The Bridge on the Drina

Product Information

With humor and compassion, Ivo Andrić chronicles the ordinary Christians, Jews, and Muslims whose lives are connected by the bridge, in a land that has itself been a bridge between East and West for centuries. After 100+ years the Turks were driven out of Hungary. The problem then became the finances of the bridge. The bridge is actually in today’s Bosnia. Wars, changes of leadership and such constantly affected the village and the bridge; however some of the most destabilizing periods were terrible floods. In fact this had begun much earlier, about the time of the building of the railway line and the first years of the new century. With the rise in prices and the incomprehensible but always perceptible fluctuations of government paper, dividends and exchanges, there was more and more talk of politics. On the bridge and its kapia, about it or in connection with it, flowed and developed, as we shall see, the life of the townsmen. In all tales about personal, family or public events the words ‘on the bridge’ could always be heard. Indeed on the bridge over the Drina were the first steps of childhood and the first games of boyhood.

However the novel then takes a major turn in 1878. The Austrians took control of Sarajevo and began a move toward Visegrad. This invasion and occupation with eventual annexation would change life in Visegrad forever.Little by little the changes made by the Austrians bring a relative prosperity and peace, at least “in the Franz-Joseph manner.” This was a period of great hope and nearly a utopian enthusiasm in Europe and the Austrians were bringing this world to Visegrad. The Bridge on the Drina is the chronicle of a beautiful stone structure erected in Ottoman times in Višegrad, Bosnia and surviving unscathed until the opening days of World War I. The novel examines select people across three and a half centuries whose lives revolve around the bridge. However in this relatively peaceful occupation by the Austrians everything about life had begun to change. Even the shift of the importance of the bridge and the place of Visegrad in local trade and travel was not the most significant source of this change. It was cultural. More and more Visegrad (as the rest of the region) became more westernized and Austrian. Politics shifted and became a widespread distraction. There were calls for the 8 hour day and lots of talk of Socialism. Finally came the gigantic shift: Austria formally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now little Visegrad was a town within AUSTRIA! The Austrians launched a propaganda campaign to tell people that nothing was really changing, and that Austria would treat them so well. Author Andric warns the reader: Not only were Visegrad and its people changing, but so were the Austrians. The Europeans became more Eastern and the Easterners more European. Most of the people came to believe: A vivid depiction of the suffering history has imposed upon the people of Bosnia from the late sixteenth century to the beginning of World War I, The Bridge on the Drina earned Andric the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961.

Soon were the Balkan wars and Serbia scored some early impressive victories. And people in Visegrad were turned to the world outside Visegrad and toward the larger world. More and more youth went away to universities, began to adopt very different ideas and world views. They came home with: I recommend looking at this bridge when you read the book. It is easy to find pictures on the web of this beautiful eleven-arched stone bridge. How what happened became myth is fascinating. The Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Turkish cultures and their respective religious constraints are described through the history fo this bridge, the bridge over the Drina at Visegrad in Bosnia. The Bridge on the Drina is a vivid depiction of the suffering history has imposed upon the people of Bosnia from the late 16th century to the beginning of World War I. As we seek to make sense of the current nightmare in this region, this remarkable, timely book serves as a reliable guide to its people and history.

Reference

But the bridge still stood, the same as it had always been, with the eternal youth of a perfect conception, one of the great and good works of man, which do not know what it means to change and grow old and which, or so it seemed, do not share the fate of the transient things of this world. Unlike Turkish rule, the Austria occupation was much more peaceful. There was little trouble with the Austrians but the cultural misunderstands on both sides were gigantic. Once the occupation was settled the Austrians brought in many entrepreneurs and life in the town began to change. What most astonished the people was that these changes were done without force, they just DID IT. External life changed, but locals, Turks, Serbs and Bosnians alike just lived in their homes as always, but the nature of life was changing. Juričić, Želimir B. (1986). The Man and the Artist: Essays on Ivo Andrić. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-8191-4907-7. Nikolić, Dragan (2016). "Echo of Silence: Memory, Politics and Heritage in Višegrad". In Törnquist-Plewa, Barbara (ed.). Whose Memory? Which Future?: Remembering Ethnic Cleansing and Lost Cultural Diversity in Eastern, Central and Southeastern Europe. New York City: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78533-123-7.

