The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric

The Bridge over the Drina showing the meeting place at the Kapia half way across

Ivo Andric standing by the Bridge over the Drina

Introduction

An essential accompaniment to this reflection is Katya Adler's recent BBC series on the Balkans. The segments on Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia are especially relevant. They graphically show that the Balkans still are a contested territory in the 2020s and are still fought over for dominance and control, now by China and Russia, with Europe coming late and ineffectually to the game. In the 1990s, the tragedy of Kosovo is a reminder of the toxicity of misplaced Serbian nationalism. Much more recently, the current Serbian leader, Milorad Dodik, was jailed for one year for attempting to destabilise the Balkan region once more.

This is not at all to say that Andric was in any sense comparable. He was fighting for independence for his country against the fading might of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Following World War I, he served as a diplomat for his beloved Yugoslavia, undertaking numerous complex and challenging assignments. In the second world war, he served as a Yugoslavian diplomat when Nazi Germany occupied Belgrade.

He also led an enormously creative life of the imagination, encompassing poetry, essays, and highly imaginative works of fiction. The decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the latter part of the 19th Century led to fierce competition between the rival colonising Empires of Germany, France, and Britain to fill the power vacuum, which in 1914 resulted in the outbreak of the First World War. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. He eventually died in 1961.

His two most impactful and powerful works are the twin pillars A Bosnian Chronicle and The Bridge over the Drina of his creative output, both masterworks. In the former, he evoked the battle for dominance between the imperial powers of the early 19th century: the emerging French Empire of Napoleon and the dynasty of the Hapsburg Monarchy in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The French Consul representing the invading Napoleonic Empire is Jean Daville, and Josef van Mitterer, the Austrian Consul. These two engage in their power games, all the while being looked on with dispassion by the Muslim Begs, whose ancestors have borne witness to such events for centuries.

The Bridge over the Drina covers over four centuries of Ottoman rule, culminating in a tragic climax in 1914, the first year of the First World War. For me, these works are sui generis, unique masterworks, to be placed on a par in my opinion, with others such as Roth's The Radetzki March or those of fellow Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann.

Andric actively opposed the power and influence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both in his political activity and in his poetry, prose, and extraordinary works of fiction. He was part of a Serbian independence group of agitators called Young Bosnians, or the Black Hand, one of whose members was a young 18-year-old Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip who in June 1914, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Dynasty. This was by the northern end of the Latin bridge in Sarajevo. Princip, like Andric, was inspired by dreams of the independent Pan-Slav Republic, which, after the end of the Second World War, became, for a while, under the leadership of President Tito, the Pan-Slav Republic of Yugoslavia. When asked later in life to what nationality he felt he belonged, he said he had always felt he was Yugoslavian first and foremost.

Gavrilo Princip

The Latin Bridge in Sarajevo where Princip carried out his assassination.

Andric's whole life was characterised by intense, unceasing political and cultural struggle, overcoming constant battles with illness along the way. Culturally, principally in A Bosnian Chronicle and The Bridge over the Drina, he created unique works of historical fiction drawing deeply from the wellsprings of regional Folk myths and legends. The books also contain philosophical reflections on time, life's meaning and, in the broadest sense, human destiny.

These works are heroic in their scope. Technically, they are works of historical fiction, but they are so powerful and memorable that, for me, they stand apart for their scope, originality, and depth of meaning.

Why does this book mean so much to me? I'm not Bosnian, nor do I have any family connections in the Balkan region. Perhaps this is the reason. My family was aspirational, working class, and the first generation to attend a university. But the family had no cultural heritage in itself. Culturally, in my early years, I felt empty, an unfilled vessel with no cultural or family heritage to draw from. Perhaps this is why I am so fascinated by countries and cultures that do possess it. The bridge is now universally acknowledged as one of the world's great monuments to civilisation and recognised as a World Heritage site by UNESCO. The book that tells the story of the Bridge through many centuries and the affecting, sometimes tragic lives of those who live around it, is itself in my opinion a landmark masterpiece.

I had the opportunity to visit the Balkan area when I undertook a lot of team training work for WHO Europe in 205-15 in the Balkan area. I got to know Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and other countries in South Eastern Europe shortly after the Balkan wars of the 1900s and after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. It was an area of the world that made a deep impression on me. One of my work friends was Bosnian, and I developed a special affection and interest in Bosnia. It was not long before I became acquainted with the work of Ivo Andric, and ever since then, I have been an admirer of both him and his work.

A brief biography

Andrić was born into a poor family on October 9, 1892, in Dolac, a small village near Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina. His father was a merchant, and he grew up in a multiethnic environment in Travnik.

Travnik, Bosnia Birthplace of Ivo Andric cerca 1900

Andric was born on 10th October 1892. At age six, Andrić began primary school. He later recounted that these were the happiest days of his life. He recalled how he spent many happy childhood years playing on and around the Bridge over the Drina, fishing for tiddlers and so on. He absorbed from his parents, family, and friends, as did many young Serbians of his age, the myths and legends of his Serbian heritage. At ten, he received a three-year scholarship from a Croat cultural group called Napredak (Progress) to study in Sarajevo. In the autumn of 1902, he was registered at the Great Sarajevo Gymnasium (Velika Sarajevska gimnazija), the oldest secondary school in Bosnia. While in Sarajevo, Andrić lived with his mother, who worked in a rug factory. The city was culturally diverse, reflecting a strong Germanic influence. The educational curriculum was designed to produce loyal subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy, which Andrić vehemently resisted. He probably felt manipulated into a particular worldview by his teachers, which may have accounted for his antipathy to them. In my case, I experienced something similar by being proudly shown by my Grammar School geography teacher in the 1960's the pink plastic globe showing the huge worldwide expanse of the British Empire.

