speaker 2: will know the woman who becomes Radovan's mother, who he

856
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,739
Speaker 2: eventually marries, is like illiterate and like comes from a

857
00:41:05,780 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 2: poor family. And so he has to like, he has

858
00:41:07,820 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 2: to go down a couple of steps. He was like,

859
00:41:10,260 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 2: because of his social position that the Karajiks had, he

860
00:41:12,980 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 2: should have been able to marry somebody better, but he's

861
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,750
Speaker 2: not able to because he murders this woman, right? You know, she,

862
00:41:18,770 --> 00:41:20,209
Speaker 2: I mean. That's what people say.

863
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:24,940
Speaker 4: And so does she. She has to marry a murderer.

864
00:41:24,980 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 2: She has to marry the murderer. Yeah.

865
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:26,989
Speaker 4: Yeah.

866
00:41:27,290 --> 00:41:30,750
Speaker 2: So he misses the first five years of his son

867
00:41:30,810 --> 00:41:33,190
Speaker 2: Radovan's life, which is the happiest years of his son

868
00:41:33,250 --> 00:41:36,210
Speaker 2: Radovan's life. He's emphatic about the fact that, no, it

869
00:41:36,230 --> 00:41:39,510
Speaker 2: was great before dad came back from prison. The communist

870
00:41:39,530 --> 00:41:41,990
Speaker 2: did us a favor by taking him away. And so

871
00:41:42,030 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 2: his earliest memories when he's just with his mom would

872
00:41:44,340 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 2: have been a mix of heroic poems because his mom

873
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:49,460
Speaker 2: sings a lot. They usually set their poems to music

874
00:41:49,580 --> 00:41:51,750
Speaker 2: in this part of the world. So His mom singing

875
00:41:51,770 --> 00:41:54,270
Speaker 2: him a lot of poems about his valiant ancestors fighting

876
00:41:54,310 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 2: the Muslims and, you know, furiously whispered tales of communist

877
00:41:57,739 --> 00:42:00,980
Speaker 2: violence against his family. He grows up knowing which oak

878
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,299
Speaker 2: trees in town had been used as backstops for the

879
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:06,180
Speaker 2: communists to execute his family members. Right. These are the

880
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:10,040
Speaker 2: stories this kid grows up with. It's a very Serbian childhood.

881
00:42:11,340 --> 00:42:12,649
Speaker 4: Every boy knows.

882
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:16,780
Speaker 2: Which trees your family members bled to death against?

883
00:42:16,900 --> 00:42:17,180
Speaker 5: Yes.

884
00:42:17,900 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 4: Wow, my mother would sing it to me as we

885
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:20,819
Speaker 4: pass by.

886
00:42:21,860 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 2: Like the family stories that they shoot his dad too.

887
00:42:24,620 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 2: They try to kill him once and he like blocks

888
00:42:26,420 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 2: the bullet with his hand so they just put him

889
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:29,260
Speaker 2: in prison instead.

890
00:42:30,700 --> 00:42:31,589
Speaker 4: This is hard.

891
00:42:32,260 --> 00:42:35,140
Speaker 2: It's a harsh, yeah, some hard stories to grow up with.

892
00:42:35,219 --> 00:42:36,290
Speaker 4: Yeah.

893
00:42:36,469 --> 00:42:39,950
Speaker 2: His mother, Jovanka, raises Radovan as an only child for

894
00:42:40,030 --> 00:42:42,509
Speaker 2: five happy years while his dad is away. Now she's

895
00:42:42,530 --> 00:42:45,969
Speaker 2: a decade younger. than her husband. She's also illiterate, and

896
00:42:46,010 --> 00:42:49,850
Speaker 2: Radovan later described her as a scrappy, energetic peasant girl. Quote,

897
00:42:49,890 --> 00:42:51,989
Speaker 2: she used to recite epic poetry for me every night.

898
00:42:52,110 --> 00:42:54,069
Speaker 2: I learned many of these poems by heart before I

899
00:42:54,110 --> 00:42:57,250
Speaker 2: learned to read. So for those first few years until

900
00:42:57,270 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 2: his dad came home and started producing what would become

901
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:03,339
Speaker 2: four younger siblings, Radovan mostly remembers the songs of his

902
00:43:03,380 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 2: mother and the natural beauty of the rugged landscape around

903
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 2: their hometown. He grew up with an almost religious appreciation

904
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:12,540
Speaker 2: for the ancient oaks. There's this like They're like, they

905
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:15,410
Speaker 2: form part of like the, the like religious ceremonies. I mean,

906
00:43:15,430 --> 00:43:18,110
Speaker 2: they're Christian ceremonies, but in this region, like they are very,

907
00:43:18,510 --> 00:43:20,890
Speaker 2: very focused on their oak trees, right? It's like a

908
00:43:20,969 --> 00:43:23,330
Speaker 2: big deal to these Montenegrin Serbs. And so there's a

909
00:43:23,330 --> 00:43:26,390
Speaker 2: lot of, there's a lot of like both natural folk

910
00:43:26,450 --> 00:43:29,359
Speaker 2: remedies and kind of like magic, like natural, like, or not,

911
00:43:29,420 --> 00:43:32,350
Speaker 2: not natural, but like, um, Like folk magic that he's

912
00:43:32,410 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 2: also raised to believe in. This is an important part

913
00:43:34,660 --> 00:43:36,140
Speaker 2: of his childhood and his upbringing.

914
00:43:36,460 --> 00:43:39,380
Speaker 3: Like the thing when you shoot your cousin in the

915
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:43,210
Speaker 3: crotch and then shove tobacco into the wound so that

916
00:43:43,230 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 3: she doesn't die.

917
00:43:43,650 --> 00:43:46,489
Speaker 2: Into the bleeding wound, yeah. It's not all very effective

918
00:43:46,570 --> 00:43:53,260
Speaker 2: folk medicine. It's not 100% effective, but what medicine is? Yeah.

919
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 2: His mother was peaceful and never used any corporal punishment

920
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:59,029
Speaker 2: on him or his other siblings. He recalled later, in

921
00:43:59,050 --> 00:44:01,210
Speaker 2: the first five years of my life, I was never beaten.

922
00:44:01,350 --> 00:44:04,089
Speaker 2: I was never hit. My mother never kicked me. Now,

923
00:44:04,130 --> 00:44:07,280
Speaker 2: his biographer, Jessica Stern, because she's talking to him while

924
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:08,900
Speaker 2: he's in prison after he does the things that we're

925
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:09,580
Speaker 2: going to talk about.

926
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 4: She's Mrs. My War Criminal?

927
00:44:13,739 --> 00:44:14,180
Speaker 3: Yeah.

928
00:44:14,660 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 2: She's a little weird. Look, I'm going to be honest

929
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 2: with you.

930
00:44:18,130 --> 00:44:20,780
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's like... Is it like when the journalist fell

931
00:44:20,820 --> 00:44:22,220
Speaker 4: in love with Martin Shkreli?

932
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:22,310
Speaker 5: Not.

933
00:44:23,890 --> 00:44:28,090
Speaker 2: Quite but she i will talk about this later i

934
00:44:28,130 --> 00:44:30,110
Speaker 2: don't want to because i rely on her book a

935
00:44:30,150 --> 00:44:32,170
Speaker 2: lot and she gets a lot of good details in

936
00:44:32,190 --> 00:44:34,850
Speaker 2: there she she writes some stuff in there that i

937
00:44:34,870 --> 00:44:36,969
Speaker 2: don't fully understand i'll say that much.

938
00:44:36,750 --> 00:44:40,189
Speaker 4: There's something about a horny journalist.

939
00:44:40,989 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 2: Maybe a little i don't know yeah it's more that

940
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,620
Speaker 2: she was impressed by his charisma um let's say that

941
00:44:47,860 --> 00:44:49,280
Speaker 2: oh come on okay.

942
00:44:49,180 --> 00:44:54,569
Speaker 5: First of all dare i say jamie loftus times a

943
00:44:54,630 --> 00:44:57,290
Speaker 5: horny journalist oh no i.

944
00:44:57,250 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 4: Mean i'm i i'm interested to hear her point of view.

945
00:45:01,700 --> 00:45:06,540
Speaker 2: It's not horny it's just like weirdly uh weird i

946
00:45:06,580 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 2: don't know how else to describe it at one point

947
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,780
Speaker 2: he does like reiki on her she's doing like energy

948
00:45:11,820 --> 00:45:14,540
Speaker 2: healing and she clearly believes in that stuff too so

949
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:16,790
Speaker 2: she's like i can feel his energy like it's weird

950
00:45:16,890 --> 00:45:19,549
Speaker 2: it's a weird biography great i don't know how else

951
00:45:19,590 --> 00:45:21,350
Speaker 2: to say it guys Okay.

