What do the United States Government, a war between European countries and a Venezuelan soap opera have to do with each other? Between 1991 and 1992, the former Yugoslavia was going through a process of disintegration that ultimately resulted in the emergence of five other nations: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The latter was then to be further divided into Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo, which still does not have full recognition as an independent state.
After the separation process, in 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina once again went through another war process, but on an internal level. It turns out that within this new independent territory, up to three large, very marked ethnic groups coexisted with many tensions: Muslims, Serbs and Croats. This led to a future intervention by NATO and, of course, by the United States of America, which in 1995 managed to get the parties to sign the Dayton Accords. A kind of lying peace that was going to be interrupted because of the tensions between Radovan Karadzićpresident of the Republika Srpska from 1992 to 1996, and his successor, President Biljana Plavšic. The first considered Banja Luka as the de facto capital, while for his successors it was Pale, near Sarajevo, the capital of Republika Srpska.
SRT, the television channel that had the greatest influence over the entire population (regardless of ethnicity), was controlled by Karadžić and broadcast its broadcasts from Pale and was used as a means to spread war propaganda against the Dayton Accords, in which the US and NATO served as intermediaries. This changed when in 1997 followers of the opposing side broke into the SRT repeater located in Bania Luka and decided to change the programming: there was a cut in the signal and upon returning they noticed that there was a serious problem…
YOU CAN SEE: What does Amaranto mean, the name Camilo and Evaluna chose for their next baby?
Why was the soap opera 'Kassandra' important in the internal war in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
In this context, on this side of the world, the Venezuelan soap opera 'Kassandra' had already broken all ratings records for years and already had enormous acceptance in multiple countries, such as the United States, Romania, Greece, Italy or distant Russia. But also Bosnia and Herzegovina! This production, which aired for the first time in 1992 on RCTV, was already the population's favorite and from the United States they noticed that, if the channel taken by their side did not broadcast this melodrama, there were going to be problems because it turns out that the story of 'Kassandra ' somehow kept the residents very satisfied with what was broadcast on their televisions and, therefore, they at least got some distraction in the midst of a war environment.
From the United States they decided to act to avoid generating more social discontent in the population and an eventual social outbreak that could have had an impact on the overthrow of Plavšić. At that time, a member of the State Department of the North American country contacted Antonio Páez, executive vice president of Coral Pictures, a company that subsidized RCTV in Caracas and was also in charge of distributing its soap operas. “I started talking to a guy who said, 'Listen, I can't even tell you my name right now. There is a public television channel and you have a program that you are selling in this area. We really want to keep it on the air because it was retired and the war has escalated because of it, so we need your help to get it back on the air', stated Páez, who would later also say that the channel located in Pale had never paid for the rights to 'Kassandra', but had pirated it all the time from a station in Belgrade.
Finally, Coral Pictures agreed to sell their successful product, but they received an unexpected response from the anonymous American official: “No, they cannot see us participating in all this in any way.” That is why, as a sensible act and seeing the sensitive circumstance that existed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Coral donated her series: “It was an absolute huge success there and everything calmed down. It was a great moment to be part of the tremendous power that novels had around the world”.
YOU CAN SEE: Why did Mon Laferte use the name of a Pokémon for the title of one of his songs?
What was 'Kassandra' about?
This soap opera was the third version made of the story originally written by Cuban Delia Fiallo. The first version was broadcast in 1973 and was titled 'Peregrina' and starred Rebeca González, while the second version was called 'The Circus Girl' and the leading role was played by Catherine Fulop. 'Kassandra', the worldwide hit, was released in 1992 and it was Coraima Torres who was responsible for bringing the main character to life.
The story tells the life of a young girl who was exchanged in her first days of life and raised by a gypsy family who was homeless and lived in a circus. When the youngest grows up, she returns to her hometown to learn that her original relatives were millionaires. Thus, the 150 chapters of this story took on a magnitude never before seen on Venezuelan television.
In a statement to the BBC on the Witness History radio program, Coraima Torres said: “At that time I didn't have the feeling that my life was going to change. I was 17 years old. In fact, I traveled with my sister to meet the writer because she was a minor. It was a great challenge. I wanted to prove myself when she told me that the role was mine. I had a sense of fear and possibility.”
#39Kasandra39 #Venezuelan #soap #opera #39paralyzed39 #war #Bosnia #Herzegovina