He began writing in secondary school but received little encouragement from his mother. He recalled that when he showed her one of his first pieces, she replied: "Did you write this? What did you do that for?" Andrić was an avid reader in his youth. The young Andrić's literary interests varied greatly, ranging from the Greek and Latin Classics to the works of past and contemporary literary figures, including German and Austrian writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Mann, the French writers Michel de Montaigne, Pascal, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo and Guy de Maupassant, and the British writers Thomas Carlyle, Walter Scott and Joseph Conrad. Andrić also read the works of the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, the Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi, the Russian writer Nikolay Chernyshevsky, the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen, the American writers Walt Whitman and Henry James, and the Czechoslovak philosopher Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. Andrić was especially fond of Polish literature and later stated that it had greatly influenced him.

Andrić experienced difficulty in his studies, perhaps because he felt his teachers pushed a pro-Austro-Hungarian imperial position. This led to him feeling alienated from his teachers, and in mathematics, he had to repeat the sixth grade. Despite initial struggles, he excelled in languages, particularly Latin, Greek, and German, and began focusing on literature under the influence of his teachers.

In 1908, Austria-Hungary made a pre-emptive strike to gain control of a disintegrating political situation and officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, sparking resistance and resentment among South Slav nationalists like Andrić. In 1914, the assassination by Gavrilo Princip of Franz Ferdinand and his wife triggered the outbreak of the First World War. Princip was known to Andrić, closely linked to Andric in a variety of militant political activist groups such as The Black Hand or the Young Bosnians.

In late 1911, he was elected the first president of the Serbo-Croat Progressive Movement, a secret society promoting unity between Serb and Croat youth and opposing Austro-Hungarian rule. Andrić also joined the Young Bosnia movement and became one of its prominent members.

In 1912, Andrić registered at the University of Zagreb, initially studying mathematics and natural sciences before transferring to the University of Vienna, where he continued his studies while engaging in nationalist activities. His health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, leading to a series of transfers between universities. On June 28, 1914, Andrić learned of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, by the Bridge Latin Bridge, one much smaller than the Bridge over the Drina.

Following the assassination, Andrić was arrested for "anti-state activities" and imprisoned in Split. He spent time in various prisons, reading extensively and learning languages. Released in March 1915 due to lack of evidence, he was exiled to a village near Travnik, where he began researching the history of Bosnia's religious communities. He undertook a PHD entitled 'The development of the Spiritual Life of Bosnia under the influence of Turkish Sovereignty'. After World War I, Andrić resumed his studies and began to establish himself as a writer. He held various government positions, including a secretarial role in the Ministry of Religion, which enabled him to continue writing. His first collection of short stories was published in 1924, and he gained recognition in literary circles. Andrić's diplomatic also career progressed, leading him to various postings across Europe. His written works continued to reflect his experiences and observations of the cultures he encountered.

During the German occupation of Yugoslavia in the Second World War, Andrić served as ambassador to Germany. He was critical of the Axis powers and used his position to assist Polish prisoners to escape. When the Germans invaded Yugoslavia, Andrić chose to remain in Belgrade. He could have escaped as many others did, but he chose to stay. This, in effect, was a kind of house arrest, which ironically gave him the freedom to begin to write his long contemplated Bosnian Trilogy.

After the war, Andrić's works gained widespread acclaim. In 1945, he published three novels, Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge on the Drina) and Travnička Veronika (The Chronicles of Travnik), and The Woman from Sarajevo, which confirmed and solidified his world status as a great literary figure. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961 for his overall contribution, which was recognised in the Nobel Citation for "the epic force with which he traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country". These are on the same level, in my opinion, as his life, which was just as epic and intermingled with human history, conflict and tragedy as the extraordinary books he wrote. He married Milica Babić in 1958, but his health declined in the following years. He died on March 13, 1975, in Belgrade. His remains were cremated, and he was buried in the Alley of Distinguished Citizens in Belgrade's New Cemetery. Andrić's influence on literature is profound, with his works continuing to be studied and celebrated. He remains a significant figure both in his political and creative achievements.

The novel

The Bridge on the Drina is a work of vast historical imagination, filled with numerous dramatic events spanning four centuries. Through the symbolism of the bridge, it traces Ottoman, Turkish and Bosnian history from 1516 to 1914, interweaving several narratives in the depiction of a borderline town in which different ethnicities—Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, Muslims, Roma people, and Sephardic Jews—mingled and lived together, most of the time in peace. These diverse peoples revealed their struggles to conquer nature and survive in the turmoil of history and the disasters of nature, such as plagues and engulfing floods. The Bridge embodies this tremendous national story of survival against the odds.

The novel starts before the Bridge existed when the surly Ferryman Jamak ferries travellers across the Drina when it pleases him to do so. When a young Christian boy from the vicinity of Višegrad was taken from his mother by the Ottomans as part of the devşirme levy, or blood levy, one of many Christian boys who experienced this fate during the Ottoman Empire's 500-year-long occupation of that region, and was converted to Islam. The boy's mother followed her son, grieving and wailing until she reached the Drina River, where he was taken across by ferry and she can no longer follow. He was converted to Islam and became known as Mehmed-paša Sokolović. This young boy conceived of building the Bridge in memory of his mother, who he would never see again.

