Sarajevo, the Besieged City: Metaphors We Live and Die By

This study examines literary texts related to the Siege of Sarajevo, focusing on works that seek to capture the city’s genius loci through literary devices, thereby contributing to the palimpsestic urban text. The analysis centres on selected works by five authors—Raymond Rehnicer, Dževad Karahasan, Abdulah Sidran, Bogdan Bogdanović, and Miljenko Jergović—exploring their use of urban metaphors. Particular attention is given to how the siege shaped these metaphors. The majority of these metaphors are spatial, focusing on the urban environment and defined by the constraints of the siege’s encirclement. A smaller group consists of anthropomorphic metaphors, which embody the city’s fragility and vulnerability. Drawing on cognitive metaphor theory, these metaphors not only illuminate different facets of the same experience but also serve as instruments of collective memory.