Štamparija (S01E04)
Airdate: 12 January 1975
Written by: Dragan Marković & Siniša Pavić
Directed by: Aleksandar Đorđević
Running Time: 48 minutes
When a television series attempts to depict the granular reality of resistance activities in an occupied city, it inevitably faces a narrative hierarchy. Some endeavours—daring rescues, spectacular sabotage, tense internal betrayals—are naturally conducive to action and suspense. The fourth episode of the seminal Yugoslav series Otpisani (“The Written-Off Ones”), titled Štamparija (“The Print Studio”), initially seems to occupy a lower, more prosaic rung. It forgoes the immediate adrenaline of its predecessors, which featured the audacious liberation of a captured comrade, the blistering destruction of German military vehicles, and the rooting out of a traitor within the ranks. Instead, it commits itself to the ostensibly banal, painstaking, and deeply unglamorous world of propaganda production. Yet, through a masterful synthesis of historical fidelity and devastating dramatic compression, the episode constructs a narrative of quiet, nerve-shredding tension that ultimately delivers one of the series’ most profoundly haunting conclusions.
The plot is anchored in a remarkable historical truth: the clandestine printing press established by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in occupied Belgrade during the summer of 1941. This operation, responsible for leaflets, bulletins, and official directives, miraculously evaded detection by German and collaborationist authorities until its final raid in July 1944, a mere three months before the city's liberation. The episode condenses this three-year struggle for secrecy into a matter of days, presumably in late 1941, a necessary compression for dramatic momentum. It opens not with intrigue, but with a solemn Orthodox wedding. Dr. Janković (Zoran Milosavljević) and Olivera (Svetlana Bojković), two high-level Party activists, marry solely to secure the cover of a married couple and obtain residence in a villa where the printing studio will be established. They are joined by Ivana (Ljubica Ković), posing as their maid, while printers Zare (Đorđe Jelisić) and Nenad (Josif Tatić) are consigned to the hidden cellar. This church scene is notably sympathetic, with the Communist resistance members observing approvingly—a subtle reflection of 1970s Yugoslavia’s more relaxed attitude towards religion, despite the state’s official atheism. The only tension is the brief, intrusive arrival of a German patrol, a reminder of the occupation that frames their every move.
The enemy response is swift. Gestapo Colonel Müller (Rudolf Ulrich) is incensed by the flood of Communist leaflets, a provocation magnified by Prle’s characteristic bravado in leaving them at the Gestapo’s own doorstep. Major Krieger (Stevo Žigon) is given eight days to uncover the source. The hunt begins with chilling efficiency, tracking down Lazić (Aleksandar Goranin), a student courier. Lazić dies resisting arrest, while a female activist (Branka Zorić) escapes only through the courageous intervention of neighbours who present her to Krieger as their daughter. This early success tightens the noose. Tihi delivers materials to the villa, but Dr. Janković, visited daily at his university office by the suspiciously polite and perceptive Major Krieger, feels the danger acutely. Krieger’s intimidation tactic is his unnervingly courteous demeanour, a formidable quality that makes him a uniquely threatening villain. Janković, his Oxford background marking him as a potential British link, decides to flee. Olivera remains, only to be informed by Krieger that the villa is to be requisitioned. Forced to relocate the entire operation, she too eventually departs for Partisan territory, leaving Tihi with a hope to reunite in a liberated Belgrade.
The script simultaneously tightens the vice on the collaborationist side. Krieger reminds the newly installed head of the Special Police, Krsta Mišić (Vasa Pantelić), that his position is contingent on finding the press within the same eight-day deadline. Krsta, a capable and ruthless policeman, is is dogged and pragmatic. The breakthrough comes not from police work alone, but from the exploitation of human tragedy. The script injects a powerful, fictional emotional backstory for Zare: devoted to a young son he has not seen for weeks, he risks a visit home only to learn his family has been deported to the Banjica concentration camp. Utterly shattered, his tradecraft fails him, allowing him to be tailed by Mišić’s agent Limar (Dušan Vujinović) to a new safe house belonging to Milan (Mirko Bulović), a pre-war Communist detainee. The studio is compromised.
The ensuing raid is a masterpiece of escalating dread. A warning attempt by the Special Police double agent Slavko fails. When Prle and Tihi arrive, it is too late for anything but a desperate, futile diversion—a burst of gunfire and a few thrown grenades meant to signal the printers and extract some retaliatory “redshirt” casualties from the police ranks. This action feels somewhat grafted on, a concession to the genre’s expectation of a final shootout. However, it does little to dilute the episode’s oppressive darkness. Inside, the trapped Zare and Nenad face their end. In the episode’s most brutally cruel moment, Krsta Mišić manipulates Milan’s young son, forcing the boy to call out to the hidden men. Faced with certain capture and torture, and echoing the fate of their historical counterparts, Zare and Nenad choose suicide. Their off-screen deaths are a stark, gut-wrenching conclusion that underscores the brutal calculus of their silent war: the machinery of resistance was more valuable than any single life, including their own.
The episode’s strength lies in its scrupulous adherence to the core history. Dr. Janković is closely modelled on Dr. Milo Bošković, an Oxford-educated Montenegrin physician who would later perish in Jasenovac. Olivera is based on Zagorka “Zaga” Jovanović, a medical student who married Bošković. The forced relocation of the press after the villa’s requisition in August 1943 is faithfully transposed. Most powerfully, the fates of Zare and Nenad directly mirror those of the real printers Branko Đonović and Slobodan Jović. The script’s major departure—the compression of three years into days—is a necessary dramatic device. The invention of Zare’s family tragedy, while fictional, serves a profound purpose: it transforms him from a faceless operative into a tragic figure, making his final act not just ideologically dutiful but personally despairing, a choice made by a man who has already lost everything.
Where the episode truly excels is in its characterisation of the antagonists. Krsta Mišić is not a caricature; he is a competent, relentless professional whose devilish ruthlessness is all the more terrifying for its cold practicality. Major Krieger, meanwhile, is a study in menacing politeness. His scenes, particularly his casual, unsettling flirtation with Olivera (a role that propelled the esteemed career of Svetlana Bojković, who would return in the sequel Povratak otpisanih playing the same character under a different name), are charged with a palpable, sophisticated threat. He represents the insidious, intelligent face of the occupation.
The ultimate failure of the episode, if one exists, is its somewhat jarring final act. The intervention by Prle and Tihi feels like a narrative afterthought, an attempt to inject action-genre credentials and a token body count to offset the overwhelming bleakness of the printers’ sacrifice. It is a tonal stumble in an otherwise impeccably controlled descent into tragedy.
Štamparija, despite this flaws works because it embraces the inherent drama of its seemingly mundane subject: the relentless, paranoid, and ultimately sacrificial work of keeping the word alive. It demonstrates that in the shadow war of occupation, the most potent weapon could be a leaflet, and its defence could demand a price far heavier than a gunfight. In doing so, it delivers a critical, sombre, and emotionally resonant chapter that remains a standout in the series’ acclaimed run.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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