Of the Bridge on the Drina, it is often said that the real hero is the Bridge itself, symbolising Bosnian strength and durability, over centuries, and many crises and obstacles. If there is a hero, it is probably Mehmed Pasha Sokolov, who rose from obscurity to become the key figure in envisioning and ensuring the Bridge's successful construction. In fact, it is called the Mehmed Pasha Sokolov Bridge.

Mehmed became an officer at the Sultan's court, then Admiral of the Fleet, the Sultan's son-in-law, a general and a statesman. 'He waged wars that were for the most part victorious, on three continents and extended the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire. For these sixty years or so, he served three Sultans, experienced both good and evil as only rare and chosen people may experience them, and raised himself to heights of power and authority unknown to us, which few men reach and few men keep. Finally, after all this, he was brutally murdered by a Turkish Dervish.

The person entrusted with overseeing the building of the Bridge was Abidaga, who, when thwarted, was cruel and vicious in the extreme. He was also deeply corrupt, using the money allocated to him to enrich himself, never using it to pay the serfs under his control. Instead, he ruled by terror, torturing the serfs under his command. Many were hostile to him and the unwanted task of building the bridge.

One such was Radislav, who was tortured to death in a kind of Turkish crucifixion.

After a few seasons of terror, Abidaga was replaced by Arif Beg, who was strictly honest, unlike the embezzler Abidaga, a tall man who successfully oversaw the completion of the bridge. The construction of the Bridge began in 1566, including the Kapia, a place where travellors could stop, take tea or coffee, gossip exchanged, and the state of the world discussed. The early 1570s completed the bridge. A Caravanserai (or han), a kind of resting house for travellers, was also built on one side of the bridge.

  Example of an Ottoman Caravanserai

The novel itself begins with the terrifying story of how a young mother had her twin babies, Stoja and Ostoja, taken from her and entombed in the bridge itself." for it could not be otherwise. But Rade the Mason took pity on her and left openings in the peer through which the unhappy mother could feed her sacrificed babies. In memory of that the mother's milk has flowed from the stone and left an indelible mark on it." They were buried inside the Bridge, to placate the demons (vile) that thwarted its construction.

Every important moment in the lives of the local residents revolved around the bridge, with Christian children crossing it to be baptized on the opposite bank and children of all religions playing around it. As time progressed, legends developed around the bridge's history. Many tragic events, fire, floods, plagues, ebbed and flowed over the decades, and became past of its shared history. Centuries passed and with them the story of human lives, many obscure, some noble, some tragic.

In one such incident, the beautiful, imperious Fata Avdaga was on her way to a forced marriage, dressed in her wedding dress, to a man she did not want and felt she could not marry. However, the rigid Muslim rules required her to do so. Halfway across, she dismounted from her horse onto the parapet of the Bridge by the Kapia and threw herself off into the Drina. Her body washed ashore downstream. There is now a mural on the Bridge memorialising her tragic fate.

The Bridge itself was subject to the tides of history and in the early1800's witnessed the fall of the Ottoman Turkish empire and the rise of the Austro-Hungarian, which itself toppled and fell in the early years of the nineteenth century. The book remorselessly focuses on these later catastrophic events, which triggered the outbreak of the First World War.

Thus the Bridge itself becomes a testament to history, experiencing many traumas in the process, just as do its inhabitants, and the civilisations who have been party to these events.

The Kapia on the bridge was the site of innumerable events, great or small, over the centuries, some tragic and some comic. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the one-eyed, drunken reprobate Corkum hilariously survived, swaying to and fro on the parapet, skidding and dancing on the winter ice, while it would have been far easier to have skidded off into the Drina. A tragic incident later involved a young, somewhat gullible Austrian soldier, Mita, who was stationed on the Kapia to keep guard. But a young, alluring Turkish beauty distracted him from his duties, daydreaming about her charms. His negligence on duty was discovered, but before he could be court-marshalled, he shot himself with a rifle.

As the book progresses, myth and legend overlap with the real events of history and coalesce with them. Historically, nationalist tensions arose in the 19th century with the outbreak of the First Serbian Uprising in present-day central Serbia. The Turks constructed a blockhouse on the bridge, building stakes on which they would pin the heads of suspected rebels. One evening, the blockhouse burnt down. As the Ottoman Empire continued to decline in the ensuing decades, Bosnia was ravaged by plague. After the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Serbia and Montenegro became fully independent countries. Austria-Hungary received a right to occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina and turn it into a protectorate.

The book describes dispassionately, poignantly, how the Austro-Hungarian occupation shocked the town's residents, and the local people experienced difficulties accepting the numerous changes and reforms accompanying Austro-Hungarian rule. A troop barracks was built at the site of the Caravanserai, and the town experienced a substantial influx of foreigners. People from all parts of Austria-Hungary would arrive, opening new businesses and bringing the customs of their native regions with them. When a narrow gauge railway line was built to connect Sarajevo, the bridge lost its strategic importance. Local children began to be educated in Sarajevo, some continuing their studies in Vienna.

They would bring home new social and cultural ideas from abroad, among them the concepts of trade unions and socialism, while newly established newspapers acquaint the town's inhabitants with nationalism.

Tensions flared following the assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in 1898. This is evoked ominously: " The last years of the nineteenth century, years without upheavals or significant events, flowed past like a broad calm river before reaching its unknown mouth. Judging from them, it seemed as if tragic events had ceased to disturb the life of the european peoples...."

"Thus it came as a cataclysmic shock when one summer day, after so many years of apparent tranquility, when her Majesty the Empress Elizabeth had died in Geneva, the victim of a dastardly assassination by an Italian anarchist, Lucheni."

