The Bridge Over the Drina

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Nel discorso pronunciato all’ assegnazione del premio Nobel, nel ’61, lui stesso dice di essersi ispirato a Sherherazade, non tanto nella sostanza ma come modello narrativo in cui il narratore cerca “ di sospendere l’inevitabile condanna a morte e di prolungare l’illusione della vita e della sua durata. 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 Ivo Andric the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. Sells, Michael Anthony (1998). The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-92209-9.

The Bridge on the Drina is a historical novel by Ivo Andric. As the title implies, it is the story of a bridge, ranging from its construction to its use to, finally, its demise. Andric uses this bridge as a metaphor for the relations between the people on either side of the bridge. Ivo Andrić of Yugoslavia wrote novels, dealing with the history of the Balkans, and won the Nobel Prize of 1961 for literature.Dulić, Tomislav (2005). Utopias of Nation: Local Mass Killing in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University Press. ISBN 978-91-554-6302-1. 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. Un unico rimpianto: averlo accantonato negli anni ’60 quando lo comprai. Avrei capito quello che accadde poi, negli anni ’90, quando la vendetta di feroci criminali si incarnò da "storia" nell’indifferenza dell’Europa.

However, in the early 1900s, the annexing of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary causes tension in the areas surrounding the bridge. The people on either side of the bridge no longer want to be united, and each group begins to hate the other. Kokobobo, Ani (2007). "To Grieve or not to Grieve? The Unsteady Representation of Violence in Ivo Andrić's The Bridge on the Drina" (PDF). Journal of the North American Society for Serbian Studies. Bloomington, Indiana: Slavica Publishers. 21 (1): 69–86. ISSN 0742-3330. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. It remains unclear whether I have finished this novel before. Scenes like the impalement and the flood were rooted firmly in my memory. The instances and intrusions of ideology and modernity not so much.The Bridge on the Drina [a] is a historical novel by the Yugoslav writer Ivo Andrić. It revolves around the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad, which spans the Drina River and stands as a silent witness to history from its construction by the Ottomans in the mid-16th century until its partial destruction during World War I. The story spans about four centuries and covers the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian occupations of the region, with a particular emphasis on the lives, destinies, and relations of the local inhabitants, especially Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. This book is way beyond my powers of reviewing, but I started reading it out of a sense of duty, to learn and understand more about the Balkan history and people, and then found myself completely enthralled with it. It's as if the author has found a way to assume a godlike role in depicting humanity - as if he had taken a brush and carefully swept out of their dusty corners the people of the town of Vi­­šegrad, as their turn comes to find their way in their corner of the world and in the march of time and wider events. They are brought forward from the shadows with compassion, but not pathos, and yet at the same time observed at a distance, as indicative of all humanity. The individuals he portrays have passed into legend or are fictional. Their turn in the limelight is brief, arduous, fraught with danger and often powerless - and how perfectly the last line of the book sums all this up! They are vividly brought to life in Ivo Andrič's eloquent and poetic exposition (and if even the translation is riveting, what must the original be like?) Nikolić, Maja (4 March 2021). "Muzej književnosti i pozorišne umjetnosti BiH slavi 60 godina postojanja". Hrvatski Glasnik (in Croatian) . Retrieved 28 December 2021. The Bridge on the Drina remains Andrić's most famous novel and has received the most scholarly attention of all his works. Most scholars interpret the eponymous bridge as a metonym for Yugoslavia, which was itself a bridge between East and West during the Cold War, "partaking of both but being neither". However, at the time of writing, the country did not enjoy the reputation of an inter-civilizational mediator, which was fostered by Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito only after his split with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1948. Thus, the novel can be seen as having contributed to the formation of this national self-image. [32] Andrić suggests that the building of roads and bridges by Great Powers is rarely done as a gesture of friendship towards local populations, but rather as a means of facilitating conquest. Thus, the bridge is both a symbol of unification and division. It is a symbol of unification in that it allows the inhabitants of Višegrad to cross from one bank to the other and in that the kapija serves as a popular meeting place. On the other hand, it divides the town's inhabitants by acting as a constant reminder of the Ottoman conquest. [33]

