Bridge On The Drina

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Lovett F. Edwards (translation) A vivid depiction of the suffering history has imposed upon the people of Bosnia from the late sixteenth century to the beginning of World War I, The Bridge on the Drina earned Andric the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. A great stone bridge built three centuries ago in the heart of the Balkans by a Grand Vezir of the Ottoman Empire dominates the setting of Ivo Andric's novel. Spanning generations, nationalities, and creeds, the bridge stands witness to the countless lives played out upon it: Radisav, the workman, who tries to hinder its construction and is impaled on its highest point; to the lovely Fata, who throws herself from its parapet to escape a loveless marriage; to Milan, the gambler, who risks everything in one last game on the bridge with the devil his opponent; to Fedun, the young soldier, who pays for a moment of spring forgetfulness with his life. War finally destroys the span, and with it the last descendant of that family to which the Grand Vezir confided the care of his pious bequest -- the bridge.

E-Book Content

THE BRIDGE ON THE DRINA IVO ANDRIC THE BRIDGE ON THE DRINA Translated from the Serbo-Croat by LOVETT FJ_ EDWARDS Ruskin House GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN L TO MUSEUM STIUET LONDON First published in English in 1919 Seconcl lmpressio11 1921 . This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing tor the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, 1916, no portion may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiry should be made to the publisher. This translation © George Allen and Unwin Led., 1919 Translated from .... NA DRINI CUPRIJA (The Prosveta Publishing Company Belgrade 1915) PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN in 10 pt Pilgrim type BY BRADFORD AND DICKENS LONDON W.C.I TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD T he customs aad the minds of men alter less rapidly than the vagaries of political and ideological change. The visitor to Yugoslavia can still see the bridge on the Drina, whose fate is described in this book, though once again modernized and re­ paired. But he will find vgegrad itself Jess changed than he may ex­ pect and will not find it hard to identify the types of AndriC's novel even under a national state and a communist administration. The � Bosnian peasant face the hazards of an egalitarian administration with the same incomprehension and imperturbability as he faced the novelties of the Austro-Hungarian occupation; he experienced the greater brutalities of the last war with the same courage and resignation as he faced those of World War• I. and his relations with state controlled purchasing agencies differ m�inly in degree from those of his fathers with the banks and merchants of the vge­ grad market. The last war, in Bosnia especially, showed exa�les of horror ::nd ,.,i·ment at least equal to those of Turkish times, while the idealism and fanaticism of youth, so well described in the con­ versations on the kapia. have only changed slightly in direction, while retaining their essential mixture of practical politics and imaginative romauticism. , Dr lvo Andric is himself a Serb and a Bosnian. These provincial and religious subt ]&ties are still as important in present-day Yugo­ slavia as they were in earlier t im e s But in the case of Dr Andric they . have had an effect different from that on other Yugoslav writers and politicians. Instead of intensifying the local and reli�ious contlkt.- that still bedevil Yugoslavia- as was only too tragically shown ::- ·uing the last war- they have resulted in a deep understanding of peoples and creeds other than his own. Born
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