Un libro importante: un affresco storico davvero multietnico per capire un po' di più il destino tormentato dell'ex Yugoslavia. Ambientato in un villaggio al confine fra Bosnia e Serbia, confine labile e provvisorio come la vita degli abitanti, tra le dominazioni che si succedono con la loro ferocia nell'arco di qualche centinaio d'anni; turchi, ebrei, cristiano-ortodossi con le loro tradizioni e leggende, la costruzione quasi fantastica di un ponte che resiste all'usura del tempo, testimone di soprusi e uccisioni cruente ma anche di matrimoni e chiacchiere fra i cittadini che alla sua porta si riuniscono.
E' un libro "serio" ma non per questo noioso, forse un po' antico ma in questo risiede il suo fascino.

1961 yılında Nobel Edebiyat ödülünü kazanan Andriç, bu kitabında 350 yıllık bir tarihi izlekte sosyo-mekansal değişimi romanlaştırıyor. Tarihsel olayların toplumlara, toplumlar arası ilişkilere, insanlara ve insanların karakterine etkileri kadar yerleşimlere, coğrafyaya ve mekanlara etkilerini de en ince ayrıntısına kadar ele almış Andriç. Bu diyalektik içerisinde yılları politik coğrafyayla örmüş ve okura aktarmaya çalışmış.

Bu kitapta beni zorlayan ve kitaba ara vermeme neden olan iki temel neden var.
Kitabın arka kapak tanıtımında "Bir ülkeyi ve insanlarını, onların üç yüz elli yıllık tarihine tanıklık eden bir köprünün dilinden anlatan olağanüstü bir roman" yazıyor. Bu durum, bende ciddi bir beklenti oluşturdu. Köprünün gözünden yıllar boyu yaşanan olayları dinleyeceğimizi düşünmek bile heyecan vericiydi. Her ne kadar köprü bu romanın ana karakterlerinden biri de olsa, bu kitapta köprünün dilinden herhangi bir anlatım söz konusu değil. Bu da beni ciddi anlamda bir hayalkırıklığına uğrattı. İkinci neden ise, anlatımda bazı konular detaylandırılırken bazı konuların çok yüzeysel geçilmiş olmasıydı.

Bunlara rağmen, çok fazla kültüre ev sahipliği yapmış bir coğrafyayı yanlı olmayan bir anlatım dili ile anlatmak da bir başarı.

Kitaplarla kalın!

This is a story about a beautiful white bridge on the Drina, a river in Bosnia, which was built in the 16th century. This bridge played an important part in the lives of the inhabitants of the town near the river for almost four centuries. This land is blessed with warm climate and fertile land. But the people who live here together, under the same sun, for many generations and work the land, speak different languages, pray to different Gods. For centuries empires had been fighting for this land. Every empire
left its trace.
This historical novel follows 'the life' of the bridge and consists of many different stories of the people whose lives were connected to the bridge on the Drina for almost 400 years. They are dramatic, sad, funny or tragic. Their protagonists are Bosnian, Serbs, Turks and Jews, the people who had (and have) more in common than they could ever imagine.

الجسر رمز للتواصل ونقطة للإلتقاء وعلى جسر نهر درينا إلتقت جضارات وتصارعت أمم وكان هذا الجسر المراقب الصامت لكل الأحداث التي مرت على مدينة فيسغراد والتي تقبع عند الجسر وذلك خلال أربعة قرون وحتى قيام الحرب العالمية الأولى .. الجسر لم يكن فقط مكانا للإنتقال لسير العربات بل موصلا بين الشرق والغرب رابطا بين الصرب والبوسنيين الأتراك المسلمين، المسيحيين، اليهود والغجر التشيك والكروات ، النمساويين والهنغار، للمرح والإحتفال للسمر ولعب الورق لقصص الحب ولوعات الفراق وتلويحات الأحبة الجسر كان راصدا لإختلاف الثقافات والأديان قائما بدور الباب الذي فتح على مصراعيه لنطلع على تاريخ المنطقة