Elisabeth, knick-named Sisi, was young, and beautiful. She had found compliance within the strict confines of the monarchy very difficult, and did her best to find ways to rebel against it. It led to much coverage in the press of the time, and her death highlighted the vulnerability of members of the Austro-Hungarian royal family, prefiguring the assassination of Franz Joseph and his wife in 1914, by Gavrilo Princip.

A newspaper illustration of the Death of Princess Elizbeth in 1898

In 1908, Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, sparking tensions with Serbia, which the Austro-Hungarians regarded as a serious obstacle to their further conquest of the Balkans. The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 saw the Ottomans almost entirely forced from the region, and relations between Austria-Hungary and Serbia deteriorated further. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the local authorities began to incite Višegrad's non-Serb population against the town's Serb residents. The Bridge with the old road to Sarajevo suddenly regained its importance, as the railway line was not adequate to transport all the material and the Austro-Hungarian soldiers who were preparing to attack Serbia in the autumn of 1914. The invasion was swiftly repulsed, and the Serbians advanced across the Drina, prompting the Austro-Hungarians to evacuate Višegrad and destroy portions of the bridge.

The story comes to a tragic climax in 1914. The ominous events that were to engulf the whole world are prefigured in several ways. Poignantly, nature seemed to be at peace in the early Spring in Višegrad, and a very fertile spring and summer beckons for the town's inhabitants. There were lovers' tiffs, the blossoming of young love. Nikolai Glasiconin and Zorka have fallen in love, and he proposes, but she hesitates, asking for a month to consider. Then the war starts, and their chances of happiness are lost. The sad fate of the hotel owner, Lotte, a widow, is especially poignant. She had worked tremendously hard throughout her life, building up her and the hotel's fortunes. She has been an astute businesswoman who amassed a considerable fortune over her life. She is very aware of her Jewish heritage. Despite her best efforts to support her family, she is gradually overwhelmed by the traumatic events surrounding her, leading to her ruination. She has made financial investments that have never let her down before. She provides marriage dowries, sending her own and her families' children to expensive schools in Vienna. But all her plans end in failure and ignominy, through the fecklessness of some of her relatives and bad luck amongst her children and grandchildren. It is as though her personal failures, through no fault of her own, prefigure a similar fate for the town of Višegrad, the bridge itself, which is badly damaged, and the smashing of the old world order in the catastrophe of the First World War.

Three arches of the bridge were destroyed in the First World War.

And four in the Second.

The Bridge however has survived. All damage to the bridge has been lovingly repaired. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. I am sure that Andric's own lifetime of experience of war and bombing powerfully affected how he wrote the book, particularly the sad and traumatic last pages.

The Serbian community were holding their regular annual summer festival at Mezalin, a summer celebration with food and dancing, which was interrupted by the news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian patriot nationalist (Gavrilo Princip). Real persecution of the Serbs began, and a gallows was erected in the square, and a series of hangings began. A continuous barrage of shells from the retreating Austro-Hungarian army damaged the bridge.

The store owner, Alihodja, reflects on his life in many forced exiles and migrations. Alihhodja is left alone, and all the others have fled from the barrage. A shell explodes nearby; he sees the Bridge has been partially destroyed. He tries to walk home but collapses and dies, 'breathing out his life in short gasps.'

Appendix: Longer version of his life drawn from Wikipaedia

Andrić was born in the village of Dolac, near Travnik. on 9 October 1892, while his mother, Katarina (née Pejić), was in the town visiting relatives. Andrić's parents were both Catholic Croats. He was his parents' only child. His father, Antun, was a struggling silversmith who resorted to working as a school janitor in Sarajevo, where he lived with his wife and infant son. At the age of 32, Antun died of tuberculosis, like most of his siblings. Andrić was only two years old at the time. Widowed and penniless, Andrić's mother took him to Višegrad and placed him in the care of her sister-in-law Ana and brother-in-law Ivan Matković, a police officer. The couple were financially stable but childless, so they agreed to look after the infant and brought him up as their own. Meanwhile, Andrić's mother returned to Sarajevo seeking employment. Andrić was raised in a country that had changed little since the Ottoman period despite being mandated to Austria-Hungary at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Eastern and Western culture intermingled in Bosnia to a far greater extent than anywhere else in the Balkan peninsula. Having lived there from an early age, Andrić came to cherish Višegrad, calling it "my real home". Though it was a small provincial town (or kasaba), Višegrad proved an enduring source of inspiration. It was a multi-ethnic town, the predominant groups being Serbs (Orthodox Christians) and Bosniaks (Muslims). From an early age, Andrić closely observed the customs of the local people. These customs, and life in eastern Bosnia, would later find expression in his written works, especially in A Bosnian Chronicle and The Bridge over the Drina. Andrić made his first friends in Višegrad, playing with them along the Drina River and the town's famous Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, which he later wrote of in the Bridge over the Drina. At age six, Andrić began primary school. He later said that these were the happiest days of his life. At the age of ten, he received a three-year scholarship from a Croat cultural group called Napredak (Progress) to study in Sarajevo. In the autumn of 1902, he was registered at the Great Sarajevo Gymnasium (Serbo-Croatian: Velika Sarajevska gimnazija),the oldest secondary school in Bosnia. While in Sarajevo, Andrić lived with his mother, who worked in a rug factory. At the time, the city was overflowing with civil servants from all parts of Austria-Hungary, and thus, many languages could be heard in its restaurants, cafés and on its streets. Culturally, the city boasted a strong Germanic element, and the curriculum in educational institutions was designed to reflect this. From a total of 83 teachers who worked at Andrić's school over a twenty-year period, only three were natives of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The teaching programme was devoted to producing dedicated supporters of the Austro-Habsburg Monarchy. Andrić disapproved. "All that came at secondary school and university," he wrote, "was rough, crude, automatic, without concern, faith, humanity, warmth or love."

