Ivo Andric's epic novel, The Bridge on the Drina represents a stunning compression of various ethnicities, events covering 350 years, shifting political allegiances & changing fashions with an iconic bridge serving at times to span seemingly irreconcilable differences and at other moments to isolate those on opposite sides of the river Drina, primarily focused on the town of Visegrad. It has been said that the erstwhile Yugoslavia was a place with one leader (Tito), two alphabets (Cyrillic & Roman), three religions (Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman-Catholicism & Islam) and a vast array of languages, dialects & ethnicities. (There were also Jews & Roma people.)

This monumentally ambitious novel contains powerful prose and a host of vividly drawn characters, beginning in 1566 just as the Ottoman Empire has decided to build a bridge over the river, "the green & awe-inspiring Drina, a mountain river that often grew angry" and ends in 1914 with the onset of WWI.



The novel commences when a young Serbian boy is captured from his wailing mother by Turkish janissaries & taken off to Istanbul, later to become "a brave officer in the sultan's court, then Great Admiral of the fleet, then the sultan's son-in-law, a general, a Grand Vizier (high official) & a statesman of world renown, Mehmed Pasha Sokolli." Eventually, his latent memory of Visegrad & the Drina causes him to commission a bridge to replace a decrepit & unreliable ferry over the river.

Always the same black pain which cut into his breast with that special childhood pang which was clearly distinguishable from all of the other pains that life had brought him. In one of those moments, he thought that he might be able to free himself from this discomfort if he could do away with that ferry on the distant Drina and bridge the steep banks & evil water between them, join the two ends of the road which was broken by the Drina & thus link safely & forever Bosnia & the East, the place of his origin & the places of his life. Thus, it was he who first, in a single moment behind closed eyelids, saw the graceful silhouette of the great stone bridge which was to be built there.

After the monumental bridge with 11 arches + attached caravansary is completed & over the course of many years, the Serbs joust with the Turks for power & dominance but the bridge remains a constant through floods, plagues & insurrections, with the Turks occasionally beheading all opponents & placing their heads on posts at the kapia, the outdoor gathering place with tables & chairs on the bridge, a place that acts as an intersection of people & ideas.

Gradually, the power of the sultans lessens but is replaced not by local control but by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with new influences & fashions gradually replacing those instilled by the Ottoman Turks. With changing times, the Christians & the area Jews learn to adapt, while the Muslims feel increasingly marginalized by the new era. But "with the changes & ensuing human generations, the bridge remained as unchanged as the waters that flowed beneath it. It did grow old but not in a way that could be seen by the human eye. Its life, though mortal in itself, resembled eternity for its end could not be perceived."



There is a wonderful sequence involving the friendly relationship among Pop Nicola (an Orthodox priest), Mullah Ibrahim, Hussein Effendi (both Muslim) & David Levi (a Jew), four different temperaments each attempting to deal with the Austrian annexation of their town. The gramophone begins to replace the human voice at cafes, a narrow gauge railway is built to connect the town to Sarajevo and the older residents lament the changes but mostly the arrival of foreign administrators, soldiers & others causes an assimilation of new customs in & around Visegrad, with the newcomers changing as well. Andric's novel seems to argue that this ferment or cross-pollination of ideas & cultures represents a force for the good.

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

This generation was richer only in illusions; in every other way it was similar to any other. It had the feeling of both lighting the fires of a new civilization & extinguishing the last flickers of another. Everything appeared as an exciting new game on that ancient bridge, which shone in the moonlight of those July nights, clean, young & unalterable, strong & lovely in its perfection, stronger than all that time might bring and men imagine or do.

The bridge is of course a metaphor as well as a causeway but there are periods when even the magnificent pathway over the Drina can't suffice to prevent a collision of forces that render the bridge impassable, moments when "the bridge no longer linked the two banks and every man had to remain on the side where he happened to be at that moment." With the onset of WWI, Serbs & Austrian forces blast each other's sides & the great stone bridge separating them.



There are times when the Andric masterwork seems episodic, covering as it does so much history and including so many characters entering & exiting the reader's consciousness. Andric characterized The Bridge on the Drina as a chronicle rather than a novel. Some have called the book a "non-fiction novel", or a "transcendent historical monologue", or have classified the Andric novel as "a collection of short stories of peasant life held together by a bridge." Indeed, there is no hero or heroine, no single family or dynasty to bind it together. However, I found this epic novel by the Nobel laureate author very much worth reading & even well worth rereading.