تبدأ هذه السيرة المكانية بتقديم الجسر بوصف بارع ثم ينتقل الروائي لصاحب البناء ويمهد بقصص الأمهات اللاتي انتزع منهن الأتراك أبنائهن من أحضانهن وأخذوهم لكي يصبحوا جزءا من الجيش أو الحرس التركي ومنهم محمد باشا الوزير الذي ترقى في المناصب ,وقرر بناء الجسر ليبدأ بعد ذلك العمل القسري للسكان وتحوم روح الشك والشر حول المكان وتوالي الحوادث واستخدام العنف مماأدي
لسرد القصص والحكايا والأساطير التي ظهرت أثناء بناء هذا الجسر وهذا أضاف عمقا وبعدا أسطوريا للجانب الواقعي في الحكاية

هناك أحداث عديدة مرت على الجسر وخلال هذه الأحداث انتهز الكاتب الفرصة لرسم صورة بديعة للمنطقة مناظر طبيعية جسر ونهر وبإمكانك أن تتخيل المنظر الناس ملابسهم أدواتهم الموسيقية أفكارهم عاداتهم حياتهم الشعبية دكاكينهم وبيوتهم وهناك الجسر ليشعرك الكاتب إنك في حضرة المكان .. المكان الذي مرت عليه كوارث كثيرة وأجيال عديدة طوفان عصيان حروب غير أن الجسر ظل واقفا رمزا للإستقرار والصمود

رحلة حقيقية بين العصور وقفنا فيها على التطور الذي لحق بالمدينة وعلى تعاقب الحكومات الإستعمارية والإستبدادية وعلى حركات المعارضة وما لاحقها من تغير في ملامح المدينة وكان ذلك من خلال قصص عديدة عشنا من خلالها الحياة اليومية للسكان وتابعنا بناء الجسر وفيضان النهر وبناء سكة الحديد وإضاءة الشوارع..

هذا العمل يعتبر جوهرة في الأدب اليوغسلافي إلا إن السرد كان بطيئا نوعا ما لعل السبب هو الإغراق في الوصف وإن كنتُ اعتبرته ميزة في البداية لكن مع مضي الصفحات يصبح ثقيلا حقيقة خاصة وإنك لا ترتبط بأي شخصية من الشخصيات لأن دورها محصور في صفحات قليلة

بالمجمل هذا العمل عظيم

A várólistámra kerülése is különleges volt (egyik kedves kézisem kedvenc könyve) és olyan elvárásokkal kezdtem olvasni, ami nagyon veszélyes lehet, mert onnan jóformán már csak lefele van. De nem. (: Elvarázsolt az író fogalmazása, a híd története, a casaba lakóinak a történetei… és nem tudtam egyetlen idézetet sem kiragadni, mert a könyv hangulata nálam egyben él és nem akartam megtörni (ilyet eddig még nem éreztem más könyvnél). És természetesen olvastam volna még tovább is… :)

Later edit: for perspective, this here is the linguistic structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina by municipalities based on a 2013 survey. Just the Slavic ones.

***

I can't figure out which thread to start unravelling to review this. There's no point, Dr Andrić won a Nobel Prize off it - well deserved - a mammoth of a creation going through a historically accurate chronicle of Bosnia & Herzegovina, structured episodically throughout the eyes of the inhabitants of Višegrad, in Eastern Bosnia. A novel without a hero, where the main character is a Bridge, a real Bridge - this one here, the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, more here.

The area was historically populated by Illyrians, Thracians and Celts; the South Slavic people migrated here around the 6th century. The Ottoman Empire ruled the territory from 15th to 19th century, capturing it took over a century. In 1908 they break free of Ottoman rule and are annexed to the Austro-Hungarian empire only to be re-incorporated into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. They proclaim independence following the 1992 breakup of Yugoslavia, sparking the Bosnian War that lasted until 1995.

But this is a story of a Bridge. Deep in the Republika Srpska entity (see here) in Eastern Bosnia, this historically relevant Bridge on the river Drina was built in 1577 By Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (see here), a trusted member of Suleyman The Magnificent's government and two other sultans.

A boy that was forcefully taken from his family from a village close to Višegrad as blood tribute (child levy enslavement) and sent to Istanbul to be raised as an Ottoman and integrated in their army as a Janissary, see here.

Meant to forget their families, culture, religion and language, these blood taxes became heavy assets of the Ottoman army, a formidable military unit, perhaps the first infantry force in the world to be equipped with firearms.

