Patterson describes The Bridge on the Drina as a seminal work whose themes and motifs—forced labour, invasion, annexation and displacement—would appear frequently in subsequent 20th-century fiction.[51] The town of Višegrad and its historic sites were popularized throughout Yugoslavia as a result of the novel, to which the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge owes its renown.[52] The Bridge on the Drina was widely read by Western scholars, reporters and policy makers amidst the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, and sometimes cited as one of the two most important texts ever written about the Balkans, the other being Rebecca West's 1941 travel book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.[53] The bridge was recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2007.[54] In 2011, the Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica began construction of a mock-town called Andrićgrad in the vicinity of the bridge.[55] Andrićgrad was officially opened on 28 June 2014, the 100th anniversary of Franz Ferdinand's assassination.[56] Kusturica intends to use it as a set for a future cinematic adaption of the novel.[55] In 2019, Pope Francis quoted a passage from the novel at a press conference in Rabat, Morocco while arguing for amity and concord between nations.[57]