Top lista nadrealista

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Sketch showing two European observers trying to make a Muslim and a Serb, lifelong friends, get into a fight

Top lista nadrealista (trans. Top Chart of Surrealists) was a comedy radio broadcast on Radio Sarajevo and later a television show on TV Sarajevo during 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1981, it started as a segment of a Radio Sarajevo show Primus. The show became successful, got its own air time, and in 1984 it spun off as a TV series.

For several months in late 1984 and early 1985 the show was halted. A part of the crew which created the show, most of them both actors and writers, were members of rock band Zabranjeno Pušenje. During a concert in Rijeka the band frontman and one of the members of Surrealists made a pun after the Marshall amplifier broke down, saying: "The Marshall is dead, and I am talking about the amplifier now", involving late Josip Broz Tito who held the military rank of the same name. The band and the show were verbaly attacked by several communist organizations and Surrealists opted to stay out of the eye of the public for a while. The show resumed in the spring of 1985 without much fuss.

The show was mostly comprised of political satire in form of sketches, and became famous in former Yugoslavia. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many sketches dealt with current political situation which was a prelude to the Yugoslavian war. Some proved to be prophetic, as they described things like Sarajevo being divided in different republics, a single family split into two clans and warring over control of rooms in the apartment, UN peacekeeping force's "significant" presence and their adding fuel to the conflict.

Surrealists held clear pacifist posture, often using absurdity to describe the imminent war, e.g. warning that "peace may break out and ruin Bosnian harmonious war" or giving alarming instructions on how the public should act in case of "peace".

Top Lista Nadrealista TV show during the Siege of Sarajevo.

Top Lista Nadrealista continued to air during the part of Siege of Sarajevo, mostly as a radio show, opening with lines such as "good evening all three of you who still have generators", but with some television appearances as well. As a comedy show in a war torn city, it arguably had an impact on citizens' morale. The show was more directly dealing with the surrounding reality of war, making fun of all sides involved and everyday situations in which citizens of Sarajevo were during the city siege.

E.g. One war-time sketch showed Serbs arresting obviously innocent Czech tourists who got lost on their way to seaside as Muslim extremists and terrorists. Other sketch shows how a Muslim "Super Hodža" heals a child of Chetnik spirit.