952
00:45:21,370 --> 00:45:25,569
Speaker 4: They're healing each other. Yeah, that's okay. I'm excited to

953
00:45:25,610 --> 00:45:26,490
Speaker 4: meet her. Okay.

954
00:45:26,790 --> 00:45:27,050
Speaker 2: Yeah.

955
00:45:27,110 --> 00:45:29,890
Speaker 4: Well, she sounds trustworthy.

956
00:45:30,050 --> 00:45:32,529
Speaker 2: And she suggests that the reason he emphasizes that his

957
00:45:32,630 --> 00:45:34,710
Speaker 2: mom never hits him is that his dad beats the

958
00:45:34,770 --> 00:45:36,690
Speaker 2: shit out of him when he gets back, right? And

959
00:45:36,750 --> 00:45:39,470
Speaker 2: for his part, Radovan more or less agrees. Quote, my

960
00:45:39,510 --> 00:45:41,940
Speaker 2: father was a strict disciplinarian, but he hit me less

961
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 2: than he hit my siblings. I was afraid that my

962
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:46,259
Speaker 2: father was very harsh with the other children. My father

963
00:45:46,340 --> 00:45:49,910
Speaker 2: did beat me, but he didn't beat me that much. Okay,

964
00:45:50,030 --> 00:45:51,190
Speaker 2: I guess that's all you can ask for.

965
00:45:51,210 --> 00:45:53,529
Speaker 3: Okay, I do feel like a lot of Behind the

966
00:45:53,550 --> 00:45:56,529
Speaker 3: Bastards episodes kind of start with this dynamic.

967
00:45:56,790 --> 00:46:00,370
Speaker 4: This is feeling familiar. Yeah.

968
00:46:00,450 --> 00:46:02,650
Speaker 2: So he also grew up hearing poems from his father,

969
00:46:02,690 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 2: who was a great guslar, or player of an indigenous,

970
00:46:05,300 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 2: there's this indigenous Serbian instrument. And he plays it a lot.

971
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:11,980
Speaker 2: And he sings. And singing seems to have been one

972
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 2: of the relatively few things that Vuko is both around

973
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 2: his kids to do, And also he's tolerable when he's singing.

974
00:46:20,180 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 2: Radovan later recalled to Stern, my friends and I once

975
00:46:22,620 --> 00:46:24,620
Speaker 2: asked my late father how it was possible to know

976
00:46:24,660 --> 00:46:26,529
Speaker 2: so many poems by heart. And my father said that

977
00:46:26,570 --> 00:46:28,890
Speaker 2: if a singer forgets a line, he can substitute a

978
00:46:28,950 --> 00:46:30,870
Speaker 2: new one. If this new line was better than the

979
00:46:30,930 --> 00:46:33,330
Speaker 2: old one, other singers will continue to use the, to

980
00:46:33,390 --> 00:46:38,750
Speaker 2: use the old one. Um, Interesting. So yeah, he's going

981
00:46:38,770 --> 00:46:40,529
Speaker 2: to learn a lot about like art from this. He

982
00:46:40,550 --> 00:46:43,350
Speaker 2: becomes like a poet and a musician. And he's also,

983
00:46:44,030 --> 00:46:47,330
Speaker 2: when he becomes a dictator, he gives all his speeches extemporaneously.

984
00:46:47,370 --> 00:46:50,270
Speaker 2: So I think this has a big influence on him, right? Okay.

985
00:46:50,750 --> 00:46:51,410
Speaker 2: From his parents.

986
00:46:51,469 --> 00:46:53,529
Speaker 3: It's pretty potent to say like, well, if you don't

987
00:46:53,570 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 3: know how it goes, just make it up and.

988
00:46:55,700 --> 00:46:57,420
Speaker 2: See what people say. Yeah.

989
00:46:57,640 --> 00:46:57,839
Speaker 4: Yeah.

990
00:46:59,150 --> 00:47:01,930
Speaker 2: So from his parents, Radovan would inherit a love of

991
00:47:01,989 --> 00:47:04,830
Speaker 2: poetry and an appreciation for being able to make shit

992
00:47:04,890 --> 00:47:06,850
Speaker 2: up on the spot. I haven't found a lot of

993
00:47:06,890 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 2: detail about how he spent his childhood and adolescence. One

994
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:13,819
Speaker 2: BBC article summarizing interviews with his mother put it this way.

995
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 2: His mother described her son as loyal and a hard

996
00:47:16,580 --> 00:47:18,259
Speaker 2: worker who used to help her in the home and

997
00:47:18,300 --> 00:47:20,510
Speaker 2: in the fields. She said that he was a serious

998
00:47:20,570 --> 00:47:23,110
Speaker 2: boy who was respectful towards the elderly and helped his

999
00:47:23,150 --> 00:47:26,870
Speaker 2: school friends with their homework. So that's, you know, maybe.

1000
00:47:27,610 --> 00:47:30,610
Speaker 2: The family left Pechika... not long after Vuko gets out

1001
00:47:30,650 --> 00:47:33,630
Speaker 2: of prison and they move to another village, Sovnik. When

1002
00:47:33,670 --> 00:47:36,830
Speaker 2: Radovan was 11, they leave for the big city, Nixik,

1003
00:47:36,870 --> 00:47:39,669
Speaker 2: which is the second city of Montenegro. But he never

1004
00:47:39,770 --> 00:47:41,810
Speaker 2: gets over the village that he's raised in, and he

1005
00:47:41,830 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 2: would later complain to interviewers with vehement hatred that the

1006
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:47,860
Speaker 2: communists destroyed the ancient oak trees to build a highway,

1007
00:47:48,219 --> 00:47:50,380
Speaker 2: and he calls this blasphemy, right? So he takes that

1008
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,540
Speaker 2: very seriously. He does not seem to have held any

1009
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 2: ire against the communists as a young man, though, and

1010
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,730
Speaker 2: he's going to join the communist party for years. This

1011
00:47:58,770 --> 00:48:00,770
Speaker 2: might be because he hated his father so much. It

1012
00:48:00,790 --> 00:48:02,810
Speaker 2: may have been, well, my dad hates the communists, so

1013
00:48:02,890 --> 00:48:04,750
Speaker 2: I'm going to like the communists for a while.

1014
00:48:04,770 --> 00:48:07,109
Speaker 4: I mean, that feels like a safe bet.

1015
00:48:07,930 --> 00:48:11,430
Speaker 2: Many such cases. At age 15, he leaves on his

1016
00:48:11,550 --> 00:48:15,050
Speaker 2: own and moves to Sarajevo in nearby Bosnia. And everything

1017
00:48:15,210 --> 00:48:17,450
Speaker 2: in the Balkans is kind of near Bosnia, but still.

1018
00:48:18,530 --> 00:48:21,049
Speaker 2: Sarajevo is a strange choice for a man who would

1019
00:48:21,070 --> 00:48:25,149
Speaker 2: later become a violent Serbian ethno-nationalist. Belgrade which is like

1020
00:48:25,230 --> 00:48:29,010
Speaker 2: the capital of Yugoslavia is much larger and it's very

1021
00:48:29,110 --> 00:48:32,790
Speaker 2: Serb Sarajevo meanwhile was and is a melting pot if

1022
00:48:32,810 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 2: you've ever been there it's a wonderful city you can

1023
00:48:35,180 --> 00:48:38,580
Speaker 2: see the influence of Turkish and even Arab culture alongside

1024
00:48:38,660 --> 00:48:41,719
Speaker 2: Balkan and European influences it's a lot like Istanbul if

1025
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:43,900
Speaker 2: you've ever been right and that it's the city that

1026
00:48:43,940 --> 00:48:46,300
Speaker 2: you can just see has been a crossroads for a

1027
00:48:46,460 --> 00:48:51,660
Speaker 2: bunch of civilizations for forever it's a beautiful place I mean,

1028
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 2: and I can't know why Radovan went to Sarajevo. He

1029
00:48:54,620 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 2: would only explain to his biographer most Montenegrins would have

1030
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:00,140
Speaker 2: gone to Belgrade to study, right? So he's like, most

1031
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 2: people would not have made the choice that I made.

1032
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 2: But he doesn't really explain why. Maybe it is because

1033
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:07,810
Speaker 2: he's attracted to the cosmopolitanism of the city, right? He

1034
00:49:07,890 --> 00:49:09,890
Speaker 2: is initially a pretty cosmopolitan guy. He has a lot

1035
00:49:09,930 --> 00:49:11,950
Speaker 2: of Muslim friends when he's living in Sarajevo.

1036
00:49:12,450 --> 00:49:12,810
Speaker 5: Okay.

1037
00:49:12,950 --> 00:49:15,950
Speaker 2: Jessica Stern writes that when he starts college, he's largely

1038
00:49:15,989 --> 00:49:18,510
Speaker 2: seen as a country bumpkin, a bit like a southerner

1039
00:49:18,570 --> 00:49:11,109
Speaker 2: with a strong hillbilly accent. Okay. Sure. Who knows all

1040
00:49:11,150 --> 00:49:12,489
Speaker 2: of his local trees type of guy.

