I always like to read something about the place before traveling to it. I’m interested in the country’s history and the people who live there. I try to understand the mentality. It is hardly possible to do it this way, but it brings me a lot closer than limiting myself to travel guides.
I chose a book by the only Yugoslavian Nobel laureate in literature, Ivo Andric, called “The Bridge on the Drina” before visiting Serbia. Andric received the award in 1961 “for the power of epic talent, which allowed him to fully reveal human destinies and problems associated with the history of his country.”
Andric said that “the problems of the past continue to be relevant to this day, because we are still facing the same issues.” It 100% encapsulates my view of the history, so it was not a coincidence that I chose this book.
But it was a harder read than I imagined.
The story begins with an introduction to the place — the Drina River, the town of Visegrad on both banks of the river. There was a stone bridge, “which connected Bosnia with Serbia, and through Serbia — with other provinces of the Turkish Empire, up to Istanbul.”
It is believed that the bridge was built by decree of a local native of the Ottoman vizier Mehmed Pasha Sokolovich in 1577.
Andric tells how the construction of the bridge could actually take place, what people could talk about, what could happen, how life would flow before and after. He tells these stories through the Balkan and Turkish myths and legends.
The bridge is the main character. It stands and along it pass Ottomans, Hungarians, Bosnians, Serbs, Muslims, Christians, armed and harmless, drunk and in love, old and young. Time passes, borders move, the destinies of the simple and the great are decided, empires fall and grow, and the bridge is a silent spectator of change, and time does not seem to exist at all.
“So in the gate, between the sky, the river and the mountains, generation after generation learned not to grieve too much about what the muddy water takes away. Here they absorbed the unconscious philosophy of the city: life is an inexplicable miracle, because, passing away and fading, it still remains, unbreakable and firm, “like a bridge on the Drina.”
I joined this paradigm of evaluation both from the outside and through people at the same time. It is very difficult to understand the particularities of Serbia or Bosnia through this. It’s surprisingly difficult, because they seemed extremely close to me. On the other hand, the Visegrad Bridge became my bridge-guide to a new world: to understand how life is on the border, or in a multinational society, with complex historical divisions, how it could affect modern life.
Maybe the “Bridge on the Drina” will also become someone else’s guide to the world of the Balkans.
However, it might seem that the book is narrowly ethnic, focusing on only one ethnic tribe within the Balkans. But absolutely not.
Andric thinks deeply and extensively about politics and leaders, about the endless series of wars and clashes, about the perception of historical events as a whole, in their very essence.
The book is imbued with philosophical reflections on the everyday life of people of different cultures and social status, about their life and aspirations, about youth and old age, and about human existence in general which has been an excitingly passionate subject for me lately.
“The most tragic and pitiful weaknesses of the inherent in the human race is undoubtedly its complete inability to foresee, so sharply contradicting all the other many of its gifts, abilities and knowledge.”
P. S. Now I want to visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina. At least to walk on this bridge😁
