Miloš Vasić obituary

Miloš Vasić, who has died aged 74, was a leading investigative journalist and the co-founder of the independent Serbian weekly Vreme during the most turbulent and violent years of Serbia’s and Yugoslavia’s recent history.

Vasić came to particular prominence throughout the rule of the Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević, in power between 1987 and 2000, and especially during the wars in the former Yugoslavia of the 1990s. Serbs who wanted to cut through the lies of Milošević’s propaganda machine waited eagerly for Vreme to come out every Monday.

As the situation deteriorated, countless diplomats, journalists, intelligence agents and NGOs who trooped through Belgrade would call on Vasić for a briefing on what was really happening behind the scenes.

Despite Milošević’s strengthening grip on the media, Vasić’s reports regularly exposed the shadowy systems of corruption and intimidation that underpinned the Serbian leader’s hold on power. He was fearless despite countless threats to his life and the intimidation of his family, especially his wife, the writer Tanja Tagirov.

When Milošević came to power, Vasić had been working for over a decade as a reporter with NIN, the most venerable news magazine in Yugoslavia, founded in 1935. Given its large circulation and its powerful reputation, Milošević decided to bring NIN under his influence, transforming it into a magazine that propagated Serbian nationalism as the country slid towards war.

Unable to stomach the changing of the guard at NIN, Vasić resigned to become the co-founder of Vreme in 1990. Along with the radio station B92, Vreme became one of the two indispensable sources of information and analysis for Serbia’s opposition and any outsider seeking to understand what was really driving the wars in Yugoslavia.

From this platform, Vasić covered most of the major stories inside the former Yugoslavia during the wars, from the huge anti-Milošević protests in Belgrade in 1991 to the Serbian seizure of Croatia’s eastern Slavonija region and the subsequent siege of Vukovar, through the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Above all, he and his long-term friend and colleague Dejan Anastesijević meticulously documented the fusion of organised crime, political elites and intelligence services throughout the former Yugoslavia, but especially in Serbia. Researching the murder in 2003 of Serbia’s reformist prime minister Zoran Djindjić, he pieced together how, during the war, Serbia’s largest organised crime syndicate had been happily cooperating across the frontline with its opposite number in Croatia.

The resulting book, Atentat na Zorana (The Assassination of Zoran, 2005), won several prizes in Serbia and is a masterwork of non-fiction writing. “This was a foundational text of Serbian investigative journalism,” wrote Filip Švarm, Vreme’s current editor-in-chief, who described Vasić as his mentor. It was, he added, “the true story [about the assassination] and all subsequent information has merely reinforced it”.

Known to all as Miša, Vasić was born in Belgrade, the son of Zagorka, a teacher, and Velimir, a professor of law at the University of Belgrade. He went to VI grammar school in the city and began a degree in philosophy before starting his career as a policemen. He remained immensely proud of this even when he started working full-time as a journalist in the early 70s; he was fond of saying that both police and journalists began their investigations by asking: “Who? When? Where? How? Why?” and it was this forensic, fact-based approach that shaped and characterised his work as a reporter.

His deep knowledge of police and military procedure and his effortless ability to use the operational jargon of the security forces ensured he was able to maintain the most astonishing array of contacts at the heart of the Milošević regime even though government officials regarded him as a menace. From 1997 to 1999, a particularly difficult time for reporters and writers, he led the Association of Independent Journalists of Serbia.

He and Tanja, who also worked at Vreme, were inseparable from when they met in the 90s. They were fabulous hosts, always ready with food, drink but above all the most mesmerising stories. On top of a wide range of interests, Vasić was also a polyglot, switching with ease from Serbian to English to French to Italian. This, of course, was one of the reasons why he was so popular with visiting foreigners.

Vasić was also exceptionally generous with his time, thoughts and advice, both to the young, aspiring journalists that crowded Vreme’s offices and to a generation of foreign journalists and diplomats struggling to make sense of the chaos that was Serbia in the 90s.

Amongst the hubbub, he exuded calm, with a wry smile and a bon mot, a Winston burning in the ashtray, usually a glass of Serbia’s potent rakija in front of him and inevitably some illuminating insights from one of the array of sources that he nurtured and protected. At a time when Serbia’s and Serbs’ reputations were being destroyed by a series of brutal and foolhardy wars, Vasić embodied another Serbia whose voice had been silenced: generous, progressive, ethical and fiercely protective of the truth.

After the death of Tanja in 2017, and two years later of Anastesijević, Vasić withdrew from public life as his health deteriorated. He continued to follow the ins and outs of Serbian politics and society but became something of a recluse.

He came from a generation of gifted writers and journalists across the former Yugoslavia who reached their peak during the wars of the 90s and its aftermath. He will be mourned not only in Serbia but also in Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Slovenia and Macedonia as one of the greats of Yugoslav and Serbian journalism.

He is survived by five children.

Miloš Vasić, journalist, born 4 January 1947; died 25 September 2021