Andrić experienced difficulty in his studies, finding mathematics particularly challenging, and had to repeat the sixth grade. Nonetheless, he excelled in languages, particularly Latin, Greek and German. Although he initially showed substantial interest in natural sciences, he later began focusing on literature due to the influence of his two Croat instructors, writer and politician Đuro Šurmin and poet Tugomir Alaupović. Of all his teachers in Sarajevo, Andrić liked Alaupović best, and the two became lifelong friends. Andrić felt he was destined to become a writer.

He held several Serb writers in high esteem, particularly Karadžić, Njegoš, Kočić and Aleksa Šantić. Andrić also admired the Slovene poets Fran Levstik, Josip Murn and Oton Župančič, and translated some of their works. Kafka appears to have had a significant influence on Andrić's prose, and his philosophical outlook was informed strongly by the works of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. At one point in his youth, Andrić also took an interest in Chinese and Japanese literature.

Andrić published his first two poems in 1911 in a journal called Bosanska vila (Bosnian Fairy), which promoted Serbo-Croat unity. He was still a secondary school student. Prior to World War I, his poems, essays, reviews, and translations appeared in journals such as Vihor (Whirlwind), Savremenik (The Contemporary), Hrvatski pokret (The Croatian Movement), and Književne novine (Literary News). One of Andrić's favourite literary forms was lyrical, reflective prose, and many of his essays and shorter pieces are prose poems. Andrić's translations of August Strindberg, Walt Whitman, and a number[who?] of Slovene authors also appeared around this time. He commented 'The whole of our society is snoring ungracefully; only the poets and revolutionaries are awake."

In 1908, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the disgust of Slav nationalists like Andrić. In late 1911, Andrić was elected the first president of the Serbo-Croat Progressive Movement (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Srpsko-Hrvatska Napredna Organizacija, of which he was elected President. This Sarajevo-based secret society promoted unity and friendship between Serb and Croat youth and opposed the Austro-Hungarian occupation. Its members were vehemently criticized by both Serb and Croat nationalists, who dismissed them as "traitors to their nations". Unfazed, Andrić continued agitating against the Austro-Hungarians. On 28 February 1912, he spoke before a crowd of 100 student protesters at Sarajevo's railway station, urging them to continue their demonstrations. The Austro-Hungarian police later began harassing and prosecuting SHNO members. Ten were expelled from their schools or penalised in some other way, though Andrić himself escaped punishment. Andrić also joined the South Slav student movement known as Young Bosnia, becoming one of its most prominent members.

In 1912, Andrić registered at the University of Zagreb, receiving a scholarship from an educational foundation in Sarajevo. He enrolled in the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, not because he was good in these subjects, but because because these were the only fields for which scholarships were offered. Still, he was able to take some courses in Croatian literature. Andrić was well received by South Slav nationalists there and regularly participated in on-campus demonstrations. This led to his being reprimanded by the university. In 1913, after completing two semesters in Zagreb, Andrić transferred to the University of Vienna, where he resumed his studies. Whilst in Vienna, he joined South Slav students in promoting the cause of Yugoslav unity. He worked closely with two Yugoslav student societies, the Serbian cultural society Zora (Dawn) and the Croatian student club Zvonimir, which shared his views on "integral Yugoslavism" (the eventual assimilation of all South Slav cultures into one). Despite finding like-minded students in Vienna, the city's climate affected Andrić's health. He contracted tuberculosis and became seriously ill, then asked to leave Vienna on medical grounds and continue his studies elsewhere.  For a time, Andrić had considered transferring to a school in Russia but ultimately decided to complete his fourth semester at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 1914, he contributed to Hrvatska mlada lirika (Croatian Youth Lyrics) and continued to publish translations, poems and reviews.

On 28 June 1914, Andrić heard of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The assassin was Gavrilo Princip, a Young Bosnian and close friend of Andrić who had been one of the first to join the SHNO in 1911. Upon hearing the news, Andrić decided to leave Kraków and return to Bosnia. He travelled by train to Zagreb, and in mid-July, departed for the coastal city of Split with his friend, the poet and fellow South Slav nationalist Vladimir Čerina. Andrić and Čerina spent the rest of July at the latter's summer home. As the month progressed, the two became increasingly uneasy about the escalating political crisis that followed the Archduke's assassination which eventually led to the outbreak of World War I. They then went to Rijeka, where Čerina left Andrić without explanation, only saying he urgently needed to go to Italy. Several days later, Andrić learned that the police were seeking Čerina.

By the time war was declared, Andrić had returned to Split, feeling exhausted and ill. Given that most of his friends had already been arrested for nationalist activities, he was certain the same fate would befall him. Despite not being involved in the assassination plot, in late July or early August, Andrić was arrested for "anti-state activities" and imprisoned in Split. He was subsequently transferred to a prison in Šibenik, then to Rijeka and finally to Maribor, where he arrived on 19 August. Plagued by tuberculosis, Andrić passed the time reading, talking to his cellmates and learning languages.

