Vedran Smailović

The cellist of Sarajevo

Meet Vedran Smailović, a 66 year old musician from Bosnia and Herzegovina who captured the world’s imagination during the Seige of Sarajevo when he played his cello in a ruined square and in full view of snipers for 22 days.

Vedran grew up in a musical family. His father, a composer, would organise public performances for Vedran and his four sisters to share their music, often in remote villages that missed out on big cultural events.  After a childhood of practice, Vedran went onto become the principal cellist for the Sarajevo Opera.

In 1992, he was living in Sarajevo when the four-year siege of his city began. On the 27th May an artillery shell exploded in front of a bakery close to where he lived, killing 22 innocent people lined up to buy bread. The following day, without planning it, Vedran picked up his cello, went outside to the crater left by the blast and played Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor (link). Despite the risk of snipers on the surrounding hills, grieving locals gathered around to listen.

Vedran returned to the square at 4pm sharp for the following 22 days to pay tribute to his lost neighbours and friends. And he continued playing around the war-ravaged city for another two years, often at funerals and always dressed in a white shirt and black tailcoat. His cello became a powerful weapon of hope, creating a surge of local creativity and capturing the world’s attention.

Although he became an international symbol of courage, Vedran wasn’t interested in publicity or becoming a leader. In December 1993, friends helped him escape the city and he moved to Northern Ireland, where he still lives in an attic flat composing music and playing chess.

His was single act of ‘cultural resistance’ that has inspired other musicians to rise up in warzones like the Balkans, Syria, and the Ukraine, where today artists are playing Bach, Vivaldi and folk songs in subway stations to remind people of their humanity in the most inhumane of circumstances.

When a reporter asked Vedron whether he was crazy to play his cello during a war, he replied, “You ask me am I crazy for playing the cello, why do you not ask if they are not crazy for shelling Sarajevo?”