The Bridge on the Drina

“The common people remember and tell of what they are able to grasp and what they are able to transform into legend. Anything else passes them by without deeper trace, with the dumb indifference of nameless natural phenomena, which do not touch the imagination or remain in the memory. This hard and long building process was for them a foreign task undertaken at another’s expense. Only when, as the fruit of this effort, the great bridge arose, men began to remember details and to embroider the creation of a real, skillfully built and lasting bridge with fabulous tales which they well knew how to weave and to remember.”

Published in 1945, this book chronicles the historic forces that changed the lives of people living in Višegrad, show more Bosnia, where the bridge was built by the Ottoman Empire in the mid-16th century. The story spans hundreds of years (1500s to 1914). The bridge is wide, and contains a kapia in the center, where people can sit and chat. Over time, the bridge becomes both a community meeting place and a focal point for conflicts.

The narrative is centered around the enduring presence of the bridge. The characters come and go. Some are followed over several chapters and others disappear quickly. Their stories incorporate political, social, cultural, religious, and economic changes that occur during their lifetimes. The Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian occupations, Bosnian and Herzegovinian rebellions, and Austrian annexation are incorporated into the narrative. It also portrays the fallout after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Be aware that it contains a particularly gruesome description of torture and execution.

The book is beautifully written using descriptive language. I read the English translation from Serbo-Croatian by Lovett F. Edwards. It is easy to envision the bridge, the town, and the surrounding landscapes. It is a book to read gradually in order to fully digest the content. It is a wonderful example of an author using fiction to inform readers about history.

Memorable quotes:

“But misfortunes do not last forever (this they have in common with joys) but pass away or are at least diminished and become lost in oblivion. Life on the kapia always renews itself despite everything and the bridge does not change with the years or with the centuries or with the most painful turns in human affairs. All these pass over it, even as the unquiet waters pass beneath its smooth and perfect arches.”

“Every human generation has its own illusions with regard to civilization; some believe they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction. In fact, it always both flames and smolders and is extinguished, according to the place and the angle of view.” show less

Andrić takes us through the history of Bosnia from the early 16th century, when janissaries took a ten-year-old boy from his parents in a village near Višegrad. He would grow up to become the Ottoman statesman Mehmet Pasha and commission, as his pious legacy, the building of a stone bridge and a han at the point where he had been carried over the Višegrad ferry. In a series of vignettes, some linked, some not, we are taken through to 1914, when young people of the author's own generation are facing the opportunities of modern education and communications, and the challenges of the new political situation in the Balkans.

Although Andrić tells us a lot about the big things that are going on in the region over those four hundred years, show more everything is shown through the eyes of the ordinary people — Moslems, Serbs, and Jews; later also Austrians, Hungarians and Galicians — who live in the small town of Višegrad and meet to gossip on the bridge. History is experienced as a series of more or less inexplicable external events that affect their lives, it never seems to be anything they can influence themselves. Gruesome descriptions of arbitrary executions and tragic tales of suicide are mixed up with comic tales of romance and commercial intrigue, or with the minor tragedies of ordinary people's lives. The dignified conservative we see questioning reckless innovation in one story reappears in later ones as the last eccentric stick-in-the-mud holding on to the old ways against all reason, and the bridge constantly reappears as the structure that gives the stories a common thread.

Fascinating, absorbing, and an unusual way of looking at history: despite the long span of years covered it never loses its very human, very local feel: Andrić manages to make all these diverse characters from different cultures and ages into people we feel we know, somehow. show less

I found myself skimming constantly over pages of tedious infodumps waiting for a character to finally take the stage and an actual scene to begin. There are a few excellent moments scattered throughout, but the author has no affinity for dialogue or immediacy. I did appreciate the insight into the historical interactions between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Also, while it seems like religion would drive much of the conflict, my takeaway from the book was that religion was almost completely irrelevant as a driver of the conflict. Decisions made by kings and sultans hundreds of miles distant bring nothing but tragedy to the area, and the characters seem to be helpless to change their unfortunate fates. Which, honestly, is probably a show more pretty accurate depiction of life throughout much of history and throughout much of the world. Still, it's a difficult nugget of wisdom to reach after such a long slog. show less