1041
00:49:12,530 --> 00:49:12,650
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1042
00:49:12,670 --> 00:49:12,770
Speaker 3: Right.

1043
00:49:12,790 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 2: All great at trees.

1044
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 3: Right.

1045
00:49:29,060 --> 00:49:30,879
Speaker 2: One of his friends tries to get him to change

1046
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 2: his hillbilly haircut when he moves to Sarajevo, but he refuses,

1047
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 2: despite seeming odd. And despite the fact that he's like

1048
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,420
Speaker 2: a weirdo, he's very charismatic. And so he becomes a

1049
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 2: popular guy in short order, just as his intelligence makes

1050
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 2: him a good student. He's going to opt to go

1051
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 2: to medical school in order to become a psychiatrist. And

1052
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 2: while he's studied, he marries a peer medical student named

1053
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:55,890
Speaker 2: Liliana Zelen in 1967. They had their daughter that year

1054
00:49:56,050 --> 00:49:58,210
Speaker 2: and a son a couple of years later. And unlike

1055
00:49:58,270 --> 00:50:01,610
Speaker 2: Radovan's family, Liliana's has money. She comes from like an

1056
00:50:01,790 --> 00:50:05,569
Speaker 2: upper class family. She describes her husband as a poetic soul.

1057
00:50:05,590 --> 00:50:06,850
Speaker 4: That's why you go to Sarajevo.

1058
00:50:07,390 --> 00:50:09,109
Speaker 2: That's why you go to Sarajevo.

1059
00:50:09,130 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 5: Right?

1060
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:14,900
Speaker 2: Marry a rich girl. Yeah. Now, per that American Academy

1061
00:50:14,940 --> 00:50:19,440
Speaker 2: of Psychiatry Law article, others described Radovan differently. Other accounts

1062
00:50:19,540 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 2: note his penchant for drinking, gambling, and spending thousands of

1063
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:24,700
Speaker 2: dollars over the years in casinos. So he's got a

1064
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 2: wild side too, right?

1065
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 3: Not to excuse it, but he's still in college right

1066
00:50:31,180 --> 00:50:32,839
Speaker 3: now-ish age?

1067
00:50:32,860 --> 00:50:35,100
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's in college, medical school, right?

1068
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 3: Certain casino behaviors we can excuse.

1069
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:43,110
Speaker 2: Certain casino behavior. So when he's like 23 in 1968,

1070
00:50:43,110 --> 00:50:46,190
Speaker 2: and he's become the president of the school communist party

1071
00:50:46,370 --> 00:50:50,649
Speaker 2: by 1968, right? And that's the year that he starts activism, right?

1072
00:50:50,670 --> 00:50:53,670
Speaker 2: He becomes a student activist, and he helps to organize it.

1073
00:50:53,670 --> 00:50:56,290
Speaker 2: There's like a series of protests that culminates in this

1074
00:50:56,330 --> 00:51:00,669
Speaker 2: like big day-long strike, right, of students at the school. Now,

1075
00:51:01,190 --> 00:51:05,500
Speaker 2: everyone protesting are still communists. This is Yugoslavia. So they're

1076
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 2: protesting the communist government by carrying pictures of Che Guevara

1077
00:51:09,020 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 2: with them, because that's just, I guess, a universal protest thing,

1078
00:51:12,340 --> 00:51:13,649
Speaker 2: even if you're a communist.

1079
00:51:16,110 --> 00:51:18,649
Speaker 4: Wow, okay, potent, interesting.

1080
00:51:19,610 --> 00:51:22,290
Speaker 2: He later explained this by saying that the protesters considered

1081
00:51:22,330 --> 00:51:24,509
Speaker 2: the fight against their local elites to be part of

1082
00:51:24,550 --> 00:51:27,860
Speaker 2: the global struggle against capitalism, even though their elites were communists.

1083
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:28,580
Speaker 4: I don't.

1084
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 2: I don't know what they thought at the time. I

1085
00:51:31,260 --> 00:51:34,540
Speaker 2: didn't grow up in Yugoslavia. That's what he says later,

1086
00:51:34,580 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 2: but he is a liar. So maybe that's not how

1087
00:51:36,500 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 2: everyone felt.

1088
00:51:37,950 --> 00:51:41,570
Speaker 3: It's so, it's so, yeah, especially in a, I know

1089
00:51:41,670 --> 00:51:43,930
Speaker 3: so little about Yugoslavia that I'm like, you could tell me.

1090
00:51:43,870 --> 00:51:46,910
Speaker 4: Anything and I would have to take you at your word.

1091
00:51:47,570 --> 00:51:49,140
Speaker 4: And he's, yeah, he's taking advantage of it.

1092
00:51:49,500 --> 00:51:49,640
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1093
00:51:50,140 --> 00:51:52,480
Speaker 2: It is very weird, though, that as a medical student,

1094
00:51:52,580 --> 00:51:55,419
Speaker 2: he's the leader of these protests because he's the only

1095
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:59,500
Speaker 2: medical student who participates. Most medical students are from privileged

1096
00:51:59,580 --> 00:52:04,310
Speaker 2: backgrounds and rarely become dissidents. So he is kind of unique.

1097
00:52:04,350 --> 00:52:06,710
Speaker 2: And he's also his style changes during this time. He's

1098
00:52:06,730 --> 00:52:09,830
Speaker 2: said to dress in flower children get up and wear

1099
00:52:09,910 --> 00:52:13,130
Speaker 2: groovy outfits. So he's dressing like us. He's dressing like the.

1100
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:17,339
Speaker 2: Like a communist impression of a stereotypical hippie, right? Like

1101
00:52:17,380 --> 00:52:18,700
Speaker 2: you have to assume they don't have access to the

1102
00:52:18,739 --> 00:52:21,500
Speaker 2: same clothes. It's like shittier tie dye or something. I

1103
00:52:21,500 --> 00:52:21,939
Speaker 2: don't know.

1104
00:52:22,020 --> 00:52:24,100
Speaker 4: Walking around like a Gary Larson character.

1105
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:24,200
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1106
00:52:24,260 --> 00:52:29,810
Speaker 2: Interesting. Okay. It must have looked fascinating. Okay.

1107
00:52:30,090 --> 00:52:32,070
Speaker 4: Yeah. Especially for a medical student.

1108
00:52:32,110 --> 00:52:32,430
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1109
00:52:32,489 --> 00:52:34,469
Speaker 4: It's like, whatever. All right.

1110
00:52:34,570 --> 00:52:38,190
Speaker 2: Long hair, weirdo hippie. During the main day of the protest,

1111
00:52:38,230 --> 00:52:40,590
Speaker 2: he climbs onto the roof of the faculty building to

1112
00:52:40,630 --> 00:52:43,910
Speaker 2: give what will be the first of many political speeches. Now,

1113
00:52:43,930 --> 00:52:45,830
Speaker 2: this is also the year that he becomes a published

1114
00:52:45,910 --> 00:52:47,989
Speaker 2: poet for the first time. And he fights with his

1115
00:52:48,090 --> 00:52:50,850
Speaker 2: publisher to ensure that his first book of poems gets

1116
00:52:50,950 --> 00:52:55,319
Speaker 2: published in Akavian, which is a Serb dialect common in

1117
00:52:55,380 --> 00:52:58,600
Speaker 2: rural areas, as opposed to the Bosnian dialect of the

1118
00:52:58,640 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 2: language that was much more common for literary works. Stern

1119
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 2: sees this as an early example of the fact that

1120
00:53:04,140 --> 00:53:07,279
Speaker 2: this guy has ethno-nationalist leanings. And he does note that

1121
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:10,730
Speaker 2: during this period, Radovan's activism has plugged him in with

1122
00:53:10,770 --> 00:53:13,810
Speaker 2: the Serbian elite in Bosnia. He would later say, They

1123
00:53:13,830 --> 00:53:17,589
Speaker 2: were all dissidents working in opposition to the regime. Now,

1124
00:53:17,650 --> 00:53:21,490
Speaker 2: it's noteworthy that he specified they're part of the Serbian elite,

1125
00:53:21,550 --> 00:53:24,790
Speaker 2: because the Yugoslav elite at the time were not dissidents.

