Civic Courage Award
The Center for Bosnian Studies’ Civic Courage Award is intended to recognize individuals who exhibit courageous commitment to the civic values of respect, equality, and pluralism that represent the best traditions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Recipients receive the award at a formal ceremony and reception hosted by the Center for Bosnian Studies at Saint Louis University.
Recipients of the Civic Courage Award
András Riedlmayer, 2023
As an expert on cultural destruction in the Balkans, András Riedlmayer testified at
the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague
in the trials of 14 Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials. The defendants included former
Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, accused of war crimes and genocide in Kosovo
and Bosnia. Although Milosevic died of a heart attack before the ICTY could deliver
a verdict in his case, 11 of the others were convicted and sent to prison. Recently
retired from Harvard University, Riedlmayer was founder and director of the Bosnian
Manuscript lngathering Project, which seeks to obtain microfilms or photocopies of
items destroyed in the May 1992 bombing of the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo.
Elvedin Pašić, 2021
A survivor of the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Elvedin Pašić was the first witness
to testify in 2012 at the war crimes trial of the military commander Ratko Mladić
by the ICTY. His harrowing testimony was instrumental in convicting Mladić of extermination,
forcible deportation and murder. (Mladić was also found guilty of other crimes against
humanity, including genocide.) As a witness, Pašić has provided evidence that continues
to stand as a bulwark against genocide and genocide denial. As a U.S. citizen, he
has earned the gratitude and respect of his adopted community, to which he has contributed
personally and professionally.
Nusreta Sivac, 2020
Working as a judge from 1978 until the outbreak of war in Bosnia in 1992, Nusreta
Sivac became an inmate at the Bosnian Serb-run Omarska camp in Prijedor where she
and other women at the camp were raped, beaten and tortured. After the camp's closure,
she became an activist for victims of rape and is credited with helping in the recognition
of wartime rape as a war crime under international law. Sivac helped prepare indictments
for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where she has also
testified. Her story is featured in the Emmy-winning documentary "Calling the Ghosts:
A Story about Rape, War and Women." She is a member of the Women's Association of
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Hasan Nuhanović, 2019
A survivor of the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hasan Nuhanović
has worked tirelessly for 23 years to bring truth to the world and justice to Srebrenica’s
victims. Through civil, criminal and international courts as well as through his writing,
Nuhanović continues "to ensure that Bosnia is able to move on and face the future,
while acknowledging its tragic past" (Holocaust Memorial Day Trust). He is the author
of "Under the UN Flag: The International Community and the Srebrenica Genocide" (DES,
2007) and "The Last Refuge: A True Story of War, Survival and Life Under Siege in
Srebrenica" (Peter Owen Publishers, 2019).
Refik Hodzić, 2016
Refik Hodzić is an award-winning documentarist and director of communications for
the International Center for Transitional Justice. A native of Prijedor, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Hodžić has held positions in media and communication, including in Bosnian-language
radio and international news outlets, as well as with the United Nations, the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the International Center for Transitional
Justice. In 2004, Hodžić co-founded XY Films, an independent film and television production
company producing documentary films dealing with the legacy of war crimes committed
during the 1990s. Over the years, the main focus of Hodžić’s journalism, film-making
and outreach work has been on transitional justice issues related to the former Yugoslavia.
His work has drawn global attention to issues of human rights and social justice in
countries around the world.
Kemal and Vesna Kurspahić, 2015
As wartime editor-in-chief of the Bosnian newspaper Oslobodjenje, Kemal Kurspahić
led a multiethnic staff in publishing the paper every day throughout the three-and-a-half-year
siege of Sarajevo. Working from an old bomb shelter, Kurspahić was dedicated to maintaining
high professional standards and ethnic and religious tolerance in the midst of terror.
He has written four books, including "As Long as Sarajevo Exists" (1997) and "Prime
Time Crime" (2003), and has received some of the highest honors in international journalism.
Vesna and Kemal Kurspahić met while students at Belgrade University. She is the curator of a photo exhibit on the life and culture of Bosnia-Herzegovina called Documenting Hometown and Family History in Stari Majdan, Bosnia.