A love lyric about a fairy mourning transformed Sarajevo during its siege

Evidence

The love lyric is about love, but it is also about loss and exile. During the shelling of Sarajevo, one of the most popular lyrics, based on an ancient sevdalinka, concerned Mt. Trebevic, the mountain above Sarajevo from which Serb army gunners were shelling the city. In the old sevdalinka, Mt. Trebevic was the mountain of the love fairy. The love song took on new meaning during the siege of 1992-1995, when Sarajevans listened to a sevdalinka-based popular song and love lament in which the fairy atop Trebevic mountain calls out: “Is Sarajevo where it used to be?” — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 375

Categorization

• XREF: The fairy atop Trebevic asking if Sarajevo still stands echoes the recontextualization of landscape under shelling — connects to the book’s earlier discussion of named, living geography.