1126
00:53:24,810 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 2: They're communists, right? That's what makes them their elite. The

1127
00:53:27,739 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 2: elite in a communist country are not anti-communists, right? So

1128
00:53:31,300 --> 00:53:34,400
Speaker 2: when he says, I was like, when he's talking about

1129
00:53:34,420 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 2: the Serbian elite, he's talking about the ethno-nationalist elite, like

1130
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:41,340
Speaker 2: among kind of the people who want independent Serbia to

1131
00:53:41,739 --> 00:53:46,890
Speaker 2: Those are the people he's talking about, right? Because Tito,

1132
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,530
Speaker 2: the guy who's the dictator, had been born a Croat,

1133
00:53:49,830 --> 00:53:52,770
Speaker 2: but he really emphasizes that he's Yugoslav and he tries

1134
00:53:52,810 --> 00:53:56,469
Speaker 2: to build a Yugoslav identity. And some people buy that

1135
00:53:56,550 --> 00:53:58,370
Speaker 2: and some people don't. And you get the feeling that

1136
00:53:58,969 --> 00:54:02,210
Speaker 2: even when he's with the Communist Party for a while,

1137
00:54:02,310 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 2: Radovan is never like a Yugoslav identity guy, right? He's

1138
00:54:06,660 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 2: always kind of a little bit on the ethno-nationalist side

1139
00:54:09,660 --> 00:54:12,390
Speaker 2: of things. And he resigns from the Communist Party after

1140
00:54:12,410 --> 00:54:20,810
Speaker 2: these protests, right? So, you know, it makes sense.

1141
00:54:21,610 --> 00:54:22,549
Speaker 4: It does. It does.

1142
00:54:22,670 --> 00:54:25,230
Speaker 3: And it also feels very, like, I don't know, first

1143
00:54:25,250 --> 00:54:27,230
Speaker 3: of all, a lot of intent for someone of his age.

1144
00:54:27,710 --> 00:54:34,030
Speaker 3: And also just, like, what is the vision at this point?

1145
00:54:34,190 --> 00:54:35,250
Speaker 3: I mean, it seems like.

1146
00:54:35,250 --> 00:54:36,390
Speaker 2: It's... I don't know if it's a vision.

1147
00:54:36,410 --> 00:54:36,489
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1148
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:37,609
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1149
00:54:38,710 --> 00:54:43,689
Speaker 2: I think he's got some inclinations towards Serbian ethno-nationalism, right,

1150
00:54:43,730 --> 00:54:46,129
Speaker 2: that are not fully formed yet. And I wouldn't want

1151
00:54:46,410 --> 00:54:48,670
Speaker 2: people to think that he's fully the guy he's going

1152
00:54:48,690 --> 00:54:51,010
Speaker 2: to be, but you can see he's on that path

1153
00:54:51,090 --> 00:54:53,570
Speaker 2: a little bit even now. And you know what path

1154
00:54:53,670 --> 00:54:54,689
Speaker 2: you're on right now?

1155
00:54:54,850 --> 00:54:58,230
Speaker 5: The path to products and services.

1156
00:54:58,250 --> 00:54:59,650
Speaker 2: That's right. That's right, baby.

1157
00:54:59,870 --> 00:55:02,469
Speaker 4: That sweet, slick slide to products.

1158
00:55:03,090 --> 00:55:16,150
Speaker 2: That's right. And we're back. So, yeah, it turns out later,

1159
00:55:16,170 --> 00:55:18,290
Speaker 2: you know, I've just been talking about how maybe he

1160
00:55:18,330 --> 00:55:22,670
Speaker 2: was like sympathetic to Serbian nationalist aims at this period

1161
00:55:22,710 --> 00:55:25,410
Speaker 2: and started to be anti-communist. A lot of people would

1162
00:55:25,430 --> 00:55:28,870
Speaker 2: disagree with that because interviews later, a bunch of his

1163
00:55:28,989 --> 00:55:31,730
Speaker 2: friends who had been part of this activist campaign with

1164
00:55:31,790 --> 00:55:34,640
Speaker 2: him immediately after it ends comes to suspect that he'd

1165
00:55:34,660 --> 00:55:37,859
Speaker 2: been an informer for the regime and had been reporting

1166
00:55:38,110 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 2: on their activities to the police. This seems like it

1167
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:46,540
Speaker 2: could be likely because not long after this, this supposed dissident,

1168
00:55:46,620 --> 00:55:49,299
Speaker 2: this guy who would like led a protest campaign, is

1169
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:51,720
Speaker 2: granted permission by the government to move to the United

1170
00:55:51,780 --> 00:55:54,020
Speaker 2: States and live in New York City, where he attends

1171
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:57,460
Speaker 2: Columbia University from 1974 to 75. So yeah, maybe he

1172
00:55:57,480 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 2: did the government a solid.

1173
00:55:58,300 --> 00:55:59,700
Speaker 4: Columbia has no history with feds?

1174
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:01,339
Speaker 2: That's so funny.

1175
00:56:01,420 --> 00:56:06,779
Speaker 3: Okay, that actually, that makes so, I feel silly now.

1176
00:56:07,340 --> 00:56:09,820
Speaker 4: Oh, he was dressing like a cartoon hippie?

1177
00:56:10,340 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 3: Oh, he was getting on the roof.

1178
00:56:14,940 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 4: And acting weird? Okay, he was a fag.

1179
00:56:18,300 --> 00:56:21,830
Speaker 2: Okay. So he studies poetry at Columbia, which is weird

1180
00:56:21,850 --> 00:56:23,890
Speaker 2: because he'd been in medical school, right? And he's going

1181
00:56:23,910 --> 00:56:28,130
Speaker 2: to finish his medical degree later, but he's studying poetry

1182
00:56:28,190 --> 00:56:31,950
Speaker 2: while he's at Columbia. This is basically like a hiatus

1183
00:56:32,090 --> 00:56:34,109
Speaker 2: period for him, which suggests that maybe he had some

1184
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 2: doubts about it.

1185
00:56:35,170 --> 00:56:37,310
Speaker 4: Yeah. Still the 60s? Are we in the 70s now?

1186
00:56:37,770 --> 00:56:40,170
Speaker 2: This is the 70s. 74 to 75 is when he's

1187
00:56:40,230 --> 00:56:42,009
Speaker 2: in Columbia.

1188
00:56:42,070 --> 00:56:43,490
Speaker 4: That's another suspicious move.

1189
00:56:43,550 --> 00:56:47,649
Speaker 3: Poetry majors do not like when a science expat, you know,

1190
00:56:47,710 --> 00:56:48,990
Speaker 3: wanders into their midst.

1191
00:56:49,430 --> 00:56:49,850
Speaker 5: No, no.

1192
00:56:49,850 --> 00:56:51,210
Speaker 4: Stay in your fucking lane.

1193
00:56:52,070 --> 00:56:54,790
Speaker 2: And we do get very different opinions on the quality

1194
00:56:55,010 --> 00:56:57,810
Speaker 2: of his poetry, depending on who we ask. Sometimes the

1195
00:56:57,870 --> 00:56:59,969
Speaker 2: same person will say like, oh, he was good. And

1196
00:56:59,989 --> 00:57:02,740
Speaker 2: they're like, nah, he was shitty. I can't judge his poetry.

1197
00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:05,380
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to try, right? A lot of

1198
00:57:05,400 --> 00:57:07,180
Speaker 2: people do say he was just kind of like a

1199
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:11,919
Speaker 2: nickel and dime poet. He was writing not high art.

1200
00:57:12,760 --> 00:57:15,670
Speaker 2: One of his most noteworthy pieces, though, is a 1971

1201
00:57:15,670 --> 00:57:19,530
Speaker 2: poem titled Sarajevo, which despite being set 21 years before

1202
00:57:19,570 --> 00:57:22,570
Speaker 2: the war, seems to describe the horror that Radovan himself

1203
00:57:22,650 --> 00:57:25,470
Speaker 2: would bring on his former home. Here's a selection of

1204
00:57:25,510 --> 00:57:29,200
Speaker 2: the poem. The city lies ablaze like a rough lump

1205
00:57:29,340 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 2: of incense, wherein the haze of our awareness twists. The

1206
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 2: city implodes in that latent emptiness. A stone's crimson death

1207
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:41,020
Speaker 2: bespeaks the house's blood-soaked tide. Plague. Tranquility. Again, this is

1208
00:57:41,060 --> 00:57:43,140
Speaker 2: the guy who's going to order the shell of Sarajevo

1209
00:57:43,160 --> 00:57:45,040
Speaker 2: for three years, so it's weird that he wrote that

1210
00:57:45,060 --> 00:57:46,520
Speaker 2: 20-something years beforehand.

1211
00:57:46,540 --> 00:57:48,860
Speaker 1: Totally.

1212
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:52,220
Speaker 2: It'd be like if George Bush had written in 1970

1213
00:57:52,220 --> 00:57:55,230
Speaker 2: a short story about invading Iraq and it not going well.

1214
00:57:56,510 --> 00:57:57,450
Speaker 2: Or painted it, I guess.

1215
00:57:57,470 --> 00:57:59,670
Speaker 4: He's like, all right, you know, I guess I'll just

1216
00:57:59,690 --> 00:58:02,310
Speaker 4: put this in the back drawer. Yeah.