Un ponte, opera umana eppure immortale, gesto di pietà del potente visir che fu, bambino, parte del tributo di sangue che i popoli conquistati pagavano ai turchi.
Una comunità che si sviluppa, vive, muore, cresce e subisce gli sconvolgimenti della storia all'ombra del bellissimo, inalterabile ponte.
E in virtù dell'immutabilità di questo manufatto anche la comunità è immutabile, e qualsiasi sconvolgimento si placa, come onda del mare.
Ma i secoli passano e la storia continua, si ritira l'impero turco dalle terre di Serbia e di Bosnia, e avanza la storia, avanza l'Europa, troppo inquieta per queste terre più orientali che europee, e semina i suoi venti di corruzione e tempesta.
E verrà il terribile giorno in cui un principe show more ereditario verrà ucciso in terra di Serbia, e questo atto porterà con sè l'inizio della fine della comunità e del ponte, e darà avvio alle tragedie che viviamo ancora oggi.
Un capolavoro. show less

More a series of stories connected only by the bridge than a novel. The first 100 pages or so take place around the time of the bridge's construction by the Ottomans (actually by unwilling local labour) in 1570-something; I slightly preferred these to the last 200 which are devoted to the Austro-Hungarian era from the mid-19th century to the beginning of WWI. I love Andrić's style, unhurried yet precise, always willing to step back and add background or introduce supporting characters as needed. Turks, Serbs, Moslems, Christians, Spanish and Galician Jews, Germans, Hungarians, Montenegrins, Poles... this is a fascinating depiction of a complex corner of Europe. Its somewhat pessimistic conclusion doesn't seem unreasonable in hindsight.

The Bridge On The Drina is about ordinary life in a small town, over several centuries. However, while the people of Višegrad are like those in any small town, Višegrad itself is not ordinary. It is on the border of the Bosnian and Serb territories, and its bridge - built in the sixteenth century - is an important communications link for the Ottoman Empire.

Great historical forces lead to political upheavals, imperfectly understood in the town but with inevitable consequences.

Much of the book is focused on the bridge itself, including the terraced area midway across where the townspeople pass the time, and the caravansarai to one side. Serbian villagers try to disrupt the construction of the bridge and are made examples of. Refugees show more cross the bridge, driven out of their homes. After the shift from the Ottoman to the Austro-Hungarian empire, women start to take the air on the terrace, much to the disgust of the men who used to smoke their waterpipes there. Guards appear and question the people who are crossing.

As this shows, the book is interested in the way that the great political changes are experienced in daily life, and especially in the way that the town changed with each wave of new influence - whether that was in a new way of reckoning weights and measures at the market, or a different shape of horseshoe. And the influence goes both ways:

"Many of these officials, the fiery Magyar or the haughty Pole, crossed the bridge with reluctance and entered the town with disgust and, at first, were a world apart, like drops of oil in water. Yet a year or so later they could be found sitting for hours on the kapia [terrace], smoking through thick amber cigarette-holders and, as if they had been born in the town, watching the smoke expand and vanish under the clear sky in the motionless air of dusk; or they would sit and wait for supper with the local notables on some green hillock, with plum brandy and snacks and a little bouquet of basil before them, conversing leisurely about trivialities or drinking slowly and occasionally munching a snack as the townsmen knew how to do so well."

This extract also shows the poetry of description which is another feature of the book.

I don't think I've ever read anything which looked at the sweep of history in such a human way. Highly recommended. show less

amazingly evocative writing
By sally tarbox on 21 April 2011
Format: Paperback
not exactly a novel, more a series of stories following the 'life' of a Bosnian bridge over 350 years. The book starts with its construction in 1500s, a project of several years where the Turkish overseers conscript the locals into slave labour culminating in the awful description of the impalement of a worker who rebels by sabotaging the bridge. Then Andric takes us through the centuries; the flood when local leaders of all faiths gather in the same house in a heartwarming episode. Yet with the change in frontiers and arrival of Turkish refugees from Serbia, the uncertainty of life is ever in the background. The Austro-Hungarian occupation comes, locals dispute show more whether or not to resist, a guard commits suicide after failing to do his job properly. Life becomes wealthier, and in 1900s the young have time to discuss politics. In the last chapter world war 1 hits the town as a bomb smashes the bridge; this is told from the perspective of a man in a shop and is such evocative writing you feel you are there. Brilliant book show less