The Bridge on the Drina 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.
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.
In 1961, Andrić was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and his works became subject to international recognition, while at the same time, he expressed a desire for the original manuscript to be donated to the city of Sarajevo, where the Museum of Literature was established. The Bridge on the Drina remains Andrić's best-known work. The Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica is planning a cinematic adaption of the novel, for which he has constructed a mock-town named after Andrić not far from the bridge, which was reconstructed after World War I and has been declared a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina by KONS and World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Summary
A young Serb boy from the vicinity of Višegrad is taken from his mother by the Ottomans as part of the devşirme levy, one of many Christian boys to experience this fate during the Ottoman Empire's 500-year-long occupation of the Balkans. The boy's mother follows her son wailing until she reaches the Drina River, where he is taken across by ferry and she can no longer follow. The young boy is converted to Islam and assigned the Turkish name of Mehmed, becoming known as Mehmed-paša Sokolović. He rises through the Ottoman military ranks and around the age of 60 becomes the Grand Vizier, a position he holds for the next fifteen years. During his time as Grand Vizier, he serves under three sultans and oversees the Ottoman Empire's expansion into Central Europe. He remains haunted by the memory of being forcibly taken from his mother and orders the construction of a bridge at the part of the river where the two became separated.
Construction begins in 1566, and five years later the bridge is completed, together with a caravanserai (or han). The bridge replaces the unreliable ferry transport that was once the only means of traversing the river and comes to represent an important link between the Bosnia Eyalet and the rest of the Ottoman Empire. The bridge is built by serfs, who intermittently stage strikes and sabotage the construction site in protest against the poor working conditions. The Ottomans respond harshly, impaling the one caught saboteur. The bridge is wider across the middle portion, known as the gate (or kapija), and this section becomes a popular meeting place. Every important moment in the lives of the local residents comes to revolve around the bridge, with Christian children crossing it to be baptized on the opposite bank, and children of all religions playing around it. As time progresses, legends develop around the history of the bridge. The locals tell of two Christian infants who were buried alive inside the bridge to placate the fairies (vile) that thwart its construction. They come to regard two holes on the side of the bridge as places where the infants' mothers would come to suckle them while they were entombed. About a century later, the Habsburg monarchy reclaims much of Central Europe and the northern Balkans from the Ottomans, triggering a crisis within the empire. Due to lack of state funds, the caravanserai is abandoned and falls into disuse. The bridge, on the other hand, stands for centuries without maintenance because of how well it was constructed. The residents of Višegrad—Turks, Serbs, Sephardic Jews, and Roma—stand in solidarity with one another during the Drina's regular floods.
The first nationalist tensions arise in the 19th century, with the outbreak of the First Serbian Uprising in present-day central Serbia. The Turks construct a blockhouse on the bridge, decorating it with stakes on which they pin the heads of suspected rebels. One evening, the blockhouse burns down. In the ensuing decades, as the Ottoman Empire continues to decline, Bosnia is ravaged by plague. After the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Serbia and Montenegro become fully independent countries. Austria-Hungary receives a right to occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina and turns it into a protectorate. The occupation comes as a shock to the residents of the town, which has remained largely unchanged since the time of the bridge's completion, and the local people experience difficulties accepting the numerous changes and reforms that accompany Austro-Hungarian rule. A barrack is built at the site of the caravanserai and the town experiences a substantial influx of foreigners. People from all parts of Austria-Hungary arrive, opening new businesses and bringing the customs of their native regions with them. A narrow gauge railway line is built to Sarajevo and the bridge loses much of its strategic importance. Local children begin to be educated in Sarajevo, and some go on to continue their studies in Vienna. They bring home new social and cultural ideas from abroad, among them the concepts of trade unions and socialism, while newly established newspapers acquaint the town's inhabitants with nationalism. Tensions flare following the assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in 1898. In 1908, Austria-Hungary formally annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina, sparking tensions with Serbia, which the Austro-Hungarians come to regard as a serious obstacle to their further conquest of the Balkans. The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 see the Ottomans almost completely forced from the region, and relations between Austria-Hungary and Serbia deteriorate further. The significance of the middle portion of the bridge also becomes undermined, as residents of different ethnicities become suspicious and wary of one another.
