The Czech Yugo fan: Broadcaster, journalist and tutor Daniel Sywala on Czech-Serbian relations and promoting ex-Yugoslavia
Daniel Sywala is a music journalist, broadcaster and language tutor based in Prague. He spoke to Danny Bate about his career and his efforts to champion the culture, music, food and people of former Yugoslavia, as well as discussing Czech-Serbian relations and the historic anti-corruption protests happening in Belgrade.
I'd like to begin with a profile of you, and I can think of no better person to explain that than yourself! What is it that you do here in Czechia?
“Well, I was born here in 1988, and when I was fourteen I moved to Belgrade, Serbia with my family. We spent four years there, then I returned. I used to work for many years in marketing, but for the past couple of years it's a mixture of tutoring languages (Serbian and English) and music journalism for Český rozhlas Jazz, ČT Art and Full Moon. That’s me.”
And you write about music too?
“Yes. When I was working for Televize Seznam, around 2018 and 2019, I was doing a lot of video interviews, but at ČT Art, it’s mainly written things. For Český rozhlas Jazz, I take care of their Facebook, and occasionally record some programmes, but again it’s mainly writing.”
You’ve done a fair few interviews with some quite big names in the world of music. Any favourites?
“All of them! I always like to say that I appreciate even the lesser known names, because I just love to discover and support talented artists who are not that well known. But there were a lot of big names, yes: U2, Rammstein, The Police.
“These were mainly thanks to a magazine, Musikus, which is not active anymore. The benefit was the fact that it dealt with instruments and equipment. We had very little space for interviews. So, if I wrote a request to somebody who was starting a side project, like Stuart Copeland from The Police, and I said that we would give him the front cover, and that I really love his work, they would say yes. That was my trick for how to get even the biggest names, with of course massive support from suppliers and colleagues. I was just one piece of the puzzle.”
A very good answer, and very diplomatically put as well – I think you have an alternative career in diplomacy with that answer. Could you tell us about your personal family connection to Serbia, which is the main topic of our conversation today?
“I was born in Czechia, but I like to call my mother's side the ex-Yugoslavian section. In my family on that side, there is a mixture of Montenegrins, Serbs and Croats. When I was fourteen, around 2002, my father, who works in the gas industry, informed us that we were moving to Belgrade. We spent four years there, and I used to travel to inland Croatia when I was a kid because I had a grandmother there.
“Since then, I’ve been teaching Serbian as a private tutor, and I'm doing my best to cover artists from ex-Yugoslavia in Czech media. I'm trying to be active in the community here, not only by teaching the language, but also supporting the local restaurants, concentrating on Balkan food. I had, maybe three weeks ago, a six page-article in Deník N about restaurants, bakeries and markets that concentrate on the products and the cuisine of ex-Yugoslavia.”
You mentioned that your role as a tutor of the Serbian language – is there much call for tuition in Serbian?
“I often get that question, but the thing is, there always is. The main examples are for either business or love. I get requests like ‘hello sir, I married a Serbian guy, I need you to help me talk to my mother-in-law’, and lately many business requests. There are a couple of Czech businessmen who have decided to do business in Montenegro, so they need to be in contact with the boss of the construction – ‘excuse me, sir, it was supposed to be done last week’, and stuff like that”.
“Learning languages is better if it's with somebody from the outside”
“Something more surprising: I also started teaching the Serbian community and their kids, who have somewhat lost contact with the language, and the parents would like them to improve their language. In the family environment, you can be strict in certain ways, but learning languages is better if it's with somebody from the outside.
“We’re now starting a cooperation with Charles University. I'll be helping, and we're negotiating some dates and options for how to do it. I'll very probably be helping students of Serbian with conversations, and that's something that I'm really proud of.”
Czech and Serbian may be two Slavic languages, sharing a common origin way back in history, but nonetheless, there are some traps and dangers in the Serbian language for Czechs. This is something that you've explored on social media in the Czech Yugo Fan Club on Facebook and Instagram. Can you tell us about the purpose of the pages, and about the linguistic fun that you like to have with Czech and Serbian?
“Yes, this is just a fun platform, which I started with my best friend, Željko Kolović. Many of our friends, including my Ostrava friends, have been helping. It's a fun activity. The idea was to create a community where we can share some fun, free-time activities. Over the years as it grew – now it has about 1,600 members – it reached a certain level where it has some influence, and I’m looking for the best possible options for how to help people with it.
“When I teach, all of these ‘lost in translation’ things, mispronunciations and misunderstandings of words, happen a lot. It's fun. You have to be very careful sometimes during your travels, or when the Serbian community is speaking in Prague.
“However, as I mentioned, this platform is also monitoring and helping restaurants, bistros and markets all over the Czech Republic. So, you can imagine the most likeable items are the food. People love the pictures, and I love helping those platforms. I'm also willing to travel many kilometres to go to these places. It's worth it. I just love the interactions with those people.
“Now it has also proven very useful with informing not only the Balkan community about possible gatherings and articles about the current protests in Serbia, but also the Czech public about the protests. I don't want to say that it's not a priority of the Czech media and the Czech public, but it's not a top priority. At the same time, I'm very happy to see that people that are hungry to go to discussions or travel presentations if you offer them. If I combine it with some solid guests, then it can be attractive evening programme, even for a Czech audience. I use this to spread the word about what is happening currently in Serbia.”
We will certainly return to the topic of the protests currently happening right this very day in Serbia, but first, I want to say that this is a tremendous service that you're doing for the Serbian community here in Czechia. But what is that community like? Is it particularly big? Is it spread out across the country?
