Theatricality versus Bare Life

Abstract

Haris Pašovic´ asserts that the cultural production in Sarajevo ‘was not some unique feature of Sarajevans and that it would have happened in other places since this is a human reaction to dehumanized circumstances. Primarily, it is an anthropological dimension rather than a special trait of our people’ (quoted in Diklic´, Teatar u ratnom Sarajevu, p. 205). He points out common traits in the cultural activity of Sarajevo during the war with the recent history of other cities including the Leningrad siege and the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War. One might also add the Theresienstadt concentration camp where inmates, most of them highly educated, were given some resources and a certain degree of freedom enabling a form of urban life and activity to flourish under extreme circumstances, until most of the inhabitants got deported to the death-camps. Although the comparison between Nazi concentration camps and the Sarajevo siege is, as Pašovic´ himself admits, limited and problematic for a number of reasons, it is relevant to our attempt to grasp how theatre, performance and overall cultural activity in the besieged city shaped the meaning of being a citizen.KeywordsPublic SphereCultural ActivityCultural ProductionPublic RealmBiological LifeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.