In June 1914, Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, setting off a chain of events that lead to the outbreak of World War I. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, and the local authorities begin to incite Višegrad's non-Serb population against the town's Serb residents. The bridge with the old road to Sarajevo suddenly regains its importance, as the railway line is not adequate to transport all the materiel and soldiers who are preparing to attack Serbia in the autumn of 1914. Austria-Hungary's invasion is swiftly repulsed and the Serbians advance across the Drina, prompting the Austro-Hungarians to evacuate Višegrad and destroy portions of the bridge.
Writing and publication
Ivo Andrić was Yugoslavia's best known and most successful literary figure, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. He was born to Antun Andrić and Katarina Pejić near Travnik on 9 October 1892, but spent most of his childhood in the town of Višegrad. His formative years were spent in the shadow of the town's most distinctive landmark, the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge. As a child, Andrić played in its vicinity and heard the legends surrounding it and its patron, Mehmed-paša Sokolović. Born into a Bosnian Serb family on the outskirts of the town, Sokolović had been abducted by the Ottomans as a child as part of the devşirme tax imposed on Christian subjects, taken to Istanbul and inducted into the janissary corps. Despite this, he remained in contact with his Christian family, and in 1557, convinced the Porte to grant the Serbian Orthodox Church autonomy.
Andrić's literary career began in 1911, and prior to the outbreak of World War I, he published a number of poems, essays and reviews, and also translated the works of foreign writers. In the years leading up to the war, he joined a number of South Slav student movements calling for an end to the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was also a close friend of Princip. In late July or early August 1914, Andrić was arrested by the Austro-Hungarians for his connections to Franz Ferdinand's assassins. He spent much of World War I in captivity, and was only freed in July 1917, after Emperor Charles declared a general amnesty for political prisoners. In 1920, Andrić entered the diplomatic service of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) He published a short story titled The Bridge on the Žepa, which was to serve as a prototype for the Bridge on the Drina, in 1925. In 1939, he was appointed as Yugoslavia's ambassador to Germany, which went on to spearhead an invasion of his country in April 1941, within the wider context of World War II. Andrić and his staff were arrested by the Germans following the invasion. In June 1941, he was permitted to return to Belgrade. Andrić was retired from the diplomatic service and confined to a friend's apartment by the Germans, living in conditions that some biographers have likened to house arrest. Over the following three years, he focused on his writing and pondered over the disintegration of Yugoslavia, which had become the scene of a brutal inter-ethnic civil war following the invasion.
The Bridge on the Drina was written between July 1942 and December 1943. A fifty-page outline of the novel has been preserved, as have Andrić's research notes. In March 1945, it became the first title released by the newly founded state-owned publishing house Prosveta, as part of a series entitled Južnoslovenski pisci (South Slav Writers). The first edition, numbering some 5,000 copies, was sold out by the end of that year. It was one of three novels that Andrić published in 1945, the others being Travnik Chronicle () and The Woman from Sarajevo (), in September and November 1945, respectively. A total of five editions of The Bridge on the Drina were published over the next four years. Andrić's works attained international recognition only after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, and were translated into dozens of languages thereafter. The novel had been translated into English two years earlier by Lovett F. Edwards, in 1959.
Style The novel's release coincided with the end of World War II, as well as Partisan efforts to promote the style of socialist realism, exemplified by depictions of "superficial happiness" glorifying the values of communism. In contrast, Slavonic studies professor David A. Norris writes, "Andrić's Bosnia is often a dark world expressed through deep and complex narrative structures". Andrić never publicly expressed sympathy for communism and his works openly dealt with controversial questions of national identity at a time when the communists were propagating the idea of Brotherhood and Unity among the various Yugoslav peoples. Literary historian Andrew B. Wachtel believes that The Bridge on the Drina'''s focus on the distant past allowed Andrić to address contemporary social, political and religious issues without overtly abrading the delicate system of inter-ethnic tolerance that the communists had established in the post-war period.