43 pages • 1 hour read
Ivo AndricThe Bridge on the Drina
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1945A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Time
Over the course of the story, time becomes a mediating force, roughing out the bumps and crinkles in the cultural landscape that is the town of Višegrad. When large and seemingly epochal changes occur, it is the passage of time that reduces their importance and brings forth once again the status quo. Time heals and time helps people to forget, whether they are forgetting great tragedies, healing their wounds, or simply preserving old traditions whose history they cannot trace.
The most important thematic quality of time is its ability to preserve a characteristic inherent to the town of Višegrad. This character is described frequently: a love of relaxing on the kapia, a love of plum brandy, a love of spending (rather than saving) money, and the intermingling between both east and west, Turk and Serb. Though much changes in the town (including the occupying force, the bureaucrats, the technology, and the people), this local character remains in place. As much as time passes and as much as everything changes, everything also stays the same. In effect, this is because the local character is somewhat immortal though is prone to small changes. It updates and evolves, but the slow passage of time ensures that this is not noticed. From one generation to the next, these changes are small and incremental and always retain the same Višegrad spirit. Though the town depicted at the end of the novel is completely different from the one depicted at the beginning, it is the passage of time that has helped to maintain a clear and consistent character, providing a sense of local immortality that cannot be diminished.
As well as time passing in a cultural sense, the narrative structure of the novel helps to show the effect that time has on individuals. Across many chapters, characters appear and reappear. Throughout this time, they age and grow. Alihodja and Lotte, for instance, are both shown in their firebrand youth, when they ran successful businesses and seemed full of energy. However, the passage of time affects them both. In her old age, Lotte is brought down by a nervous breakdown. Alihodja suffers a heart attack. Time and aging changes these once indominable figures, demonstrating its strength, its power, and its importance. Time affects everyone.
Nationalism
The rise of nationalism in the novel is one of the elements of the downfall of Višegrad. The slowly solidifying borders, the creation of a national identity, and the fervent political beliefs of the students all culminate in the First World War, which brings destruction and death to Višegrad.
In the opening chapters, few people have any comprehension of nationality in the modern sense. There are vague allusions to east and west, as well as a knowledge of the Ottoman Empire and its power. Within the town, identity functions as an extension of local community. The Turks, the Serbs, the Jews, and the Gipsies all have tight-knit groups to which people belong and with whom they identify. Very gradually, there is an attempt to define countries along national lines. The townspeople are surprised one day to find bureaucrats walking through the woods, trying to establish an official border between Bosnia and Serbia. The idea seems strange and unwelcome, but after this border is created, the local people have an object against which to define themselves.
There is an increasing movement toward revolt among the Serbian communities, particularly those who now feel that they are on the wrong side of the border. In Višegrad, where Serbs and Turks have lived alongside one another for centuries, this growing idea of a national identity becomes an awkward subject. Community leaders try to placate their members and try to keep life as normal as possible. They try to maintain diplomatic relations on the kapia and in the market, ensuring that Višegrad does not become a hotbed of trouble. Even men like Alihodja, who resents the loss of Turkish privilege, argue against the use of violence. As the concept of a national identity becomes consecrated in the minds of the people, they no longer see themselves as townspeople in Višegrad but as Serbs or Turks who happen to live in Višegrad. Their sense of community expands, encompassing nation states rather than local communities.
This fire is stoked by the sudden acceleration in technology. The railway allows people to move around the country quickly, the newspapers allow Serbs in Višegrad to hear about Serbian revolts far away, and the existence of universities means that people from Višegrad now have easy access to political and philosophical materials and a discourse with which to express this identity. This change mirrors a global evolution; changes from the rest of the world bring nationalism into Višegrad. The culmination of this is the First World War, a conflict inspired by nationalist ideologies that brings destruction to the entire town.
Folklore
Though it is subtler than the importance of nationalism, the impact of folklore on the town of Višegrad is equally important. Over the centuries depicted in the novel, events and characters become enshrined in local legend. In doing so, they defy their own mortality and are remembered for the rest of time. However, their stories are often changed or modified. Occasionally, they lose all of their original context. As such, folklore is important, malleable, and easy to manipulate.
The creation of the bridge brings about many legends that are passed down from generation to generation in Višegrad. The opening chapter describes many of these: the Arab who lives beneath the bridge, the two children entombed in the structure, and the grave of Radisav that is visited by fairies. After the opening chapter, the following entries begin to describe these events in more detail. The death of Radisav is divorced from its anti-Ottoman origins, for instance, as the people learn to love the bridge. The story of the Arab is shown to be little more than a workplace accident that became famous due to the lack of racial diversity in the town; the presence of an Arab was enough to be remembered for centuries, combined with a fear of the other that suggested that he was an evil, malingering presence when, in fact, he was a learned and accomplished engineer.
The entombment of the two children is the most striking of these, however, as it is actually the tragic story of a mentally unstable woman whose twins were stillborn. Rather than tell her the truth, the people told her that her children were entombed in the bridge. She believed them and was seen everyday mourning and weeping. After the centuries pass, the woman’s version of events enters into the local folklore. Long after the Ottoman’s depart, the townspeople are willing to believe that they might have sacrificed two children in order to ensure the completion of the project. It is easy to see how this misconception could have been stoked for political reasons, slandering the former rulers in order to make the current rulers look better in comparison. As such, the way that folklore changes and grows over the course of time begins to take on a political element. Not all the changes are accidental; rather, they embody deep-lying political tensions and animosities that exist on an emotional level, perpetuated through subtext rather than being stated outright.