By the following year, the case against Andrić was dropped due to lack of evidence, and he was released from prison on 20 March 1915. The authorities exiled him to the village of Ovčarevo, near Travnik. He arrived there on 22 March and was placed under the supervision of local Franciscan friars. Andrić soon befriended the friar Alojzije Perčinlić and began researching the history of Bosnia's Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities under Ottoman rule. Andrić lived in the parish headquarters, and the Franciscans gave him access to the monastery chronicles. In return, he assisted the parish priest and taught religious songs to pupils at the monastery school. Andrić's mother soon visited him and offered to serve as the parish priest's housekeeper. "Mother is very happy," Andrić wrote. "It has been three whole years since she saw me. And she can't grasp all that has happened to me in that time, nor the whole of my crazy, cursed existence. She cries, kisses me and laughs in turn. Like a mother." Andrić was later transferred to a prison in Zenica, where Perčinlić regularly visited him. The Austro-Hungarian Army declared Andrić a political threat in March 1917 and exempted him from armed service. He was thus registered with a non-combat unit until February of the following year. On 2 July 1917, Emperor Charles declared a general amnesty for all of Austria-Hungary's political prisoners. His freedom of movement was restored, and Andrić visited Višegrad and reunited with several of his school friends. He remained in Višegrad until late July, when he was mobilized. Because of his poor health, Andrić was admitted to a Sarajevo hospital and thus avoided service.

He was then transferred to the Reservospital in Zenica, where he received treatment for several months before continuing to Zagreb. There, Andrić again fell seriously ill and sought treatment at the Sisters of Mercy hospital, which had become a gathering place for dissidents and former political prisoners.

In January 1918, Andrić joined several South Slav nationalists in editing a short-lived pan-Yugoslav periodical called Književni jug (Literary South).[29] Here and in other periodicals, Andrić published book reviews, plays, poetry , and translations. Over the course of several months in early 1918, Andrić's health began to deteriorate, and his friends believed he was nearing death. However, he recovered and spent the spring of 1918 in Krapina writing Ex ponto, a book of prose poetry published in July. It was his first book.

The end of World War I saw the disintegration of Austria-Hungary, which was replaced by a newly established South Slav state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929). In late 1918, Andrić re-enrolled at the University of Zagreb and resumed his studies. By January 1919, he fell ill again and was back in the hospital. Fellow writer Ivo Vojnović became worried for his friend's life and appealed to Andrić's old schoolteacher, Tugomir Alaupović (who had just been appointed the new kingdom's Minister of Religious Affairs), to use his connections and help Andrić pay for treatment abroad. In February, Andrić asked for help finding a government job in Belgrade. Eventually, Andrić chose to seek treatment in Split, where he stayed for the following six months. During his time on the Mediterranean coast, Andrić completed a second volume of prose poetry, titled Nemiri, which was published the following year. By the time Andrić left, he had almost fully recovered, and quipped that he was cured by the "air, sun and figs." Troubled by news that his uncle was seriously ill, Andrić left Split in August and went to him in Višegrad. He returned to Zagreb two weeks later.

By 1919, Andrić had acquired his undergraduate degree in South Slavic history and literature at the University of Zagreb. He was in perennially impoverished, and earned a meagre sum through his writing and editorial work. By mid-1919, he realised that he would be unable to financially support himself and his ageing mother, aunt and uncle for much longer, and his appeals for help securing a government job became more frequent. In September 1919, his friend Alaupović offered him a secretarial position at the Ministry of Religion, which Andrić accepted.

In late October, Andrić left for Belgrade. He became involved in the city's literary circles and soon acquired the distinction of being one of Belgrade's most popular young writers. Though the Belgrade press wrote positively of him, Andrić disliked being a public figure and went into seclusion and distanced himself from his fellow writers. At the same time, he grew dissatisfied with his government job and wrote to Alaupović asking for a transfer to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 20 February, Andrić's request was granted, and he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry's mission at the Vatican. Andrić left Belgrade soon after, and reported for duty in late February. At this time, he published his first short story, Put Alije Đerzeleza (The Journey of Alija Đerzelez). He complained that the consulate was understaffed and that he did not have enough time to write. All evidence suggests he had a strong distaste for the ceremony and pomp that accompanied his work in the diplomatic service.  Around this time, he began writing in the Ekavian dialect used in Serbia, and ceased writing in the Ijekavian dialect used in his native Bosnia. Andrić soon requested another assignment, and in November, he was transferred to Bucharest.[36] Once again, his health deteriorated. Nevertheless, Andrić found his consular duties there did not require much effort, so he focused on writing, contributed articles to a Romanian journal and even had time to visit his family in Bosnia. In 1922, Andrić requested another reassignment. He was transferred to the consulate in Trieste, where he arrived on 9 December. The city's damp climate only caused Andrić's health to deteriorate further, and on his doctor's advice, he transferred to Graz in January 1923. He arrived in the city on 23 January, and was appointed vice-consul. Andrić soon enrolled at the University of Graz, resumed his schooling and began working on his doctoral dissertation in Slavic studies.