By the 17th century, they dominated they government due to their prestige and influence: they could dictate policy, collect wealth and propriety, instigate palace coups to change sultans and even limit child levy. By the end, they even turned arms against the Ottomans and their own: in 1730 a Janissary troop rebellion of 12,000 marched through Central Serbia; fearing the sultan would oust them, they executed 72 noble Serbs and put their heads on display to limit Serbia's power. Instead, this triggered the start of the Serbian Revolution (see here) that put an end to 370 years of Ottoman occupation of modern Serbia.

But this is a story of a Bridge.

Built by a Janissary.

A blood tax.

A child levy.

Born in Bosnia and forcefully taken to be converted to Islam, he rises through the ranks of the system, fully embracing his Muslim life. He never returns to Bosnia, dies in a stabbing on his way to mosque whilst trying to give alms to a beggar - an assassin in disguise.

But blood does nor forget blood.

And the Grand Vizier did not forget his blood. He persuades Suleyman to restore the Serbian Church and appoints members of his own family to important positions in the Ottoman government.

In 1571 he sends the master Miman Sinan (see here), a Janissary himself possibly of Armenian origin, one of the greatest architects of the Ottoman empire, a contemporary of the Italian Renaissance. Over the river Drina that he himself might have crossed as a child on a dinghy, one Bajića Sokolović, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, builds a bridge that would connect Višegrad to Višegrad, Bosnia to Serbia - the same bridge that the British and Greek army crossed on their way to the Ottoman Empire during WWI, that allowed them to reach as close as 30km away from their borders. The Ottomans surrendered in 3 days.

Since Ottoman conquest in 1306, Bosnian society has comprised of a complex intermingling of Muslims, Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians. The Slavic language does not define clear boundaries between the dialects, the concept of an ideal of nationalism intensifies the confusion in such an oddly religious structure and culturally divided society - a subject of great importance to Andrić, a place where he and I meet as true equals in the struggle.

Dr Andrić was born in Travnik, but lived most of his childhood in Višegrad, on the banks of the shiny river Drina, in an Orthodox Christian family. He is a Bosnian and a Serb. These regional and religious subtleties are important, Dr Andrić has been observing them his entire life. No wonder this novel covers three and a half centuries. In middle age he was compelled to abandon the expectation of his youth that linguistic nationalism would somehow resolve social conflict in Bosnia.

"So, on the kapia, between the skies, the river and the hills, generation after generation learnt not to mourn overmuch what the troubled waters had borne away. They entered there into the unconscious philosophy of the town; that life was an incomprehensible marvel, since it was incessantly wasted and spent, yet none the less it lasted and endured like the bridge on the Drina."

***

Memorable moments: Milan's potential encounter with the Devil during a game of otuz bir (thirty one), Corkan drunkenly dancing on the parapet of the bridge with Stiković witnessing the moment as a child and then remembering it decades later during a fantastically written argument about Vanity v Bravery with Pećikoza, the tragic tale of Fata Avdagina who only wanted to keep her promise as well as the chapter with the flood, a great lesson in collective Stoicism.

***

Quotes:

"This town on the very frontier of Bosnia and Serbia had always been in close connection and permanent touch with everything that took place in Serbia and grew with it 'like a nail and its finger'."

"As if we did not know what is in store for us in the times to come? We know where it hurts us and what we are losing; we know it only too well. If you came here to tell us this, you should not have returned here."

"There was still one more novelty which the occupation and the newcomers brought with them; women began to come to the kapia for the first time in its existence. The wives and daughters of the officials, their nursemaids and servants would stop there to chat or come to sit there on holidays with their military or civil escorts. This did not happen very often, but none the less it was enough to disturb the older men who came there to smoke their pipes in peace and quiet over the water, and disconcerted and confused the younger ones. Women had never stopped or sat on the kapia, neither Christian nor, still less, Moslem. Now all that was changed."

"Human life was so ordered that for every dram of good there were two drams of evil and there could be no goodness on this earth without hatred and no greatness without envy, even as there was not even the smallest object without its shadow."

"But the bridge still stood, the same as it had always been, with the eternal youth of a perfect conception, one of the great and good works of man, which do not know what it means to change and grow old and which, or so it seemed, do not share the fate of the transient things of this world."