It is for this reason that some events in the novel acquire greater value and some—less picturesque ones—vanish in oblivion. In this way general history meets an altered history in Andrić’s novel: The historical records are refracted through and even censored by the unrecorded history of personal or local events, of legends, anecdotes, and stories. The perseverance of the story—bridge-as-a story—brings to the fore the very act of narration. It is through this activity, according to Andrić, that the human suffering and toil may still acquire an intrinsic value. Andrić had been Yugoslavia's ambassador to Germany from 1939 to 1941, during the early years of World War II, and was arrested by the Germans in April 1941, following the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia. In June 1941, he was allowed to return to German-occupied Belgrade but was confined to a friend's apartment in conditions that some biographers liken to house arrest. The novel was one of three that Andrić wrote over the next several years. All three were published in short succession in 1945, following Belgrade's liberation from the Germans. The Bridge on the Drina was published in March of that year to widespread acclaim. Uno dei libri più belli mai letti nella mia non breve vita di lettrice. L'urgenza di rileggerlo mi è venuta mentre scorrevo le pagine dell'ultimo di M. Revelli: Umano, inumano e Postumano. Ramadanović, Petar (2000). "Ivo Andrić 1892–1975: Bosnian Novelist and Short-Story Writer". In Classe, Olive (ed.). Encyclopedia of Literary Translation Into English: A-L. Vol.1. London, England: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-884964-36-7.Full text of Pope Francis' in-flight press conference from Rabat". Catholic News Agency. 31 March 2019. Patterson, Annabel (2014). The International Novel. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-21040-8. en el puente del Drina tienen lugar los primeros paseos infantiles y los primeros juegos de los muchachos… nacen los primeros sueños de amor, las primeras ojeadas lanzadas al pasar, las reflexiones y los cuchicheos. También nacen aquí los primeros negocios, las querellas y los acuerdos, las citas y las esperas… y es aquí, por fin, donde hasta 1878 se ahorcaba y se empalaban las cabezas de todos aquellos, que, por cualquier razón, hubiesen sido ejecutados... las generaciones se sucedían junto al puente, pero el puente sacudía, como si fuese una mota de polvo, todas las huellas que habían dejado en él los caprichos o las necesidades de los hombres, y continuaba idéntico e inalterable.” Ivo Andric tenía más de 50 años cuando escribió esta novela. Vivía en una especie de arresto domiciliario en el piso de un amigo en Belgrado durante la segunda guerra mundial. En este contexto, la novela surge de la madurez que contempla con nostalgia un mundo que desaparece barrido por un futuro imaginado con angustia y extrañeza. Más o menos lo que, con distintos niveles de inquietud, viven todas las generaciones que en esta historia tienen como fondo común un puente “hermoso y sólido, más sólido que todo lo que el tiempo pudiese brindar, más fuerte que todo lo que las gentes pudiesen pensar o hacer”. Stokes, Gale (1993). The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-987919-9. 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.

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. His works include The Bridge on the Drina, Bosnian Chronicle (also known as Chronicles of Travnik), and The Woman from Sarajevo. He lived quietly in Belgrade during World War II and published in 1945. People often referred to this " Bosnian trilogy," published simultaneously in the same period. Only themes, however, connect them.

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Binder, David (2013). Farewell, Illyria. Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 978-615-5225-74-1. The novel opens with a description of the scenery surrounding Višegrad, a fertile valley with high forested mountains on either side. The bridge spans the Drina, the largest river, and a second smaller bridge spans the Rzav. The middle of the bridge widens to form the kapia, which features a stone monument and a fountain. Višegrad is home to Muslim and Christian townspeople, as well as Jews and Roma. There are many local legends that focus on the bridge. A bridge crossing the Drina is first imagined by a young Christian boy, taken from the area as part of the Ottoman blood tribute. He grows up to become Mehmed Pasha, a powerful man in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman workers arrive in the quiet village and cause disruption. Abidaga, who has a reputation for cruel leadership, oversees the project. The locals begin to resent the sudden influx of workers.