Summary
Ivo Andric: Bridge on the Drina | Travnička hronika
The novel Na Drina ćuprija is the best-known work of the Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić. In the novel, the action takes place around the bridge on the Drina in Višegrad. At the beginning of the novel, Andrić explains how people managed until there was no bridge, the construction of the bridge and later the life stories of the people who lived around it. In the novel, the bridge is a symbol of a solid building that is eternally present, while human lives are fleeting.
The novel "Travnička hronika" (1945) imitates the narrative discourse of the chronicle, and covers the historical period from the arrival of the French and Austrian consuls to the vizier's lawn in 1807 and their departure after the fall of Napoleon in 1814. Genre-wise, the novel follows the tradition of the realistic historical novel on the one hand, and modern historiographical fiction on the other. It is a story about Bosnia, its cultural diversity, the diversity of human characters, nations and religions that build a rich cultural and civilizational world, shaped and determined by changing times. The relationship between history and individual and collective subjectivities is the central motif of this novel as well as of the author's entire prose work.
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