"Desire is like a wind; it shifts the dust from one place to another, sometimes darkens the whole horizon, but in the end calms down and falls and leaves the old and eternal picture of the world."

"For time is always short to lovers and no path long enough."

"The summer of 1914 will remain in the memory of those who lived through it as the most beautiful summer they ever remembered, for in their consciousness it shone and flamed over a gigantic and dark horizon of suffering and misfortune which stretched into infinity."

"That is the way it was. Here is human reality, stubborn, irregular, awkward, heartfelt, and ever-changing in spite of everything people can do to maintain, or to overthrow, inherited patterns of life."

Nesreća nesrećnih ljudi i jeste u tome što za njih stvari koje su inače nemoguće i zabranjene postanu, za trenutak, dostižne i lake, ili bar tako izgledaju, a kad se jednom trajno usele u njihove želje, one se pokažu opet kao ono što jesu: nedostupne i zabranjene, sa svim posljedicama koje to ima po one koji za njima ipak posegnu.

Rijeka teče, a most ostaje. Ljudi dolaze i odlaze, most ostaje. Godišnja doba se smjenjuju, a most ostaje na mjestu. Vrijeme prolazi i sve što nosi sa sobom nema gdje, pa se ono tako ugrađuje u most ostavljajući na njemu ožiljke, kojih da nema, on ne bi bio tako lijep. Drina neumorna i povremeno valovita, spolja zelena i pjenušava, a iznutra virovita i strma, teče brzo i neprestano kao da ne postoji sutra. Most na Drini spaja ljude, ali isto tako ih i razdvaja. Na lijevoj strani obale hrišćansko parče neba, a na desnoj islamsko parče neba. Jedna strana neba strada i krvari, dok je druga u usponu. Jedna žilava i neustrašiva, a druga žestoka i odlučna.

Ivo Andrić u ovoj knjizi postupa kao istoričar, a njegova vješta interpretacija svega onoga što je istražio, analizirao i sve to sažeo, daje mu pigment hroničara, koji kao da je sa tim ljudima kroz vijekove živio i razgovarao. Njegov most se saživljava sa generacijama. Daje jedan implus života svim žiteljima oko njega, kao i običnim prolaznicima. Sam most od kamena prerasta u jedno mitsko stvorenje koji od svog nastanka iz stvarnosti prelazi u javu i obratno. Primjeri toga su već u početku, kada se ometala njegova gradnja pri čemu je dvoje djece urezano u njegove stubove. Kao što postoji i velika mračna dvorana u centralnom stubu mosta u kojoj živi crni Arapin, koji se javlja u dječijim snovima. Ko ga vidi, umire. Potom Andrić suptilno prelazi s Turske čizme, na Austrougarsku čizmu. Njihovo tlačenje i pljačkanje. Turci po metodi neracionalnosti, sirovosti i grubosti, a Austrougari sa usavršenim upravnim aparatom izvlače od naroda namete i poreze sigurno i bez bola, uzimaju čak i više nego što su Turci uzimali. Andrić fino uočava diskrepancu istočnog od zapadnog čovjeka. Dok je kod Turaka više bilo zatvorenosti, u smislu kuća, žena i posao, dotle su Austrougari išli na vidljivost bogastva u svom njegovom ruhu. Zadovoljstvo i uživanje sklonjeno je iz vjekovne sjenovitosti. Sad je do njega je lakše bilo doći, ali to često nije bilo istinsko zadovoljstvo, a sreća je sve više izmicala, više nego ranije.

Jedan od trenutaka u ovoj knjizi je svakako znatiželjan i fascinantan. Kada pijani Ćorkan usred hladne kasne noći hoda po uskoj ledenoj ogradi mosta, tačnije rečeno pleše po njoj, a ispod bezdan razjapio svoje čeljusti i čeka. Ćorkan ipak prelazi na drugu stranu mosta. Kakve su ga to sile održale u životu, po kakvoj božijoj milosti je ostao u životu.. Vrlo emotivno djelo Andrića čiji reljefni i karakterni prikazi dobijaju svoj puni zamah.

obozavam Andricevo pripovedanje

54th book of 2021. Artist for this review is Serbian painter Nadežda Petrović, between photographs of the real-life setting of the novel.

