Franz ferdinand take me out live on fuse2/20/2023 One says happy anniversary and it has a champagne bottle but instead of a cork popping out of the bottle, it's a bullet. It's 100 posters commemorating the 100th anniversary of the shot that triggered World War I. SHAPIRO: This is an art exhibition in a mostly abandoned underground shopping mall. He said most of the pictures from Sarajevo over the last 100 years are suffering and in pain, and now he wants the world to have different pictures of the city. He told me people are thrilled with everything that's going on. I walk around this city and speak with people and nobody says that. And I'm not a person who drives around in a car. SHAPIRO: This the first time I heard something like this, he said. In the last few days, I've spoken with many people in Sarajevo who say the 100 year anniversary has nothing to do with us. SHAPIRO: So I put this question to Sarajevo's mayor, Ivo Komsic. Even some artists are skeptical, like the music producer Edin Zubcevic.ĮDIN ZUBCEVIC: We are people who celebrate, commemorate something and we are not able to get close to the reason to be happy and to celebrate. So plenty of locals question these fancy events. This is a collection of short films, spanning 100 years in this city from the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to the present day.īut this is all happening in a country with very dysfunctional government and high unemployment, where many people struggle just to get by. "Bridges of Sarajevo" had a red carpet premiere last night. SHAPIRO: There are also movies as part of the commemoration. UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Sarajevo. And we want to send a message of a new beginning from Sarajevo from the same side, on the same date, 100 years later and that's the message of love. HARIS PASOVIC: The 20th century was the century of wars. The theatrical director, Haris Pasovic, told me he's working with 300 performers from 12 countries I asked him what role artists should play at a moment like this and he said the artist always plays the same role - we entertain people and by entertaining people, we tell the truth, he said. SHAPIRO: Scott, what you're listening to here is a rehearsal I sat in on it for a show that's going to take place just before midnight tonight. SHAPIRO: Local officials are trying to steer away from that political debate and more towards the cultural. SIMON: What kind of observances are planned today? If you're talking to Serbs, they're more likely to describe him as a hero who was fighting to overthrow the oppressive empire. If you ask Muslims or Croats what they think of him, more often than not you'll hear that he was a terrorist whose actions were inexcusable. Even today, I have found that talking to people in the old city, people have opinions about Gavrilo Princip. And they have gone up and come down in almost at that exact spot for the last 100 years because you find this intense tug-of-war over his legacy whether he is a hero or a villain, a freedom fighter or a terrorist.Īnd as the power changes in Sarajevo, which, as you know, it has done a lot in the last 100 years, people put up new monuments, tear down the old ones. Yes, and that plaque is still there, but it turns out it's the latest in a string of about half a dozen monuments to Gavrilo Princip. Sarajevo's seen so much history, but I remember just a single pretty simple plaque that's on the north end of the Latin bridge, over the Miljacka River, that seems to me to mark the shooting without glorifying it. It's a very strange juxtaposition of the kind of joyful, frivolous celebration and the macabre marking of this assassination. And so you've got tourists hopping into the car, posing, taking pictures, selfies. They've now put a replica of the car the Archduke was riding in on June 28th, 1914. On that street corner where Ferdinand was shot 100 years ago was a deli, today it's a museum. The Latin bridge next to the side of the assassination has turned into a huge stage that has gone up just practically overnight. There are now camera crews all over the old city of Sarajevo. SHAPIRO: The scene's changed a lot just in the last couple of days. SIMON: What's the scene in Sarajevo like today? Ari, thanks for being with us.ĪRI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: It's good to talk to you, Scott. NPR's Ari Shapiro has been in Sarajevo all week reporting on events leading up to this day and he joins us now. The anger and entangling alliances that followed lit a fuse that blew up into what became World War I just a month later. He shot and killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, along with the archduchess, Sophie, as they rode a car through Sarajevo. One hundred years ago today, a 19-year-old named Gavrilo Princip fired two shots that rocked the world.
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