Sarajevo's Holiday Inn was built to host the 1984 Winter Olympics. The townspeople were proud to have outbid two other contenders. They hoped that the various Olympic sports venues, the new roads and housing would bring prosperity to the city. The 1984 events could also help knit together Sarajevo's multi-cultural community in post-Tito Yugoslavia. Tito, who had presided over the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's (SFRY) eight components since the end of World War II, had died in 1980.
Ivan Štraus, a well-known architect, won the competition to build the new hotel. Construction began in 1981. The completed building was not your usual Holiday Inn, which first appeared in Memphis, Tennessee in 1952. That model was simple, suited to affordable family travel, and rather boxy in style. Štraus's Holiday Inn was a yellow architectural wonder with a gaudy atrium, ten levels, multiple restaurants, boutiques, travel agencies, a casino, and a “disko.” It attracted royalty and pop stars, and became an elite vacation destination. Štraus's hotel opened on October 6, 1983. Its first guest was Juan Antonio Samaranch, head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He occupied the 5th floor Presidential Suite, and was delighted with what came to be known as the “Olympic” hotel.
The Olympics were a great success, giving Sarajevo (and Yugoslavia) international visibility, while the hotel itself boosted the reputation of the Holiday Inn franchise. But when the athletes departed, the spirit of “brotherhood and unity” among Yugoslavs, which the event had also promoted, was flagging. The economy was in trouble, there was an oil crisis, and nationalism was spawning multiparty elections. Of Yugoslavia's eight political units, Serbia, with its capital of Belgrade (also Yugoslavia's capital) was hoping to keep all Serbs—wherever in the SFRY—under Belgrade's control. Slovenia and Croatia resisted. Ultimately, on June 25, 1991, those two northern republics declared independence. A ten-day war sealed Slovenia's case: a truce and international recognition. Croatia was also recognized, but with its substantial ethnic Serb inhabitants, war with Serbia dragged on until 1995.
For Bosnia and Herzegovina, the most ethnically diverse of Yugoslavia's republics, the story would be complex. Its three major ethnic communities were Serbs, Croats, and Muslims (technically a national group). The latter two got on relatively well, while the Serbs preferred to work with Serbs in Serbia. Meticulously chronicling events after January 1990 when the SFRY collapsed, the author takes up the formation of Bosnia-Herzegovina's political parties. The leading two were Social Democratic Action (SDA) led by Alija Izetbegović and the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) headed by Radovan Karadžić. The parties spent most of the year sorting out programs. Many meetings were held at the Holiday Inn, which had ample meeting space and housing. SDA generally supported independence, while SDS backed remaining in Yugoslavia and preparing for cooperation with Serbia which could (and did) entail engaging the Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army in order to realize the goal of Serbian unity.
In the interval, the Holiday Inn became “militarized.” Karadžić with his family took up residence in the fifth floor Presidential suite. With tensions mounting and war raging in Croatia, the SDS used armed supporters to monitor hotel guests. Holiday Inn HQ in Atlanta objected, to no avail, to Kalashnikov-armed men loitering in the lobby. Regular clientele quickly disappeared. The situation was somewhat stabilized when UNPROFOR peacekeeping monitors in Croatia were re-assigned to Bosnia. They settled into the Holiday Inn, too. Soon journalists, following the “Yugoslav” crisis, joined them. Sarajevo and the Holiday Inn thus fell into a war that lasted three and a half years. The first shots were fired on April 6, 1992, either from or toward the Holiday Inn, which thereafter remained on the front lines of the fighting. Its southern side became a favorite target of snipers.
The most interesting chapters are based on the author's interviews of journalists, diplomats (US Embassy HQ after 1993), and “hip intellectuals” who spent time in the Holiday Inn. Living accommodations were marginal. Only 100 of its 300 rooms were useable, seventy percent of the hotel's windows had been shot out, and access was dangerous even by vehicle. The press used the hotel because it functioned: there was food, electricity, a dedicated staff and Sarajevo's only direct-dialing international telephone link. CNN, BBC, ABC, and Reuters put satellite dishes on window ledges. Colleagues could provide translators, smuggled provisions, and booze. In post-war gatherings of the “Sarajevo press,” there was much nostalgia about the shared experience.
This book is poorly edited. It is repetitious; for example, a paragraph on page 171 has already appeared in the text on page 170, there are typos, and even a stray “ibid” in the right margin on page 77. Maps of the city and of Bosnia are much needed. Chapters 2 and 3 (pages 7–45) are about other hotels elsewhere that have had siege experiences, yet are tacked on even though only marginally related to the Sarajevo story.
