# The Death of Yugoslavia (1995)

> A BAFTA-winning BBC documentary miniseries that charts the collapse of Yugoslavia through rare archive footage and interviews with the leaders who shaped it.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/8285

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 50 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: documentary, history
- Created by: Norma Percy
- Network: BBC One
- Cast: Robin Ellis, Slobodan Milošević, Franjo Tuđman, Borisav Jović, Momir Bulatović, Stipe Mesić, Radovan Karadžić, Alija Izetbegović
- TMDB rating: 8.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283181/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: dense
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: grave, analytical, sober, harrowing

## What critics say

Critics and viewers regard it as a landmark documentary, valued for its rare archive footage and candid interviews with key figures of the Yugoslav wars, though some argue its perspective is partisan.

## Synopsis

The Death of Yugoslavia (1995) is a British documentary miniseries created by Norma Percy for BBC One, a BAFTA-award winning factual series that follows the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Its six episodes, each about fifty minutes, are built from never-before-seen archive footage cut together with on-camera interviews of most of the main players in the conflict. Among the voices are Slobodan Milošević, then President of Serbia, along with Franjo Tuđman, Radovan Karadžić, Alija Izetbegović and Stipe Mesić, with Robin Ellis providing the narration. The engine of the series is the sequence of political decisions and nationalist turns that pulled a federal state apart, told through what its leaders said and did at the time. Each episode lays out a stretch of that unraveling in measured, sober prose, pairing grainy footage of streets and rallies with the calm, self-justifying testimony of those who held power. The mood is grave and analytical rather than sensational, though the imagery of war can be harrowing. Set across the late 1980s and 1990s Balkans, it is a single self-contained limited series for viewers seeking serious factual history. Fans of The World at War and The Fog of War will find resonance in its archival rigor and its direct access to the decision makers.

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