A remarkable book with a grand sweep of almost 500 years from the building of the bridge over the Drina in the 1560s to the First World War. There are human stories throughout interwoven with the political upheavals with various factions gaining and losing ascendancy.
In the town Turks, Serbs and Bosnians mix, as do Christians and Muslims.
The centre of the bridge is wider and this kapia becomes the meeting point for parts of the community over the centuries. It is the lives, loves and tragedies of the ordinary people of the town that dom inate the book and Andric writes with great warmth about all sections of the community.
There is periodic brutslity and armies move to and fro; rebellions and executions ensue, but the bridge is ever present. Change is slow over the first centuries, but the coming of the railway changes all that and the outside world begins to intrude. The book ends around the time of the First World War when the bridge is partially destroyed.
The historical parts of the book and the stories illustrate the despite the townspeoples innate feeling for each other and their ability to live together; the factionalism projected on them from political and religious movements sow the seeds for later conflicts.
An epic novel broad in its scope and execution and it suceeds in its objectives.

Винаги съм изпитвала слабост към това заглавие, защото съм подозирала какво се крие зад него, а и защото съм била на Дрина и защото изобщо цяла Босна е прекрасна... но не съм предполагала колко прекрасно красива е тази книга и колко вълшебен е езикът на Иво Андрич, изпълнен с мъдрост и всевечната твърдина на човешката съдба. Прекрасен роман! Още повече, че за нас е особено близък, имайки предвид споделените дири от историята...

А преводът на Жела Георгиева е замайващ!

Beautiful, broadly painted chronicle of the history of the city of Visegerad, and by extension Bosnia and Serbia. The bridge that was built in the 16th century functions as a spindle around which all kinds of individual and collective stories are woven. Main thematic background: the problematic coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews, and the puny vicissitudes of individual life against the unflappable permanence of structures like a bridge. The chapter about the arrival of the Austrians illustrates nicely the advent of modernity and the adjustment problems that this created.
(rating 3.5 stars)

اقترب من الجسر على نهر درينا إيها الصديق، خذ تاريخا، خذ ثقافة، وعش قصصا لاتنسى. تعال وكن صلفا كالعثمانيين أو ثوريا كالصرب، أو ماكرا كالنمساويين. إن شئت كن مسالما كأهل البوسنة، وإن شئت فاقض وقتك في التنظير كالطلاب، ولا أنصحك أن تنزوي كاليهود.

ستستمتع كثيرا بصيف فيشيغراد الساحر، الطبيعة الخلابة تترنم على إيقاع النهر. لكن لا تقل أنني لم أحذرك من هدير المدافع التي تدوي بين الفينة واﻷخرى. احتس قدحا من القهوة على الجسر، وارقص مع المحتفلين، تجنب الحديث في السياسة، فهو خطر في كل زمان. وإياك إياك أن تطيل النظر في بنات اﻷتراك مهما فتنك حسنهن، فالثمن الذي ستدفعه أكبر بكثير من المكسب الذي تجنيه.

ليس اﻷمر متعلقا بسحر المكان والزمن، فقد تمنيتك معي للتعرف إلى شخصيات فيشيغراد الفريدة. وددت لو أنك جلست لعلي خجا. بدماغه الشبيه بالصخر اﻷصم الذي يأنف تقبل اﻷفكار، قد يفلح بإقناعك بأن القادم دائما اسوأ. كنت ستعجب كثيرا باليهودية الفاتنة، التي تدير الفندق بكل حنكة، وتحمل هم عائلتها في كل مكان، وليس ثمة من يحمل همها. لاتسألني عن نهاية المجند التركي الذي كلف بحراسة الجسر، ثم أغرم بالعابرة التركية، فنهايته أقسى مما تقوى على سماعه. اقصد المقامر العتيد الذي قامر يكل مايملك على وجه البسيطة. سله بنفسك ماذا دهاه كي يقلع عن ذلك الشغف، فإن أخبرتك فلست بمصدق إياي. فلتذهب بنفسك لتشاهد الأعور الذي مانفك رواد الحانات يتندرون به، حدق به وهو يمشي على حافة الجسر، وادع له بالسلامة. تفضل وشارك المعلمة الرقيقة المناقشات عن الحرية والعدالة، انصت لرفاقها يتراشقون بالنظريات، حاول ألا تذكرها بحبيبها الذي غاب، فهي لا تعلم بعد أكان يعشقها أم أنه لم يعرف الحب.