In August 1923, Andrić experienced an unexpected career setback. A law had been passed stipulating that all civil servants had to have a doctoral degree. As Andrić had not completed his dissertation, he was informed that his employment would be terminated. Andrić's well-connected friends intervened on his behalf and appealed to Foreign Minister Momčilo Ninčić, citing Andrić's diplomatic and linguistic abilities. In February 1924, the Foreign Ministry decided to retain Andrić as a day worker with the salary of a vice-consul. This gave him the opportunity to complete his Ph.D. Three months later, on 24 May, Andrić submitted his dissertation to a committee of examiners at the University of Graz, who gave it their approval. This allowed Andrić to take the examinations necessary for his Ph.D. to be confirmed. He passed both his exams, and on 13 July, received his Ph.D. The committee of examiners recommended that Andrić's dissertation be published. Andrić chose the title Die Entwicklung des geistigen Lebens in Bosnien unter der Einwirkung der türkischen Herrschaft (The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia Under the Influence of Turkish Rule). In it, he characterized the Ottoman occupation as a yoke that still loomed over Bosnia. "The effect of Turkish rule was absolutely negative," he wrote. "The Turks could bring no cultural content or sense of higher mission, even to those South Slavs who accepted Islam."

Several days after receiving his Ph.D., Andrić wrote to the Foreign Minister asking to be reinstated and submitted a copy of his dissertation, university documents and a medical certification that deemed him to be in good health. In September, the Foreign Ministry granted his request. Andrić stayed in Graz until 31 October, when he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry's Belgrade headquarters. During his two years in Belgrade, Andrić spent much of his time writing. His first collection of short stories was published in 1924, and he received a prize from the Serbian Royal Academy of which he became a full-fledged member in February 1926. In October 1926, he was assigned to the consulate in Marseille and again appointed vice-consul. On 9 December 1926, he was transferred to the Yugoslav embassy in Paris. Andrić's time in France was marked by increasing loneliness and isolation. His uncle had died in 1924, his mother the following year, and upon arriving in France, he was informed that his aunt had died as well. "Apart from official contacts," he wrote Alaupović, "I have no company whatever." Andrić spent much of his time in the Paris archives poring over the reports of the French consulate in Travnik between 1809 and 1814, material he would use in Travnička hronika,[g] one of his future novels.

In April 1928, Andrić was posted to Madrid as vice-consul. While there, he wrote essays on Simón Bolívar and Francisco Goya, and began work on the novel Prokleta avlija (The Damned Yard). In June 1929, he was named secretary of the Yugoslav legation to Belgium and Luxembourg in Brussels. On 1 January 1930, he was sent to Switzerland as part of Yugoslavia's permanent delegation to the League of Nations in Geneva, and was named deputy delegate the following year. In 1933, Andrić returned to Belgrade; two years later, he was named head of the political department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 5 November 1937, Andrić became assistant to Milan Stojadinović, Yugoslavia's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. That year, France decorated him with the Order of the Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour.

World War II. Andrić was appointed Yugoslavia's ambassador to Germany in late March or early April 1939. Yugoslavia's King Alexander had been assassinated in Marseille in 1934. He was succeeded by his ten-year-old son Peter, and a regency council led by Peter's uncle Paul was established to rule in his place until he turned 18. Paul's government established closer economic and political ties with Germany. In March 1941, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact, pledging support for Germany and Italy. Though the negotiations had occurred behind Andrić's back, in his capacity as ambassador he was obliged to attend the document's signing in Berlin. Andrić had previously been instructed to delay agreeing to the Axis powers' demands for as long as possible. He was highly critical of the move, and on 17 March, wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking to be relieved of his duties. Ten days later, a group of pro-Western Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers overthrew the regency and proclaimed Peter of age. This led to a breakdown in relations with Germany and prompted Adolf Hitler to order Yugoslavia's invasion. Given these circumstances, Andrić's position was an extremely difficult one. Nevertheless, he used the little influence he had and attempted unsuccessfully to assist Polish prisoners following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Prior to their invasion of his country, the Germans had offered Andrić the opportunity to evacuate to neutral Switzerland. He declined on the basis that his staff would not be allowed to go with him. On 6 April 1941, the Germans and their allies invaded Yugoslavia. The country capitulated on 17 April and was subsequently partitioned between the Axis powers. In early June, Andrić and his staff were taken back to German-occupied Belgrade, where some were jailed. Andrić was retired from the diplomatic service, but refused to receive his pension or cooperate in any way with the puppet government that the Germans had installed in Serbia. He was spared jail, but the Germans kept him under close surveillance throughout the occupation. Because of his Croat heritage, they had offered him the chance to settle in Zagreb, then the capital of the fascist puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia, but he declined. Andrić spent the following three years in a friend's Belgrade apartment in conditions that some biographers liken to house arrest. In August 1941, the puppet authorities in German-occupied Serbia issued the Appeal to the Serbian Nation, calling upon the country's inhabitants to abstain from the communist-led rebellion against the Germans; Andrić refused to sign. He directed most of his energies towards writing, and during this time completed two of his best known novels, Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge on the Drina) and Travnička chronika (A Bosnian Chronicle).

This period of his life must have been paradoxically, something of a blessing in disguise. It was a respite from his unceasing political struggles, and perhaps his tuberculosis improved a little. Also it allowed him to write in just three years the two most important and influential novels of his life, the foundation on which his award of the Nobel Prize was awarded in 1961.

In mid-1942, Andrić sent a message of sympathy to Draža Mihailović, the leader of the royalist Chetniks, one of two resistance movements vying for power in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia, the other being Josip Broz Tito's communist Partisans. In 1944, Andrić was forced to leave his friend's apartment during the Allied bombing of Belgrade and evacuate the city. As he joined a column of refugees, he became ashamed that he was fleeing by himself, in contrast to the masses of people accompanied by their children, spouses and infirm parents. "I looked myself up and down," he wrote, "and saw I was saving only myself and my overcoat." In the ensuing months, Andrić refused to leave the apartment, even during the heaviest bombing. That October, the Red Army and the Partisans drove the Germans out of Belgrade, and Tito proclaimed himself Yugoslavia's ruler.