1217
00:58:03,170 --> 00:58:05,740
Speaker 3: See how it fits with me? I will say very

1218
00:58:05,780 --> 00:58:08,540
Speaker 3: beside the point, but you know what? That was mid.

1219
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:10,540
Speaker 3: That was a mid poem, I think.

1220
00:58:11,160 --> 00:58:13,970
Speaker 2: I assume it rhymed better in Serb.

1221
00:58:14,330 --> 00:58:18,450
Speaker 3: I'm sure, but, you know, the use of language is

1222
00:58:18,670 --> 00:58:21,110
Speaker 3: a little obvious, you know?

1223
00:58:21,130 --> 00:58:24,350
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe a little. So while living in the U.S.,

1224
00:58:24,510 --> 00:58:27,350
Speaker 2: Radovan was a loud and vocal supporter of Tito, although

1225
00:58:27,370 --> 00:58:29,030
Speaker 2: this may be due to the fact that he had

1226
00:58:29,130 --> 00:58:32,890
Speaker 2: minders regularly checking in and spying on him. His roommate

1227
00:58:32,910 --> 00:58:35,620
Speaker 2: during this period was Barry Farber, who himself grew up

1228
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 2: to become an influential right-wing radio talk show host in

1229
00:58:38,260 --> 00:58:41,520
Speaker 2: the 1990s. It's just kind of weird that they live together.

1230
00:58:41,540 --> 00:58:45,260
Speaker 2: I feel like any time you learn about— He's like

1231
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 2: a Limbaugh contemporary.

1232
00:58:46,860 --> 00:58:50,470
Speaker 4: Name two men who were roommates in New York, and

1233
00:58:50,510 --> 00:58:53,750
Speaker 4: you get the scariest story you've ever heard.

1234
00:58:53,770 --> 00:58:54,330
Speaker 2: The weirdest mixes.

1235
00:58:55,570 --> 00:58:57,950
Speaker 3: You get like, or I mean, just two people. That's

1236
00:58:57,990 --> 00:59:00,540
Speaker 3: how you get like Barry Weiss and Kate McKinnon. You're like,

1237
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:00,940
Speaker 3: what the.

1238
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:03,940
Speaker 4: Fuck are you talking about? You shouldn't be in the

1239
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:05,570
Speaker 4: same room. Yeah.

1240
00:59:07,540 --> 00:59:10,140
Speaker 2: Barry later recalled this of Radovan. I should have seen

1241
00:59:10,180 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 2: that Radovan would not remain just a poet. He was

1242
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:14,860
Speaker 2: much too smart and forceful a character. I could see

1243
00:59:14,900 --> 00:59:17,930
Speaker 2: him running a country. He was formidable. He looked the part.

1244
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:20,050
Speaker 2: And while I don't have a picture of him from

1245
00:59:20,070 --> 00:59:22,510
Speaker 2: the mid-70s, here's how he looked almost a decade later.

1246
00:59:22,890 --> 00:59:24,970
Speaker 2: These are obviously mug shots. He's going to get arrested.

1247
00:59:24,990 --> 00:59:27,570
Speaker 2: We'll talk about why a little later. But look at

1248
00:59:27,630 --> 00:59:29,209
Speaker 2: that hair. Look at that hair.

1249
00:59:29,230 --> 00:59:30,710
Speaker 4: Amazing.

1250
00:59:30,850 --> 00:59:32,670
Speaker 1: It's great.

1251
00:59:32,710 --> 00:59:36,070
Speaker 2: He looks incredible his entire life. He's an amazing looking man.

1252
00:59:36,400 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 1: The hair is hair.

1253
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:41,200
Speaker 2: It's like a gray pompadour. It's insane.

1254
00:59:41,220 --> 00:59:42,320
Speaker 4: It is.

1255
00:59:42,420 --> 00:59:45,980
Speaker 3: And you can tell that it kind of just falls

1256
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:47,390
Speaker 3: that way, which I resent.

1257
00:59:47,410 --> 00:59:47,510
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1258
00:59:48,040 --> 00:59:50,380
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of us need to do a

1259
00:59:50,420 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 3: lot of work to just get it to fall.

1260
00:59:51,980 --> 00:59:53,900
Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, he's giving.

1261
00:59:53,580 --> 00:59:54,590
Speaker 1: Like 2019 Harry Styles here.

1262
01:00:00,390 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 5: Oh, wow.

1263
01:00:00,820 --> 01:00:02,419
Speaker 2: Sure, Sophie. You're welcome.

1264
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:06,360
Speaker 3: Not in the face, but the hair and the suit.

1265
01:00:06,460 --> 01:00:09,260
Speaker 5: Not in the face, but the hair and the suit.

1266
01:00:09,740 --> 01:00:12,680
Speaker 5: And I agree with Antonio Banderas. Yes, I see that

1267
01:00:12,740 --> 01:00:13,160
Speaker 5: as well.

1268
01:00:13,300 --> 01:00:15,630
Speaker 2: Sure. I always agree with Antonio Banderas.

1269
01:00:15,670 --> 01:00:18,630
Speaker 3: Look, I'm not going to speak against Harry Styles' hairline

1270
01:00:18,670 --> 01:00:21,270
Speaker 3: today because I mean, I'm not seeing a hairline struggle.

1271
01:00:21,850 --> 01:00:23,150
Speaker 4: From our bathroom.

1272
01:00:23,170 --> 01:00:24,070
Speaker 2: There you go.

1273
01:00:24,130 --> 01:00:24,870
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no.

1274
01:00:24,910 --> 01:00:29,110
Speaker 5: Harry has a manuscript. Harry got the hair transplant situation.

1275
01:00:29,170 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 1: He's open about it.

1276
01:00:29,770 --> 01:00:31,930
Speaker 4: He got the plugs. He got the plugs. He's open

1277
01:00:31,950 --> 01:00:32,260
Speaker 4: about it.

1278
01:00:32,330 --> 01:00:34,410
Speaker 1: Anyways, bye, Harry.

1279
01:00:34,790 --> 01:00:37,940
Speaker 2: So the differing accounts of Radovan make sense when you

1280
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:43,020
Speaker 2: learn that he's been described as a social chameleon later, right?

1281
01:00:43,060 --> 01:00:45,600
Speaker 2: He's a guy who's really good at blending. He's good

1282
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:48,120
Speaker 2: at being whoever he needs to be in the room

1283
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 2: that he's in, right? If he wants you to like him,

1284
01:00:50,520 --> 01:00:53,820
Speaker 2: you'll like him. Historian Robert Donia, who testified at his

1285
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:57,900
Speaker 2: trial and was cross-examined by Radovan, noted he knew exactly

1286
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:00,880
Speaker 2: what to say, a different story for everyone, with perfect

1287
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:04,400
Speaker 2: knowledge of what people wanted to hear. After returning home,

1288
01:01:04,520 --> 01:01:08,410
Speaker 2: Karajic began to work as a psychiatrist. His mentor, Dr. Sarek,

1289
01:01:08,530 --> 01:01:11,210
Speaker 2: noted that he was not a very good psychiatrist due

1290
01:01:11,230 --> 01:01:13,470
Speaker 2: to the fact that he's not interested in anyone but himself.

1291
01:01:13,810 --> 01:01:15,130
Speaker 2: He does not care about people.

1292
01:01:16,190 --> 01:01:19,650
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, it's... I also just going back to

1293
01:01:19,690 --> 01:01:23,110
Speaker 3: that other comment that there's a world where Karajic is

1294
01:01:23,150 --> 01:01:25,870
Speaker 3: like in court and he's like, your honor, I'm a

1295
01:01:25,910 --> 01:01:26,710
Speaker 3: people pleaser.

1296
01:01:26,830 --> 01:01:28,310
Speaker 2: I don't know what to tell you. I'm a people pleaser.

1297
01:01:28,830 --> 01:01:29,890
Speaker 2: I'm just good at being liked.

1298
01:01:30,570 --> 01:01:33,050
Speaker 3: I give the people what they want. Yeah, of course

1299
01:01:33,090 --> 01:01:36,430
Speaker 3: he's a terrible psychiatrist. I guess that stands to reason.

1300
01:01:36,450 --> 01:01:38,190
Speaker 2: That stands to be weird if he was good at it.

1301
01:01:38,810 --> 01:01:44,030
Speaker 3: I mean, most psychiatrists are bad psychiatrists in my experience.

1302
01:01:44,070 --> 01:01:45,530
Speaker 2: True of most people in most jobs.

1303
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:47,840
Speaker 4: Just throw a pill bottle at your head and tell

1304
01:01:47,860 --> 01:01:48,740
Speaker 4: you to fuck off.