“There are many of us. There are a number of journalists, especially students, not only Serbian ones, who are active into spreading the word. So I'm just a part of a big team, and the community is incredible. They're a very interesting community.
“I would rather say not the Serbian, but rather the ‘ex-Yugo’ community, because there is a mixture. On the subject of restaurants, there is an incredible Macedonian chef in a restaurant called Culinary Angel in Ostrava. There are restaurants spread all over Czech Republic, and they also have that mixture of Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, Slovenes and Macedonians. There is a big mixture. So I’d rather call it all ex-Yugoslavian, and it’s hundreds of people.
“In the 90s, with the war in Yugoslavia, people were moving away from that region and into Canada, Sweden, Australia. There is a massive community in Vienna and Stuttgart. There are so many locations, and Prague is just one of them.”
Turning now to the Czechs themselves, what would you say about the public perception of Serbia? Among Czechs, is it a country that many people have positive opinions of? Is it a country that Czechs have visited, for example?
“When I do my alternative traveling presentation, I like to call Serbia the unknown gem of Europe. Out of ex-Yugoslavia, it's Croatia and Montenegro that are more popular. However, over time, people have started discovering the beauties of Bosnia, like Mostar and Sarajevo, and also Belgrade, which used to have great prices, but which are now unfortunately growing.
“I like to call Serbia the unknown gem of Europe”
“The city is in some aspects slightly wilder. So one of the aspects of the presentation is to give some friendly warnings about transportation, places to go, how to behave, and how to enjoy the beautiful parts of the city.”
Let’s address the protests. This is so important, and it has relevance not only for Serbia, but for all of Europe in some regards. What is the general context and background to these protests? Who is protesting? What are their demands?
“It’s mainly students who are protesting. For many years, there have been many issues and big problems with corruption. However, the final last ‘drop’ was the disaster in the city of Novi Sad on November 1st, when a part of the construction of the Novi Sad railway station fell. It eventually killed fifteen people.
“Since then, students have been organising peaceful gatherings, where they keep a fifteen-minute tribute of peace for the victims of this tragedy. It started growing. More and more people have been joining since November 2024. However, the regime has many tricks for how to try to mis-organise and slowly but surely ruin the protests. There were people who were hitting the students in their cars on the streets, while they were trying to do that peaceful fifteen-minute tribute. Now, there is massive support also from various other parts of the community, including taxi drivers and lawyers. It's a huge spectrum.
“Their frustration level is insane. It seems like this is basically the last chance”
“I have family members there and close friends who are part of these gatherings. They like to participate in all of them. When I was talking to certain students living in Serbia and Belgrade, their frustration level is insane. It seems like this is basically the last chance, like we have absolutely almost nothing to lose. Now is the time to just stay and keep protesting.
“There was a massive protest on the 15th of March. However, now, as we speak, they have extended this general strike from 17th of March into 19th of March. So, for three days, and we're just keeping going. It's just a continuous process.
“As for the demands of the students, there are four. First of all, coming back to that tragedy in Novi Sad, there's a demand to provide documents related to the reconstruction. Second, there is a demand for the prosecution of those who attacked students and professors throughout the protests since November 2024. They also demand a halt of prosecution of the students who were active. The final one is a 20% increase of budget for higher education.”
And how significant are these protests within the history of Serbia? Has anything like this happened before?
“Yes, absolutely. In 1991, there were 200,000 people protesting against Slobodan Milošević. There were other protests throughout that time. But we can surely say that the protests on Saturday the 15th of March 2025 were the biggest so far. The serious number of participants there start around 275,000, up to 325,000, but there were definitely even more. The mobile providers have informed us that there were over 1.5 million active mobile phones in the centre. Yes, it's a busy part of the city, but still, huge numbers.
“That’s why certain media outlets are now saying just ‘well over 100,000’, but this is information from the government, which is trying to hide the official numbers.”
And has there been any sign of movement from Vučić and his government so far?
“So far, there have been, I like to call them, just his ‘tricks’. These are his moves to make the crowd less frustrated by, let's say, having Prime Minister Vučević step down from his position. The tricks are just to try to make the crowd more peaceful. But it's not happening. It has gone over the limit so many times that people rightfully demand the prosecution of Vučić and the government.
“He proves that there is a reason to continue, especially with acts like the one on Saturday the 15th of March, when during a peaceful tribute, they used a sonic attack on the crowd. I had people writing to me, telling me how they felt. It felt as if a rocket, a plane or a massive truck was running towards them with incredible speed and approaching them with a crazy velocity and crazy sound. Even up to today, these people report an insane pressure on their chests, and also losing a bit of a contact in their legs and hands. It is a very stressful experience. People with heart conditions are also having big issues.”
Bringing the conversation finally back to this country, what events have been happening in Czechia that are connected to the protests in Serbia?
“There have been a number of protests over the years, to share information about the ruling regime of President Vučić. But since the tragedy in Novi Sad, there have been a continuous motivation to create peaceful gatherings in higher numbers. It basically started with the first general strike towards the end of January. Since then, communities, especially within Podrška srpskim studentima - Češka Republika, mainly organized by students here, mainly Serbs but also Czechs who are related to that region, have been organising peaceful gatherings at Wenceslas Square.
“It's happening more or less every two weeks, with about slightly over hundred people each. This is happening in Prague, where there were approximately six gatherings. There have also been two in Brno. It is very organised and very well coordinated with other gatherings. I'm so happy that I also have students from Serbia in Stuttgart, so I'm informing them about the gatherings, which are happening in New York, London, all over the world.
“The beauty of the whole thing is that it's peaceful and non-political, and it spreads awareness.”
