The impact of Ivo Andrić’s novel The bridge on the Drina on the formation of tourist image on the historical Višegrad bridge and its surrounding waterscape

Resumo

Drina in the town of Višegrad (Bosnia and Herzegovina) was built at the end of the 16th century and it was recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2007 based on its historical and architectural values. However, the bridge became subject of worldwide recognition when the Nobel Prize awarded author Ivo Andrić wrote his novel The bridge on the Drina (1945) making it a focal point in which history and literature tangle into a tourist attraction. Arcos-Pumarola; Osácar Marzal et al. (2018) state that the value of literature enriches the image of destination by adding meanings to landscape. The aim of this paper is to analyze the influence of Andrić’s novel on the formation of the tourist image of the place. The main hypothesis is that the novel has effect on visitors’ perception of the place by bringing together the value of the bridge as historical monument with the author’s literary legacy. A content analysis of 131 reviews from travel website TripAdvisor was conducted, of which 102 were in English and 29 in the Serbian language in order to understand the value of place to tourists. For qualitative data analysis software package NVivo was used, as previously done in Arcos-Pumarola; Osácar Marzal et al. (2020), and Mansfield (2015). The remaining 89 reviews (TripAdvisor, 2022) which were written in other languages were excluded from this research to avoid any possible misinterpretation due to language barrier. The results will suggest that the literary landscape of The bridge on the Drina adds symbolic layers to the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge and its surrounding waterscape, therefore creating a new perspective on the destination. This result is in line with previous research (Mansfield, 2018) where it has been shown that literary texts can contribute to place-making.