خذها مني ولا تتردد، ستأنس وتأسى لحكايات كل شخوص الرواية، من العروس الجبلية التي أبت الزواج من أحد ابناء الوادي الخفيض، إلى قصة المرابي العجوز الذي شب على الإقتصاد والتوفير. ومن الفلاح الثائر الذي تعمد تخريب الجسر إلى الوزير الذي بناه عله يشفى من علته المريبة. ثلاثة أنصحك ألا تخالطهم، رئيس الحامية الذي لا يتفاهم سوى بالخوازيق، والزنجي المختبئ في تجويف الجسر، وكذلك المجنونة التي فقدت طفليها التوأمين.

لا نقد أوجهه، لا عاتب انتويه. رواية تأخذك عبر التاريخ والحقب، لتشهد تلقب أحوال البشر، وتتعجب على تصاريف القدر. ولى العثمانيون، والنمسا، رحل البشر، فاضت سيول وغاضت، نشبت حروب ثم وضعت أوزارها. لم يبقى إلا صدى وذكرى، وبقي ذلك الجسر الذي على نهر درينا.

To all those people who love history here is the Nobel prize winning history of the Balkans. Andrić's style and precision are staggering and his book covers the history of his homeland over several centuries. The book is much better in the original language but the English translation is well done and succeeds in capturing the mood of the region. For you history students out there this is a must read.

Schon nach kurzer Zeit dachte ich, ich hätte dort in Visegrad gelebt und würde die Menschen alle kennen. Unaufgeregt schildert Andric alltägliche Episoden, wandert sein Blick in einer Weise beobachtend durch die Zeit, als würde ein unsterblicher Geist zwischen den Menschen umher gehen und sie belauschen, ihre Gedanken entschlüsseln, ihre Taten kommentieren. Als ich das Buch aus der Hand legte, spürte ich eine ungewohnte Leere. Morgen soll ich nichts Neues mehr über die Menschen an der Brücke erfahren? Unvorstellbar. Ein Buch, das einem so ans Herz wächst, ohne dass man spannende oder besondere Ereignisse oder Reflexionen als herausragend benennen könnte (mit Ausnahme vielleicht der Pfählung, die schon eine einzigartige Schilderung ist), hat uneingeschränkte Hochachtung verdient. Zwar verstehe ich, dass der "heutige Leser", oder eben auch die Leserin, Schwierigkeiten genau damit haben wird, aber mir ist das egal. Die Lektüre befriedigt vielleicht einen Ruhewunsch, wie er gegen Ende eines gelebten Lebens verständlich, an seinem Anfang aber befremdlich wäre. Daher würde ich das Buch all denen, deren bürgerliches Alltagsleben der Spannung entbehrt und die sich daher Aufregung und "scharfe Kost" wünschen, nicht empfehlen. Wer aber Zeit und Ruhe in sich findet, wie bei einem guten alten Gericht die einzelnen Kräuter und Ingredienzien zu schätzen, dem sei Andric wärmstens ans Herz gelegt. Nobelpreis? Aber immer!

Ένα μεγάλο βιβλίο!

المكان هو بطل الرواية بامتياز , و عليه تعبر المدينة و حكاياتها و مشاكلها , و عليه يعبر الزمن , ليكون هذا الجسر هو سيرة المدينة بكلّ ما فيها .
حوالي أربعة قرون تغطّيها الرواية , ممتلئة بالحكايات و القصص الملهمة و الكاشفة لهذا المجتمع المتعدّد و الذي اتكأ عليه التاريخ بخلافاته و حروبه , من قال إنّ ثمّة ما يكشف الأحداث الكبرى و يظهرها أكثر من اليوميّ البسيط ؟!
عشرات من الحكايات الشعبية و التاريخية على طول الرواية , تتغيّر و وتتبدّل و تتطوّر عبر الزمن .... و يبقى الجسر
ممتعٌ هذا الكتاب جدّاً

Reviews routinely call this a masterpiece, people say it’s “as full of suspense as any novel”, its prose is beautiful, it’s “a necessary and essential book” and “everyone should read this book” and the author got the Nobel Prize, so you are already thoroughly intimidated before you pick up The Bridge on the Drina and when it fails to ignite, when it seems to be made of melted tarmac and every sentence seems calculated to induce a light hypnosis, the sort where 20 minutes can go by without you noticing, you have to figure it’s you that’s wrong, not everybody else, but there it is, it can’t be helped. There’s no point in faking book-love.

