“What I do is writing with a microphone. Our lexicon is the sound material we shape. We use speech, not language. All these terms: documentary radio drama, radio feature, acoustic film—are not quite appropriate. It is, in fact, radio itself… Documentary radio drama uses the means of the medium itself.” (Zvonimir Bajsić in an interview)

Created in collaboration with dramaturg Čedo Prica and sound engineer Maksim Jurjević, ‘Old Lika Pathetic Symphony’ represents the culmination of Zvonimir Bajsić’s exploration of the possibilities of documentary sound on the radio. The piece was recorded in the Plitvice Lakes National Park during the winter of 1974/75 using a Nagra tape recorder, which at the time weighed 8-10 kilograms.

The programme was first presented at the 19th Radio Week in Ohrid (Macedonia) in 1975, where twenty-seven representatives from countries including Turkey, Syria, Tunisia, France and Germany had gathered. It was awarded best radio feature, with a jury statement that read, “The delegates found themselves simultaneously in front of a truly acoustic and dramatic composition, in front of something that must be called a RADIOPHONIC ART WORK. Old Lika Pathetic Symphony is about life and death, and it confirms that radiophonic expression is not based solely on the word, but also belongs to the world of sounds.”

The work was broadcast worldwide, on Sender Freies Berlin (German adaptation by Klaus Lindemann, 1992), as well as on Swedish radio, Danish radio (adaptation by Viggo Klausen), Dutch, Belgian and Swiss radio. The German adaptation of Old Lika Pathetic Symphony was nominated for the Karl Sczuka Prize (a festival organised by SWR Baden-Baden). The piece was also honoured at the 30th anniversary of the International Features Conference in Sydney in 2004.

Translation: Pavlica Bajsić and Marta Medvešek
Thanks to Croatian Radio for providing the recording.

Zvonimir Bajsić (1925–1987) was a writer and director for radio, theatre, and television from Zagreb, Croatia. He spent his entire professional career in the Drama Department of Radio Zagreb, but his radio dramas and documentary radio features were translated worldwide into an extraordinary number of languages, and he himself collaborated, as both author and director, with numerous foreign radio stations. In addition to being one of most internationally awarded radio authors from the countries of the former Yugoslavia, his name is closely associated with the concept of the documentary radio feature, or—as he himself put it—“writing with a microphone.” This includes his insistence on the sound engineer as an equal member of the authorial team, and in his beautiful reflections on silence as a material of radio (The synopsis for the sound essay Silence (1978), Images from the Life of a Radio Dramaturg (1987)).

More about his work can be found in the book Silence and Other Works (Tišina i ostala djela, 2017), a collection of his works and accompanying texts edited by his daughter Pavlica Bajsić. German translations of his works can be found in the audio archive of Bauhaus University (Department of Experimental Radio), and in the rbb audio archive. A documentary film on his work, ‘Tko je taj Zvonimir Bajsić?’ can be found on YouTube.