Andrić initially had a precarious relationship with the communists because he had previously been an official in the royalist government. He returned to public life only once the Germans had been forced out of Belgrade. Na Drini ćuprija was published in March 1945. It was followed by Travnička Chronika that September and Gospođica[k] that November. Na Drini ćuprija came to be regarded as Andrić's magnum opus and was proclaimed a classic of Yugoslav literature by the communists. It chronicles the history of the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge and the town of Višegrad from the bridge's construction in the 16th century until the outbreak of World War I. The second novel, Travnička Chronika, follows a French diplomat in Bosnia during the Napoleonic Wars. The third, Gospođica, revolves around the life of a Sarajevan woman. 

In the post-war period, Andrić also published several short story collections, some travel memoirs, and a number of essays on writers such as Vuk Karadžić, Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, and Petar Kočić. In November 1946, Andrić was elected vice-president of the Society for the Cultural Cooperation of Yugoslavia with the Soviet Union. The same month, he was named president of the Yugoslav Writers' Union. The following year, he became a member of the People's Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In April 1950, Andrić became a deputy in the National Assembly of Yugoslavia. He was decorated by the Presidium of the National Assembly for his services to the Yugoslav people in 1952. In 1953, his career as a parliamentary deputy came to an end. The following year, Andrić published the novella Prokleta avlija (The Damned Yard), which tells of life in an Ottoman prison in Istanbul. That December, he was admitted into the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the country's ruling party.

On 27 September 1958, the 66-year-old Andrić married Milica Babić, a costume designer at the National Theatre of Serbia who was almost twenty years his junior. Earlier, he had announced it was "probably better" that a writer never marry. "He was perpetually persecuted by a kind of fear," a close friend recalled. "It seemed as though he had been born afraid, and that is why he married so late. He simply did not dare enter that area of life."

By the late 1950s, Andrić's works had been translated into a number of languages. In 1958 the Association of Writers of Yugoslavia nominated Andrić as its first ever candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. On 26 October 1961, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature by the Swedish Academy.

Documents released 50 years later revealed that the Nobel Committee had selected Andrić over writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck and E.M. Forster. The Committee cited "the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from his country's history". Once the news was announced, Andrić's Belgrade apartment was swarmed by reporters, and he publicly thanked the Nobel Committee for selecting him as the winner of that year's prize. Andrić donated the entirety of his prize money, which amounted to some 30 million dinars, and prescribed that it be used to purchase library books in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Nobel Prize ensured Andrić received global recognition. The following March, he fell ill while on a trip to Cairo and had to return to Belgrade for an operation. He was obliged to cancel all promotional events in Europe and North America, but his works continued to be reprinted and translated into numerous languages. Judging by letters he wrote at the time, Andrić felt burdened by the attention but did his best not to show it publicly. Upon receiving the Nobel Prize, the number of awards and honours bestowed upon him multiplied. He received the Order of the Republic in 1962, as well as 27 July Award of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the AVNOJ Award in 1967, and the Order of the Hero of Socialist Labour in 1972. In addition to being a member of the Yugoslav and Serbian academies of sciences and arts, he also became a correspondent of their Bosnian and Slovenian counterparts, and received honorary doctorates from the universities of Belgrade, Sarajevo and Kraków.

Andrić's wife died on 16 March 1968. His health deteriorated steadily and he travelled little in his final years. He continued to write until 1974, when his health took another turn for the worse. In December 1974, he was admitted to a Belgrade hospital. He soon fell into a coma, and died in the Military Medical Academy at 1:15 a.m. on 13 March 1975, aged 82. His remains were cremated, and on 24 April, the urn containing his ashes was buried at the Alley of Distinguished Citizens in Belgrade's New Cemetery. The ceremony was attended by about 10,000 residents of Belgrade

The occupation comes as a shock to the residents of the town, which has remained largely unchanged since the time of the bridge's completion, and the local people experience difficulties accepting the numerous changes and reforms that accompany Austro-Hungarian rule. A barrack is built at the site of the caravanserai and the town experiences a substantial influx of foreigners. People from all parts of Austria-Hungary arrive, opening new businesses and bringing the customs of their native regions with them. A narrow gauge railway line is built to Sarajevo and the bridge loses much of its strategic importance.

Local children begin to be educated in Sarajevo, and some go on to continue their studies in Vienna. They bring home new social and cultural ideas from abroad, among them the concepts of trade unions and socialism, while newly established newspapers acquaint the town's inhabitants with nationalism. Tensions flare following the assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in 1898. In 1908, Austria-Hungary formally annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina, sparking tensions with Serbia, which the Austro-Hungarians come to regard as a serious obstacle to their further conquest of the Balkans. The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 see the Ottomans almost completely forced from the region, and relations between Austria-Hungary and Serbia deteriorate further. The significance of the middle portion of the bridge also becomes undermined, as residents of different ethnicities become suspicious and wary of one another. In June 1914, Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, setting off a chain of events that lead to the outbreak of World War I. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, and the local authorities begin to incite Višegrad's non-Serb population against the town's Serb residents. The bridge with the old road to Sarajevo suddenly regains its importance, as the railway line is not adequate to transport all the materiel and soldiers who are preparing to attack Serbia in the autumn of 1914. Austria-Hungary's invasion is swiftly repulsed and the Serbians advance across the Drina, prompting the Austro-Hungarians to evacuate Višegrad and destroy portions of the bridge.