Branimir Savović
Serbian politician
Branimir Savović (born 10 June 1953) is the former president of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) for the municipality of Višegrad in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time of the outbreak of the Bosnian War 1992-1995. He was appointed to the Presidency of the Municipality by the Bosnian Serb authorities and became President of the "Crisis Staff Committee" established to assume responsibility for the civilian administration of the town. It was during his presidency of the Crisis Staff that the Višegrad massacres took place and the campaign of terror conducted by Milan Lukić and his White Eagles gang proceeded unchecked until Višegrad was purged of its entire Bosniak population. Višegrad has been described as second only to Srebrenica as a byword for ethnic cleansing and for humanity at its cruellest.
After the end of the war when Višegrad was allocated to the Republika Srpska entity under the Dayton Agreement of 1995, Savović remained president of the Višegrad branch of the SDS and became mayor of the town.
Association with the 1992 Bosnian Serb Secession
Evidence given by one of the protected witnesses testifying at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague pointed to Branimir Savović's participation in the concertation of arrangements for the Bosnian Serb seizure of
the town of Višegrad. Višegrad, whose population according to the 1991 population survey was 62% Bosnian Muslim, was strategically located at a historic crossing point of the River Drina on the main road from Belgrade and Užice in Serbia to the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. For much of its length the River Drina formed the border between Bosnia and Serbia. The "Six Strategic Objectives of the Serbian People in Bosnia" drawn up by the Bosnian Serb Presidency and adopted by the breakaway Serb National Assembly on 12 May 1992, envisaged the integration of the Drina Valley with Serbia and necessitated a change in the area's ethnic composition.
The witness, under the pseudonym B-1505, told how forces of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) Užice Corps arrived in Višegrad in April 1992, under the command of Colonel Dragoljub Ojdanić, one of Milosevic's top commanders, and on 13 April 1992 took control of the town before helping to prepare the expulsion of its Muslim population.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Branimir Savović” is serbian politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Branimir, Savović and Serbian, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “serbian politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4957382. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1992, 1995 and 1991.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Branimir Savović”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Branimir Savović primary sources, Branimir Savović archive and Branimir research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Branimir Savović”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Branimir Savović” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.