I've never been to Bosnia, but I have been slightly north/west many times, to Croatia. I've been to Dubrovnik, multiple times, which is on just the thinnest sliver of Croatia beside the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also, slightly farther northwest, I've been to Split, and several other places farther north. For years running throughout my boyhood we returned to Croatia, in love with the place, perhaps five times I've been back. I had never heard of Ivo Andrić despite the fact he won the Nobel Prize over writers like Tolkien, Forster and Steinbeck in 1961. Of course, those other writers are household names, but as far as I was concerned, Andrić had slipped into obscurity.



The Bridge Over the Drina (sometimes translated to The Bridge on the Drina) is not really a novel, but a chronicle (as Andrić himself preferred to call it), or even closer to a short story collection with a single unifying theme—the bridge. It covers four centuries of Balkan history surrounding the bridge as this near-perfect (indeed, perhaps, perfect) structure in the middle of a storm. Andrić's writing comes across as being telling and cold for the most part, but also oddly sympathetic. The novel begins around the 16thC when the bridge is constructed in the small Bosnian town of Višegrad, and ends in 1914. The bridge itself, in reality, is called the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge (pictured below). The novel is also, then, regarded as a "historical novel" or even a "non-fiction novel", into Capote territory. Georges Perec (whom I'm very fond of) said of it in Le Monde:

"The wealth and variety of its fictional elements carry it so far beyond the confines of a straightforward novel, it cannot be limited to such a description. It puts one in mind of a collection of tales, but no collection of tales (not even A Thousand and One Nights or Washington Irving's stories) ever possessed such a unity and continuity of theme."

In that way it also reminded me of War and Peace, with its multifaceted elements of history and fiction, and I suppose the same for Les Misérables for its Waterloo dissection, etc. It also felt somewhat Sebaldian... All those books that do not fit so neatly into one category. These are my favourite sorts of novels.


Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, ca. 1900.

And Perec is right, Andrić constantly reminds the reader at the end of every chapter that the bridge is there as the centre of this novel's universe. Most of the action even takes place on the bridge itself, if not within seeing distance of it. Throughout, it is the observer as much as we are of all that befalls Bosnia (and its fictional inhabitants) over two centuries. And the returning images of the bridge at the end of most chapters contained some of my favourite lines in the novel—
n  

Thus the generations renewed themselves beside the bridge and the bridge shook from itself, like dust, all the traces which transient human events had left on it and remained, when all was over, unchanged and unchangeable.

n
Reading the novel is almost tiring. It isn't dense per se, but the relentless moving of time throughout the novel, jumping years with every chapter, and countless characters being introduced in with every turn, the novel becomes repetitive and draining to read. I read the first 100 pages in a day and then somehow slowed to read the final 200 over the rest of the week. Naturally, like a short story collection, some chapters are far more interesting than others, depending on the characters involved. Some were brilliant, the man impaled alive on the bridge, the woman escaping her marriage, the gambler risking everything he owns in one final game... the stories are at times wonderful and cover a wide range of characters, the poor, the military, Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, etc. At times I found my interest slipping somewhat, but the chapters are never too long that it detracts too much from the general feel of the novel.



But I also believe that is part of the novel's power, that thematically, the constant moving of time, constant passing of characters in and out of the narrative is indicative of its scope and purpose; that unlike the Huxley novel title, time does not have a stop. As a character says on the penultimate page in 1914, If they destroy here, then somewhere else someone is building. I think this is one of the main sentences of the novel and a good sign at what Andrić was writing about. Partly, a bridge on the Drina (and hanging Balkan history from it like a baby's mobile), but also that time does not have a stop, that wars come and pass, as all things do, and in the end there will always be a bridge somewhere, on some river, and around it, countless people from all different walks of life being born and living sad or sometimes happy lives before dying, recurring like so forever. Hence, the novel is tiring to read.

Primer contacto con este pedazo de autor y salgo encantado. Siempre se agradece la novedad, aquí la hay desde luego, hasta tal punto, que no existe un protagonista al uso, el protagonista es el puente sobre el río Drina, el cual ve pasar el tiempo, la historia y a toda una serie de protagonistas secundarios a lo largo de los siglos.