1305
01:01:48,960 --> 01:01:52,720
Speaker 2: I wish. I have the opposite. Anyway, Radovan was very

1306
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 2: popular and good at charming his colleagues, but he was

1307
01:01:54,900 --> 01:01:57,700
Speaker 2: also lazy. Quote, he tried to find the easy way

1308
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:01,170
Speaker 2: for everything. Dr. Sarek described him also as having a

1309
01:02:01,250 --> 01:02:04,490
Speaker 2: thousand faces. So again, he's a liar, he's a charmer,

1310
01:02:04,650 --> 01:02:07,790
Speaker 2: and he's lazy. Radovan spoke highly of his mentor, though,

1311
01:02:08,310 --> 01:02:10,970
Speaker 2: which is weird because his mentor is a Muslim man, right?

1312
01:02:11,090 --> 01:02:14,510
Speaker 2: And several people who have noted that during this time,

1313
01:02:14,630 --> 01:02:17,330
Speaker 2: most of the people in his social circle in Sarajevo

1314
01:02:17,430 --> 01:02:20,560
Speaker 2: are Muslims. He does not have any visible or obvious

1315
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 2: bias against Muslims. Again, he's going to do a genocide

1316
01:02:25,260 --> 01:02:26,200
Speaker 2: against Bosniaks.

1317
01:02:26,790 --> 01:02:26,970
Speaker 4: Yes.

1318
01:02:26,990 --> 01:02:28,950
Speaker 2: But he doesn't seem to have an issue with them socially.

1319
01:02:28,970 --> 01:02:34,300
Speaker 2: This is, okay. Because with Hitler, you can find like, yeah,

1320
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:35,960
Speaker 2: there was like one Jewish guy he was nice to

1321
01:02:36,020 --> 01:02:37,550
Speaker 2: in his life. But like with Radovan, it's like, no,

1322
01:02:37,770 --> 01:02:39,870
Speaker 2: like most of his friends were Muslim. It's kind of

1323
01:02:39,890 --> 01:02:41,230
Speaker 2: weird that he did a genocide.

1324
01:02:42,180 --> 01:02:46,450
Speaker 3: I'm really, I'm really, I mean, finding out he was

1325
01:02:46,490 --> 01:02:48,550
Speaker 3: a fed for a period of time so far is

1326
01:02:48,590 --> 01:02:50,330
Speaker 3: the thing that it makes the most sense to me

1327
01:02:50,370 --> 01:02:54,610
Speaker 3: about this guy. Everything else is fairly baffling so far.

1328
01:02:54,650 --> 01:02:56,530
Speaker 2: He's a complicated man, that's for sure.

1329
01:02:56,850 --> 01:03:00,200
Speaker 3: He's had like 12 different professions before the age of 25.

1330
01:03:00,200 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 3: He's basically on good terms with people he will later genocide.

1331
01:03:05,360 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 4: Like, what do you mean?

1332
01:03:06,820 --> 01:03:07,080
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1333
01:03:09,470 --> 01:03:12,370
Speaker 2: He spent nearly a decade in the 70s to the

1334
01:03:12,650 --> 01:03:16,410
Speaker 2: 80s working and living a fairly normal life.

1335
01:03:16,710 --> 01:03:17,230
Speaker 5: No, no.

1336
01:03:17,630 --> 01:03:20,660
Speaker 2: Jamie, you're not ready for where this man's hair is

1337
01:03:20,720 --> 01:03:22,380
Speaker 2: in part two. I'm going to say that right now.

1338
01:03:22,700 --> 01:03:25,000
Speaker 2: You are not ready. I cannot prepare you.

1339
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:30,300
Speaker 3: I'm just not seeing the source of, okay, yeah. Usually

1340
01:03:30,340 --> 01:03:33,600
Speaker 3: I feel like we have the source of anger by college.

1341
01:03:34,500 --> 01:03:38,390
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. He's a little hard to understand, I'll be honest.

1342
01:03:38,910 --> 01:03:41,910
Speaker 2: So he spends a decade or so working as a psychiatrist.

1343
01:03:41,950 --> 01:03:44,890
Speaker 2: He's like a successful upper middle class guy. I mean,

1344
01:03:44,910 --> 01:03:47,340
Speaker 2: I don't know that those terms are super useful for Sarajevo,

1345
01:03:47,380 --> 01:03:51,140
Speaker 2: but he's doing well, right? Perhaps his greatest professional achievement

1346
01:03:51,180 --> 01:03:53,959
Speaker 2: was that he somehow gets hired as the team psychologist

1347
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:58,460
Speaker 2: for Red Star, Yugoslavia's premier football team. Per the book,

1348
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:02,620
Speaker 2: My War Criminal, quote, Karadzic instructed team members to lie

1349
01:04:02,660 --> 01:04:05,360
Speaker 2: down together in a darkened room and imagine themselves to

1350
01:04:05,380 --> 01:04:08,830
Speaker 2: be bumblebees flying from flower to flower. The captain recalled

1351
01:04:08,870 --> 01:04:12,340
Speaker 2: the players' responses. Someone was sleeping, someone snoring, someone else

1352
01:04:12,380 --> 01:04:15,620
Speaker 2: was farting, and someone cursing about bumblebees. The whole bumblebee

1353
01:04:15,640 --> 01:04:17,960
Speaker 2: thing was a huge joke to us. For the Red

1354
01:04:18,000 --> 01:04:20,760
Speaker 2: Star position, he moved to Belgrade, leaving his family behind

1355
01:04:20,820 --> 01:04:23,980
Speaker 2: for a year in 1983. Karadzic was as boastful about

1356
01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:26,520
Speaker 2: his skill as team psychologist as he was about everything else.

1357
01:04:27,060 --> 01:04:28,910
Speaker 2: One of his friends recalled that if the team scored

1358
01:04:28,950 --> 01:04:30,930
Speaker 2: a point, Karadzic felt that the point was due to

1359
01:04:30,970 --> 01:04:33,510
Speaker 2: his psycho training of the players. He said he could

1360
01:04:33,530 --> 01:04:35,430
Speaker 2: make Red Star the best team in the world.

1361
01:04:36,170 --> 01:04:36,250
Speaker 5: Ha!

1362
01:04:36,990 --> 01:04:39,430
Speaker 2: Everyone knows the most important part of a good football

1363
01:04:39,450 --> 01:04:40,790
Speaker 2: team is the psychiatry.

1364
01:04:42,510 --> 01:04:43,370
Speaker 4: He's like, guys, guys, guys.

1365
01:04:43,390 --> 01:04:47,650
Speaker 2: During the World Cup, we were all competing psychiatrists.

1366
01:04:47,710 --> 01:04:50,910
Speaker 4: We would not be in the semis without the bee thing.

1367
01:04:50,930 --> 01:04:50,990
Speaker 3: No.

1368
01:04:51,990 --> 01:04:53,340
Speaker 4: Oh, okay.

1369
01:04:53,980 --> 01:04:55,000
Speaker 2: It's wild stuff.

1370
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:55,840
Speaker 4: This is so bizarre.

1371
01:04:56,380 --> 01:04:58,320
Speaker 2: He's a little bit of an egomaniac.

1372
01:04:58,360 --> 01:05:01,300
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess that's like, I mean, he does chase

1373
01:05:01,340 --> 01:05:02,160
Speaker 4: attention sometimes.

1374
01:05:02,620 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 2: He's a narcissist. Yeah. Not a lot of humble, self-effacing

1375
01:05:07,800 --> 01:05:11,710
Speaker 2: men become dictators. I'm sure even Tito was on that spectrum.

1376
01:05:11,730 --> 01:05:13,390
Speaker 2: But again, one of the things Tito is known for

1377
01:05:13,430 --> 01:05:16,510
Speaker 2: is he's really good at delegating and knowing his strengths

1378
01:05:16,550 --> 01:05:20,180
Speaker 2: from his weaknesses, actually, which is very rare for a dictator.

1379
01:05:20,340 --> 01:05:21,660
Speaker 2: Usually a problem for them.

1380
01:05:21,980 --> 01:05:22,340
Speaker 3: Right. Right.

1381
01:05:22,950 --> 01:05:24,430
Speaker 4: He's a dictator unicorn.

1382
01:05:24,690 --> 01:05:26,410
Speaker 2: I'll say this about Tito. If you were going to

1383
01:05:26,450 --> 01:05:29,830
Speaker 2: have a dictator in Eastern Europe in the post-war period,

1384
01:05:30,090 --> 01:05:32,910
Speaker 2: you'd want it to be Tito. There's no one else

1385
01:05:32,950 --> 01:05:35,010
Speaker 2: you would have wanted it to be. You'd want it

1386
01:05:35,030 --> 01:05:37,070
Speaker 2: to have been, if you had to pick a dictator.

1387
01:05:38,060 --> 01:05:41,840
Speaker 4: I think I just have to take your word for that. Yeah.

