bridge

Andrićgrad and Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, JankoSam, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Bridge on the Drina is a historical novel written by the Yugoslav writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Ivo Andrić. The book tells the stories and events that happened near the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad, a town in present day Bosnia and Herzegovina, bordering Serbia, from the construction of the bridge over the Drina River during the rule of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-sixteenth century to the partial destruction of the bridge during World War I.

Ivo Andrić wrote The Bridge on the Drina in Belgrade during the German occupation of the city in World War II. The book was written in Serbian and published in 1945, and translated into English by Lovett F. Edwards in 1959. Ivo Andrić considered the book a “chronicle,” and Edwards concurred in the foreword of the book because “[its] scope is too vast, its characters too numerous, its period of action too long.” The chronicle is not about one protagonist, one family, or even one empire. Rather, The Bridge on the Drina is about people. The book exposes people’s virtues and vices, and their insignificance in the face of nature and greater historical trends.

The book reveals how helpless and insignificant people are against nature and the general course of history. In the second half of the eighteenth century, a great flood ravaged and inundated Višegrad. In response to the flood, “under the chill rain and the raging wind of the dark October night,” people were forced to evacuate from the town and move to Mejdan, a highland nearby, with whatever precious things they could save (76). One young merchant was especially unfortunate because he invested all his money into plums and walnuts, expecting that he could control the prices for both in the winter and make a profit. However, because of the flood he was “ruined” and became despondent and distressed (78). The evacuation of the town and the distressed young merchant reflect the helplessness of these people as literally nothing could be done to stop the flood or lessen the damage. Waiting was all they could do.

Not only were people helpless in the face of natural disasters, people of Višegrad also had no control over the torrent of history. Indeed, Ivo Andrić likened the conflict on the frontier between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand as a natural disaster, a “storm which would in time spread to the whole world and decide the fate of so many lands and cities” (282).

The lives of countless people were upended by a war they had no control over. When the Great War came, people again evacuated from the town to Mejdan to distance themselves from the constant bombardment of the bridge by the Serbian army. The wealth that Pavle Ranković accumulated from his hardware shop through his many years of hard and honest work evaporated overnight. Lotte, an industrious Jewish woman who managed the hotel her family owned, had a complete nervous breakdown as they escaped Višegrad. But in these difficult times, people also displayed their most virtuous characters. When the flood ravaged the town, the “weight of common misfortune” brought people with different religions–Turks, Christians and Jews–together as they sheltered under the same roof (77). People who lived at Mejdan opened their doors to “welcome those who had suffered from the flood” (77). Although everyone was anxious and afraid that night, people still mustered the strength and optimism to chat about the lighthearted stories that happened in the past to distract each other from the present disaster and misery.

Similarly, when World War I shattered the world people also showed empathy and support for each other. After Lotte’s breakdown, her “old, cumbersome, drowsy” brother-in-law, Zahler, stepped up and took responsibility for the family. He found a doctor to diagnose Lotte’s mental illness and consoled Lotte like a “sick child” (301). He even arranged with the military to get a cart so the family could travel to Sarajevo to properly treat Lotte. In the house of old Mihailo Ristić where people took refuge, Mihailo comforted his “guests” and offered them food, plum brandy, coffee and tobacco. Old Mihailo, like the people who centuries ago told stories to ease each other’s mind on that night of the great flood, told a comical story about the Christening of Peter. These examples show that shared troubles can unite people and bring the best out of us.

These acts of kindness, however, were not only an exclusive product of difficult times. During the peaceful times, people also displayed the positive side of human nature. “For time is always short to lovers and no path long enough,” Ivo Andrić wrote as he described the intimate relationship between Madame Bauer, wife of Colonel Bauer, and the young military doctor, Regimentsarzt Balas and the long walks they took in the summer days of 1913. When the couple went on those walks, they walked “at that pace usual to two persons who exist only one for the other, and with that characteristic gait which shows that they are indifferent to everything in the world save what each has to say to the other” (248). Through Ivo Andrić’s poetic writing, the reader can almost feel the ecstasy of love, and long for lengthy walks with their loved ones. Love, it seems, can make life filled with suffering more bearable by making those in love “indifferent” to the worldly troubles.

Ivo Andrić also wrote about the hopeful nature of youths. In the early twentieth century, the youths of Višegrad began to attend colleges in the bigger cities, Sarajevo, Zagreb, or even Vienna. Toma Galus was one of those youths. He matriculated at Sarajevo and was about to start his study in Vienna in the autumn of 1913. When he returned to his hometown in the summer, he enthusiastically described the “advantages and beauties” of a new Southern Slav state, complete with “national unity, religious tolerance and civil equality” (245). Although Ivo Andrić quickly pointed out that most of his desires were unattainable illusions, the author nevertheless believed that the “freshness” and boldness of the youthful spirit “maintains and rejuvenates the tree of humanity” (245). These promises of a better future may be illusions, but they also reflect the hopeful nature of humans, a trait just like love that makes the world more bearable for the disappointed souls.

However, the book does not only portray the positive aspects of human nature; it also exposes the ugly side of it without reservation. At the beginning of the construction of the bridge in the sixteenth century, Abidaga was charged by the Grand Vezir of the Ottoman Empire with supervising the project. Abidaga used violence to rule over the locals and forced the Christians to work without pay. In response to Abidaga’s injustice and cruelty, one of the local Christians, Radisav, decided to sabotage the construction of the bridge at night. When he was caught, Abidaga had Radisav impaled on a stake on the scaffolding for the bridge for a public execution. Ivo Andrić spent pages describing the details of the grotesque and agonizing torture to reveal just how unthinkably inhumane humans can be to others. In addition to violence, Ivo Andrić also spoke of the vice of gambling through the story of a greedy gambler, Milan Glasičanin, who lost everything from gambling one night with a stranger on the bridge and eventually died in the Sarajevo lunatic asylum. The book also explores other vices humans possess, including vanity, jealousy, alcoholism, religious intolerance, and sexism.

After exploring the virtues and vices of people and our insignificance in the face of greater, uncontrollable forces, The Bridge on the Drina ends somewhat abruptly and Ivo Andrić did not reach a conclusion about the essence of human nature, or about the future of our civilization. Instead, he chronicled the stories of the people living near the bridge just like The Bridge on the Drina and the Drina River itself witnessed these stories, calmly but intensely. The book prompts the reader to examine the complex human nature more closely and ponder about the future course of history. Such a book is undoubtedly worth reading and rereading.