This is not a normal novel with a plot and a handful of main characters. It’s about 400 years of Serbian history, as refracted through a magnificent stone bridge which was completed in 1571. The bridge changes everything for the people in the otherwise unremarkable town of Drina. Trade and armies flow over it, lovers have assignations, it’s used for executions. Ivo Andric’s book is like the imperturbable river under the bridge, he is going to flow through his 400 years at a slow but steady speed. He finds interesting and illuminating anecdotes here and there, and characters appear, last for ten pages, then drift downstream. This is the method.

The building of the bridge by Ottoman engineers (it took five years) was like a disaster for the townspeople – men were pressed into service, often without pay, everyone’s life was upended, so a couple of radicals decided to sabotage the whole thing. They were caught and there was an excruciating detailed account of the execution by impaling of the main saboteur. That got my attention. It was hair-raising. So I thought I was going to like this book – give me a gruesome impaling and I’ll follow you anywhere – but all the other tales of the town that Andric picked out just seemed a little on the dull side, and his unvarying and totally humourless prose did not help at all. Two hundred pages later the only thing I could remember was the guy who got impaled.

I freely concede that everyone is right about this book and I am wrong.

Ein ungewöhnliches Buch, von dem ich erst am Schluss las, dass es der Autor als Chronik und nicht als Roman bezeichnet hat. Dabei ist es keineswegs wie ein Sachbuch, sondern mit einer poetischen unaufgeregten Sprache, die im Kopf des Lesers filmähnliche Szenen erzeugt. Man ist beim Lesen jeden Tag in Višegrad mitten im Geschehen.

Das Buch dreht sich um keine Person, sondern um eine Brücke bzw. um das Leben an und auf der Brücke von ihrem Bau im 16. Jahrhundert bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Man lernt fast 100 Personen kennen in ganz unterschiedlicher Intensität. Besonders am Beginn und im letzten Drittel werden einzelne Figuren über mehrere Kapitel verfolgt. Dazwischen liegen viele Jahre, die durch überlieferte Episoden, Sagen und Legenden erzählt werden, jede einzelne interessant und gut erzählt, nur darf man keine steigende Spannung dabei erwarten. Aber die Einbindung der manchmal märchenhaften Geschichten und die logische Erläuterung von deren Entstehung zeugen von großem erzählerischen Talent. Am Ende des Buches schreibt der Autor vermutlich auch aus eigenem Erleben und doch die Innensicht von so unterschiedlichen Personen so stimmig, das geht über einen Erlebnisbericht weit hinaus. Die Auswirkungen von geschichtlichen Ereignissen auf verschiedene Personen und das Einwirken unterschiedlicher Einwohner auf die Geschichte kann man selten so umfassend verstehen.

Trotzdem war ich lange Zeit unsicher, wie ich bewerten soll. Zwischendurch war meine Aufmerksamkeit manchmal schwächer. Aber im Nachhinein merke ich, wie dieses Buch nachwirkt, wie viel Wissen ich beim Lesen so ganz Nebenher erworben habe und wie mich die Art des Erzählens beeindruckt hat. Viele menschliche Verhaltensweisen treffen auf die heutige Zeit genauso zu, es ist auch ein aktuelles Buch. Den Nobelpreis kann ich gut verstehen und kann dieses Buch wirklich empfehlen, wenn man Muße hat ein paar Tage bzw. Jahrhunderte mit den Menschen in Bosnien zu leben.

▪ النجمة ثالثة لي إكراما لصبري على القراءة .

قرأت سنة الماضية رواية تتمحور حول المكان
و ما يطرأ عليه من تغييرات بتغير الاوضاع السياسية .
"جنتلمان في موسكو" استمتعت بها رغم ندرت أحداث.
هذه الرواية تشترك معها في ندرة احداث و تمحورها حول المكان : الجسر.
لكن هذه الرواية مرهقة
▪ النجمة الثالثة لي إحتراما لصبري .

في هذه الرواية لاول مرة اتجاوز عدة صفحات دون ان يتغير شئ.
هناك ثقل في الصفحات و حتى اللغة .

▪ النجمة الثالثة لي اعتذار لذاتي