1388
01:05:42,220 --> 01:05:44,520
Speaker 2: I'm taking the word of all of the Yugoslavian people,

1389
01:05:44,560 --> 01:05:47,120
Speaker 2: former Yugoslav people that I met who were like, no,

1390
01:05:47,140 --> 01:05:49,220
Speaker 2: Tito actually, we kind of miss him. It was a

1391
01:05:49,260 --> 01:05:50,380
Speaker 2: lot better in some ways.

1392
01:05:50,880 --> 01:05:52,340
Speaker 4: Say what you will about Tito.

1393
01:05:53,290 --> 01:05:55,170
Speaker 2: Say what you will about Tito, but we weren't all

1394
01:05:55,270 --> 01:06:02,030
Speaker 2: killing each other when he was in church. In 1984,

1395
01:06:02,030 --> 01:06:05,130
Speaker 2: Karajic is arrested and he's convicted the next year of

1396
01:06:05,230 --> 01:06:08,410
Speaker 2: fraud and misuse of public funds. He spends 11 months

1397
01:06:08,470 --> 01:06:10,820
Speaker 2: in prison, like his dad did for murdering that lady.

1398
01:06:11,860 --> 01:06:13,040
Speaker 2: Radovan would later call.

1399
01:06:12,920 --> 01:06:16,040
Speaker 4: Himself- Wait, why does he have public funds?

1400
01:06:16,220 --> 01:06:18,400
Speaker 2: Well, he's because, I mean, the soccer team is a

1401
01:06:18,420 --> 01:06:22,430
Speaker 2: public team, I think. Like it's a communist state. There's

1402
01:06:22,450 --> 01:06:24,780
Speaker 2: not like a billionaire that owns Red Star, right?

1403
01:06:25,540 --> 01:06:30,520
Speaker 3: Sorry, I forgot that not just like some ugly guy

1404
01:06:30,560 --> 01:06:31,580
Speaker 3: would own the team.

1405
01:06:31,860 --> 01:06:34,620
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't just some billionaire fucking hedge fund asshole.

1406
01:06:34,940 --> 01:06:35,660
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was some asshole.

1407
01:06:35,760 --> 01:06:40,160
Speaker 3: Some fucking cube-headed guy who's 26 but looks 70.

1408
01:06:40,160 --> 01:06:42,530
Speaker 2: They hired him to be the team psychiatrist, so he

1409
01:06:42,550 --> 01:06:46,830
Speaker 2: couldn't have been that good, whoever the owner was. Radovan

1410
01:06:46,850 --> 01:06:48,890
Speaker 2: would later say that this arrest was a he was

1411
01:06:48,920 --> 01:06:49,940
Speaker 2: a political prisoner.

1412
01:06:50,200 --> 01:06:50,400
Speaker 5: Right.

1413
01:06:50,460 --> 01:06:52,840
Speaker 2: And that he was abused by the Muslim secret police

1414
01:06:52,880 --> 01:06:55,620
Speaker 2: who definitely did not exist in Yugoslavia. And this time

1415
01:06:55,840 --> 01:06:57,800
Speaker 2: it was not the Muslim secret police who took him

1416
01:06:57,840 --> 01:07:00,840
Speaker 2: into custody because he was horribly corrupt.

1417
01:07:01,510 --> 01:07:04,790
Speaker 4: So this is him revising it later or he is now.

1418
01:07:04,850 --> 01:07:05,250
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1419
01:07:05,810 --> 01:07:06,150
Speaker 4: OK.

1420
01:07:06,270 --> 01:07:06,340
Speaker 3: OK.

1421
01:07:06,350 --> 01:07:08,630
Speaker 2: This is later. This is later that he would blame

1422
01:07:08,650 --> 01:07:09,110
Speaker 2: it on that.

1423
01:07:09,250 --> 01:07:09,510
Speaker 3: Right.

1424
01:07:09,630 --> 01:07:09,970
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1425
01:07:09,990 --> 01:07:12,410
Speaker 4: He just stole money from his from his bumblebees.

1426
01:07:12,970 --> 01:07:13,150
Speaker 2: Right.

1427
01:07:13,340 --> 01:07:13,470
Speaker 4: Right.

1428
01:07:13,490 --> 01:07:16,720
Speaker 2: He stole money from his bumblebees. That journal write-up notes

1429
01:07:16,780 --> 01:07:21,160
Speaker 2: that he claimed he, quote, emerged psychically strengthened following the experience.

1430
01:07:21,400 --> 01:07:24,690
Speaker 2: It further notes, allegations have been made of Karasik's corruptibility

1431
01:07:24,750 --> 01:07:28,070
Speaker 2: of his selling fake prescriptions and providing false medical diagnoses

1432
01:07:28,390 --> 01:07:30,590
Speaker 2: to help people collect insurance or pension benefits.

1433
01:07:31,410 --> 01:07:33,710
Speaker 4: Again, this just sounds, many such psychiatrists.

1434
01:07:33,730 --> 01:07:36,710
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why. Yeah. Maybe it was more that than

1435
01:07:36,730 --> 01:07:37,800
Speaker 2: the Muslim secret police.

1436
01:07:38,640 --> 01:07:43,340
Speaker 3: Anytime you hear that someone came out of, tax jail

1437
01:07:43,420 --> 01:07:47,340
Speaker 3: feeling psychically strengthened it's like i don't i don't know.

1438
01:07:47,320 --> 01:07:49,820
Speaker 2: I don't know i mean wesley snipes.

1439
01:07:50,280 --> 01:07:52,479
Speaker 3: That's true i mean it's like and then you have

1440
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:55,020
Speaker 3: you have your martha stewart's the bracelet comes off and

1441
01:07:55,120 --> 01:07:57,780
Speaker 3: all of a sudden she's like she's more powerful than ever.

1442
01:07:57,700 --> 01:08:00,420
Speaker 1: And shakira shakira tax fraud.

1443
01:08:00,340 --> 01:08:03,170
Speaker 2: I just and if we had to have one of

1444
01:08:03,230 --> 01:08:07,210
Speaker 2: our tax fraud celebrities be a dictator i think i

1445
01:08:07,590 --> 01:08:11,080
Speaker 2: would pick wesley snipes over martha stewart.

1446
01:08:11,220 --> 01:08:14,070
Speaker 1: Oh snipes over stewart for sure.

1447
01:08:13,810 --> 01:08:17,889
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah i'd pick wesley snipes over the current president

1448
01:08:17,910 --> 01:08:20,510
Speaker 2: to be honest i'd pick wesley snipes over any president

1449
01:08:20,590 --> 01:08:22,810
Speaker 2: because you know what none of our presidents have been

1450
01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:25,939
Speaker 2: in blade that's true look it.

1451
01:08:25,939 --> 01:08:29,540
Speaker 3: Up and that is that's a fact and we can't

1452
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:31,720
Speaker 3: know what a blade president would be until we have

1453
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:32,780
Speaker 3: one i think.

1454
01:08:32,760 --> 01:08:34,730
Speaker 2: Although i think barack obama might have might have been

1455
01:08:34,780 --> 01:08:37,019
Speaker 2: okay I don't know. He never had a chance. You

1456
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:38,960
Speaker 2: can tell he really wished he'd been an actor and

1457
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:41,980
Speaker 2: not the president. That's why he's making movies now. And

1458
01:08:42,060 --> 01:08:45,200
Speaker 2: everyone who gets into politics wishes they'd succeeded in Hollywood.

1459
01:08:45,220 --> 01:08:48,900
Speaker 3: That's basically every president from the past like 40 years.

1460
01:08:48,970 --> 01:08:51,189
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ronald's the only one who did it the other way.

1461
01:08:51,310 --> 01:08:52,349
Speaker 2: He's not alone.

1462
01:08:52,410 --> 01:08:52,750
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1463
01:08:53,910 --> 01:08:55,689
Speaker 2: It would have been really funny to watch Joe Biden

1464
01:08:55,710 --> 01:08:58,970
Speaker 2: play Blade. I would watch Joe Biden as Blade. I mean,

1465
01:08:59,030 --> 01:09:00,700
Speaker 2: I'd watch Trump as Blade. to be honest. I don't

1466
01:09:00,720 --> 01:09:02,480
Speaker 2: think it would be as good, but I would watch it.

1467
01:09:02,979 --> 01:09:07,620
Speaker 3: Wait, Biden as Blade is really disgusting to think about.

1468
01:09:07,650 --> 01:09:10,490
Speaker 2: Just a shot-for-shot remake of Blade with Joe Biden.

1469
01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:14,780
Speaker 4: That's really horrible to think about.

1470
01:09:15,020 --> 01:09:17,200
Speaker 3: I mean, you could say Obama's kind of doing a

1471
01:09:17,500 --> 01:09:20,620
Speaker 3: bit of a reverse Reagan in some ways, right?

