ABSTRACT
Ivo Andrić’s Bridge on the Drina [Na Drini Ćuprija] (1945)—whose 1959 translation into English was an important step leading to Andrić’s reception of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961-is widely regarded as one of the most signifi cant novels to have come out of the Balkans. In this hronika, the narrative of which covers over three centuries, Andrić traces cultural shifts in Eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina by focusing on events on or around the elevenarched bridge which spans the Drina River at Višegrad. The construction of the bridge, a potent symbol of Ottoman power, is punctuated by violence, culminating in the gruesome torture and impalement of Serb saboteur Radislav. In time, though, the stone bridge becomes a fi xture of permanence and stability. For years it seems basically unchanged, like the ethnically divided community that surrounds it. However, when Bosnia-Herzegovina becomes a protectorate of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878, the bridge presides over a series of transformations-with the shift of power and the infl ux of Austrian immigrants, including Ashkenazy Jews, it becomes a complex intersection of diverse ethnicities.