Snel, Guido (2004). "The Footsteps of Gavrilo Princip". In Cornis-Pope, Marcel; Neubauer, John (eds.). History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Vol.1. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-272-3452-0. In subsequent decades, large sections of the Croatian and Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) [e] literary establishments distanced themselves from Andrić's body of work due to his strong ties with Serbian culture. [23] In 1992, at the outset of the Bosnian War, a Bosnian Muslim destroyed a bust of Andrić in Višegrad using a sledgehammer. [46] Later that year, more than 200 Bosniak civilians were killed on the bridge by Bosnian Serb militias and their bodies tossed into the Drina. [47] By 1993, owing to the war and consequent ethnic cleansing, the multi-ethnic Bosnia described in the novel had largely been consigned to history. [48] Andrić and his works, particularly The Bridge on the Drina, remain a source of controversy among Bosniaks due to their alleged anti-Muslim undertones. [49] The Turkish writer Elif Shafak has stated that the novel radically changed her perception of Ottoman history. "Suddenly, I had to rethink what I thought I knew," Shafak wrote for the New Statesman. "I had to unlearn. What Andrić’s novel did for me at that young age was to shake years of nationalistic education, and whisper into my ears: "Have you ever considered the story from the point of view of the Other?"" [50] In the old house the doors are small, and so very low that you can enter the house only by bowing your head. Inside it is dark. The house has no windows; instead of floor only beaten earth. To the left from the door is a stone bench on which a wooden barrel for water was standing … Smoke went through a badza, a hole in the roof above the open fireplace. The only light in the house came through it. 2 Walasek, Helen (2013). "Introduction". In Walasek, Helen (ed.). Bosnia and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage. London, England: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4094-3704-8.The central historical outcome of Visegrad is changed with the Austrians and most especially with the coming of the railroad. The railroad came into Visegrad from the west, but didn’t cross the bridge, rather it then veered south and continued its easterly route much to the south. Thus there was no longer much reason to cross the bridge except to get from one section of Visegrad to the other. For hundreds of years it had been an extremely important route between Bosnia and Serbia and on toward Turkey (to the southeast). Now there was no reason to use this famous Bridge on the Drina except to get into the tiny and relatively uninteresting east Visegrad section of town.

Peace then ruled until the middle of the 19th century. However, by 1880 the Turks were being driven out of all Serbia and that included the area south and east of Visegrad. Many families came through (or settled in) Visegrad, coming from Uzice and many headed westward toward Sarajevo. When the refugees came through Visegard they warned: “You’re next.” Ivo Andrić of Yugoslavia wrote novels, dealing with the history of the Balkans, and won the Nobel Prize of 1961 for literature. The property, principally consisting of the bridge, the access ramp and the two river banks upstream and downstream, is protected by its buffer zone on each bank of the Drina river. The integrity of the bridge is vulnerable but is now adequately protected by the buffer zone and appropriately expresses the values it embodies. While Andric ends the novel with this partial destruction of the bridge today it has been restored and once again plays its modern role in Visegard as “the bridge on the Drina.” This is a simply a fantastic novel and worth anyone’s time to read and read it with care.En el relato, los grandes hechos históricos conviven en perfecta armonía con multitud de pequeñas historias convertidas en leyendas por las gentes de Visegrado, una ciudad al este de Bosnia cercana a la frontera con Serbia. Los habitantes de Visegrado, como, por otra parte, los habitantes de cualquier otro pueblo, vivieron durante siglos resignados a que la vida era una lucha continua contra la adversidad y la muerte, contra las que no había esperanza alguna de victoria. El poder que los iba sometiendo viraba sucesivamente, pues “no existe un poder sin sublevaciones y sin complots, como no existe fortuna sin preocupación y sin daño”, aunque en tiempo de infortunio turcos, serbios y judíos podían actuar conjuntamente, pues “nada une tanto a las personas como una desgracia vivida, atravesada conjuntamente y superada con ventura”. Solo el puente salía indemne de cada prueba a la que la ciudad se vio sometida. It was at this school that Ivo Andrić met Gavrilo Princip. If Andrić came from modest circumstances, his Serb friend, two years younger, came from a positively primitive home as described by the Serb historian, Vladimir Dedijer: Sells, Michael Anthony (1998). The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-92209-9.