1472
01:09:20,700 --> 01:09:22,240
Speaker 4: He's kind of going into entertainment after.

1473
01:09:23,070 --> 01:09:25,889
Speaker 2: He's going into entertainment after. I do wish we'd gotten

1474
01:09:25,930 --> 01:09:31,150
Speaker 2: to see Joe Biden and Chris Christopherson opposite each other.

1475
01:09:32,490 --> 01:09:36,070
Speaker 2: Two men whose, I could just imagine magnetic personal charisma

1476
01:09:36,130 --> 01:09:39,020
Speaker 2: next to each other. Oh, God, if only that movie

1477
01:09:39,030 --> 01:09:39,450
Speaker 2: had happened.

1478
01:09:40,020 --> 01:09:42,380
Speaker 4: Talking in nonsense words to each other.

1479
01:09:42,400 --> 01:09:47,840
Speaker 2: Just gibberish at each other. Just old man speak. Is

1480
01:09:47,860 --> 01:09:49,559
Speaker 2: Joe Biden alive? Is the smell of people rubbed thick

1481
01:09:49,620 --> 01:09:54,560
Speaker 2: in the air? Chris Christopherson's dead, unfortunately. We lost Chris

1482
01:09:54,580 --> 01:09:57,980
Speaker 2: and we kept Joe Biden. I don't know why. So

1483
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:01,519
Speaker 2: he emerged from prison in the late 1980s. Not Joe Biden,

1484
01:10:01,640 --> 01:10:04,260
Speaker 2: Radovan Karadzic. That would have been, again, weird if Joe

1485
01:10:04,280 --> 01:10:06,910
Speaker 2: Biden had spent prison in the 80s in Yugoslavia. He

1486
01:10:06,930 --> 01:10:09,689
Speaker 2: emerged from prison in the late 1980s to a Yugoslavia

1487
01:10:09,710 --> 01:10:11,710
Speaker 2: that was in the slow process of collapse. As I said,

1488
01:10:11,810 --> 01:10:14,759
Speaker 2: Tito died in 1980. So before he gets arrested, actually,

1489
01:10:14,800 --> 01:10:18,760
Speaker 2: Tito is dead. And the government continues limping on for

1490
01:10:18,780 --> 01:10:21,680
Speaker 2: a while after him. But Tito's force of personality had

1491
01:10:21,740 --> 01:10:24,820
Speaker 2: held the entire Balkans together for pretty much the only

1492
01:10:24,900 --> 01:10:28,340
Speaker 2: time that happened. And with his death, kind of these

1493
01:10:28,460 --> 01:10:32,030
Speaker 2: nationalist differences occurred. that had been really prominent in and

1494
01:10:32,170 --> 01:10:35,110
Speaker 2: after World War II, start to reassert themselves. They've been

1495
01:10:35,130 --> 01:10:37,950
Speaker 2: kind of buried during the Tito years. And then the

1496
01:10:37,970 --> 01:10:40,750
Speaker 2: years after his death, it becomes obvious to any intelligent observer,

1497
01:10:41,310 --> 01:10:44,350
Speaker 2: communism is not going to last forever. And Yugoslavia is

1498
01:10:44,410 --> 01:10:48,770
Speaker 2: not going to be one state forever, right? In 1974,

1499
01:10:48,770 --> 01:10:51,450
Speaker 2: late in Tito's life, they had changed the constitution to

1500
01:10:51,530 --> 01:10:55,349
Speaker 2: give each of these independent, not independent, there's these semi-autonomous

1501
01:10:55,380 --> 01:10:58,559
Speaker 2: states that make up Yugoslavia, like Bosnia and Serbia, They

1502
01:10:58,600 --> 01:11:02,099
Speaker 2: had the right to like secede if there was a–

1503
01:11:02,200 --> 01:11:04,860
Speaker 2: if enough people wanted to leave. So like if Croatia

1504
01:11:04,880 --> 01:11:08,929
Speaker 2: wants to leave, they could potentially. And so once Tito dies,

1505
01:11:08,950 --> 01:11:11,550
Speaker 2: it becomes obvious that's going to happen at some point.

1506
01:11:11,689 --> 01:11:14,850
Speaker 2: And as this sort of– you have the USSR, Glasnost,

1507
01:11:14,890 --> 01:11:17,510
Speaker 2: and Perestroika around the same time, the Soviet Union is

1508
01:11:17,570 --> 01:11:21,440
Speaker 2: also loosening stuff. politics starts to come to Yugoslavia in

1509
01:11:21,479 --> 01:11:23,660
Speaker 2: a way that it just hadn't existed there for a while.

1510
01:11:24,189 --> 01:11:25,660
Speaker 2: And a lot of people start looking at what's going

1511
01:11:25,700 --> 01:11:28,929
Speaker 2: to happen next. And Radaban Karadzic is one of these guys.

1512
01:11:28,970 --> 01:11:33,110
Speaker 2: And he starts increasingly thinking about politics and envisioning a

1513
01:11:33,210 --> 01:11:36,830
Speaker 2: future for himself that's very different than his checkered past,

1514
01:11:36,930 --> 01:11:39,050
Speaker 2: a future in which he would hold the kind of

1515
01:11:39,110 --> 01:11:42,070
Speaker 2: power he always felt he deserved. And we'll talk about

1516
01:11:42,110 --> 01:11:45,780
Speaker 2: that in part two. But, Jamie, why don't you plug

1517
01:11:46,020 --> 01:11:48,540
Speaker 2: your new novel, The Tower, which I just plugged, but

1518
01:11:48,580 --> 01:11:49,140
Speaker 2: you can plug it.

1519
01:11:49,820 --> 01:11:52,139
Speaker 4: I'll do it again. Why the hell not?

1520
01:11:52,200 --> 01:11:54,260
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't stop you, and I won't.

1521
01:11:55,310 --> 01:12:00,050
Speaker 3: You can preorder The Tower now. Again, it's about a

1522
01:12:00,250 --> 01:12:06,370
Speaker 3: woman making beautiful love to her beautiful building. Yeah. And

1523
01:12:06,710 --> 01:12:09,670
Speaker 3: it comes out in June. And also the Bechtelkasse is

1524
01:12:09,770 --> 01:12:11,320
Speaker 3: on tour in the East Coast.

1525
01:12:11,340 --> 01:12:12,360
Speaker 2: Damn right it is.

1526
01:12:12,380 --> 01:12:13,160
Speaker 4: Throughout the fall.

1527
01:12:13,280 --> 01:12:16,540
Speaker 3: So if you live in the Northeast, we're going there.

1528
01:12:17,020 --> 01:12:19,860
Speaker 3: basically everywhere. So come out and see us. Everywhere.

1529
01:12:20,120 --> 01:12:21,930
Speaker 2: That's the only part of the country. The Northeast.

1530
01:12:22,290 --> 01:12:24,830
Speaker 4: And especially Baltimore. Baltimore extra.

1531
01:12:25,270 --> 01:12:31,210
Speaker 2: Baltimore. The Serbia of the United States? Whoa. Almost certainly not. Whoa. Wow.

1532
01:12:31,410 --> 01:12:33,120
Speaker 4: What an interesting thing to just throw in.

1533
01:12:33,130 --> 01:12:34,570
Speaker 2: Did you say that?

1534
01:12:34,600 --> 01:12:35,700
Speaker 4: Baltimore, weigh in.

1535
01:12:37,400 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 2: Baltimore.

1536
01:12:38,140 --> 01:12:40,139
Speaker 4: Come to the show and I'll say it to your face.

1537
01:12:40,700 --> 01:12:44,450
Speaker 1: That's The episode, motherfuckers. Yeah.

1538
01:12:44,510 --> 01:12:46,870
Speaker 2: Watch a Serbian film. Don't watch a Serbian film.

1539
01:12:46,970 --> 01:12:47,950
Speaker 5: Actually, you do. It's pretty good.

1540
01:12:48,330 --> 01:12:50,790
Speaker 2: But it's pretty messed up. Anyway, good night.

1541
01:12:50,830 --> 01:12:56,650
Speaker 5: Bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media.

1542
01:12:56,850 --> 01:13:00,560
Speaker 5: For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com.

1543
01:13:00,960 --> 01:13:03,600
Speaker 5: Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1544
01:13:03,780 --> 01:13:07,280
Speaker 5: or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of

1545
01:13:07,320 --> 01:13:10,059
Speaker 5: Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every

1546
01:13:10,120 --> 01:13:12,729
Speaker 5: Tuesday and Thursday. Hit remind me on Netflix so you

1547
01:13:12,770 --> 01:13:16,240
Speaker 5: don't miss an episode. For clips and our older episode catalog,

1548
01:13:16,300 --> 01:13:20,200
Speaker 5: continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash at

1549
01:13:20,260 --> 01:13:24,960
Speaker 5: Behind the Bastards. We love about 40% of you, statistically speaking.