A diferencia de por ejemplo "Los pilares de la tierra" o "Cien años de soledad", en que una rama familiar se va sucediendo y ve pasar el transcurso de los años y hace de nexo de unión de la historia, aquí me sorprendió que ese nexo fuera exclusivamente ese puente magnífico, que ve pasar religiones, culturas, cambios de estados, guerras y un largo etcétera de grandes historias, que de no ser por el puente podrían parecer historias inconexas, siendo el puente, la ciudad y el entorno los que le dan la ligazon que necesita la historia.

Dentro de esta gran novela se agrupan innumerables sub-historias menores (menores por el tamaño, no por la calidad). Un ramillete de cuentos y relatos de las culturas musulmana, judía sefardí y cristiana ortodoxa. Costumbres, leyendas y anécdotas de esa difícil convivencia que supuso históricamente una zona tan conflictiva (no tanto por la pacífica convivencia de culturas y religiones tan diferentes, como ocurrió en España hace siglos, sino por por los intereses geopolíticos y de los diferentes "imperios" a lo largo del tiempo) como esa frontera de la Bosnia natal del autor, pasando de manos turcas, a austro-húngaras, luego a las serbias. Por cierto interesante también lo que tiene de histórico y el conocimiento que facilita de ese territorio de los Balcanes tan complejo. De forma novelada, más entretenido por cierto.

Un 4 alto. A pesar de sus 500 páginas no se hace largo, al revés, estas deseando retomarlo. Recomendable totalmente

This is a historical novel of epic proportions, wide scope and thought-provoking, beautiful prose (naturally I regret that I am unable to read this in the native language). I found this to be a vitally important read, as it was unlike anything I have ever read before, and intellectually insightful and tactfully written about four centuries in the Ottoman and Balkan history. I am now fascinated by this history of which I was so ignorant before, and am eager to read more, both non-fiction and fiction. The town of Visegrad and its stunning bridge, so vividly and touchingly described with attentive detail, have left such an impression on me that I feel as though I have an intimate connection through Andric's prose to a place and time which I have never before visited. His ability to weave intricate stories together of characters from the Visegrad area across the centuries, always coming back to the unchanged bridge, is flawless and effortless and he manages to create such distinctive characters that I felt I knew each character intimately, no matter how brief their tale. This was a challenging read, and took me a long time to get through, requiring much concentration and some background research whilst reading, but ultimately I believe this is a necessary and essential book for anyone interested in the rich depths of culture, history and in the examination of the human spirit, of good and evil, and of the ties that bind generations.

About five years ago, an American friend of mine, whose book taste I completely respected, told me about this book. He was so enthusiastic I knew someday I would read it, even though I had never heard of the author, never heard of the book, and knew nothing about Bosnia. I never suspected then, that I would eventually be living in Istanbul someday, be familiar with Ottoman history up close, and have walked a historic Mimar Sinan stone bridge with my very own feet.

What a book! What an author! And what a translator! This book is a haunting wonderful memoir exquisitely rendered in time and place. A young Christian boy is taken to the Ottoman capital to serve the Ottoman Empire. He converts. Eventually, he rises to a position of advisor to the Sultan. The Balkan native decides to use his position to build a stone bridge designed by the great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan to commemorate the land he came from and to glorify God. The book "The Bridge on the Drina" is a fictionalized history of all that happened on that bridge.

We often assign metaphysical powers to grand urban assets like the Eiffel Tower, but this book made the reader cherish a rural stone bridge as a precious jewel that made life grander and more meaningful for all the villagers who come in contact with it. Could a man-made creation serve a nobler purpose?

Ivo Andrić is almost like a Balkan "Mark Twain" so great were his powers of observation about human nature, sometimes wryly so. You can not read this book without feeling he has an enormous love for humanity because he can describe people at their worst, their weakest, and best with such compassion and grace, it's impossible not to love his writing for that fact alone. I found myself writing down sentences within the book just to savor their genius later. After I finished the book, I looked the author up on Wikipedia and I realized I had no idea while reading the book what faith he was because he wrote about the Christian and Muslim villagers with such insight you could almost think he had both faiths in his family. Ah, such is the Balkans.

What a patriot this man was. He had an ability to make the whole world care about his little corner and love it as he did. I want to read everything else he has written.