WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.480 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:07.179 a file that feels less like a standard biography 00:00:07.179 --> 00:00:11.449 and more like... I don't know, a chaotic, sprawling 00:00:11.449 --> 00:00:14.349 map of the entire 20th century. It really is. 00:00:14.410 --> 00:00:17.210 We're looking at a life that on paper feels impossible. 00:00:17.550 --> 00:00:19.910 It contains so many contradictions that they 00:00:19.910 --> 00:00:22.690 just shouldn't fit inside one human skin. Right. 00:00:22.789 --> 00:00:24.469 It feels like you're reading about three or four 00:00:24.469 --> 00:00:26.890 different people. Absolutely. In history, you 00:00:26.890 --> 00:00:29.050 usually have to pick a lane. You know, you're 00:00:29.050 --> 00:00:31.769 either the fiery young revolutionary or you're 00:00:31.769 --> 00:00:34.130 the polished establishment diplomat. You're the 00:00:34.130 --> 00:00:36.909 political prisoner in a dark cell or you're the 00:00:36.909 --> 00:00:39.079 celebrated author dining with King. You don't 00:00:39.079 --> 00:00:41.719 get to be all of them. You don't. But this man 00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:44.619 was. He was a radical student agitator, a prisoner 00:00:44.619 --> 00:00:47.600 held for his political beliefs, a high -ranking 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:49.920 ambassador who literally had to shake hands with 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:52.200 Adolf Hitler, and then a reclusive writer hiding 00:00:52.200 --> 00:00:55.399 in a room while bombs fell on his city. And finally, 00:00:55.479 --> 00:00:58.320 a national hero. It's an unbelievable arc. And 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:00.539 just to anchor this for everyone listening, to 00:01:00.539 --> 00:01:02.640 really drive home why we should care right now, 00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:06.620 this is the man. who beat out some serious heavyweights 00:01:06.620 --> 00:01:09.500 for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1961. A 00:01:09.500 --> 00:01:11.780 truly staggering list. We're talking J .R .R. 00:01:11.799 --> 00:01:14.780 Tolkien, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, E .M. 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:17.099 Forster. These are Mount Rushmore figures of 00:01:17.099 --> 00:01:19.439 literature. And the committee chose him. The 00:01:19.439 --> 00:01:22.900 only writer from the former Yugoslavia to ever 00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:25.480 win the Nobel Prize. A man whose name, even today, 00:01:25.579 --> 00:01:28.200 carries immense weight in the Balkans. And depending 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:30.180 on who you ask, that weight is sometimes gold 00:01:30.180 --> 00:01:32.739 and sometimes it's lead. So that's our mission 00:01:32.739 --> 00:01:35.099 for this deep dive. We want to unpack this incredible 00:01:35.099 --> 00:01:37.659 winding journey. We're trying to figure out how 00:01:37.659 --> 00:01:40.680 a sickly boy born into absolute poverty in a 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:43.659 tiny Bosnian town could end up at the high table 00:01:43.659 --> 00:01:46.680 of European diplomacy. Only to retreat into silence 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:49.459 to write a masterpiece about a stone bridge that 00:01:49.459 --> 00:01:52.319 in many ways decodes the very soul of the Balkans. 00:01:52.730 --> 00:01:55.530 And we have a mountain of sources to get through. 00:01:55.590 --> 00:01:57.730 We're looking at biographical data, historical 00:01:57.730 --> 00:02:00.390 records from his diplomatic service, some of 00:02:00.390 --> 00:02:03.370 which are incredibly tense, declassified cables 00:02:03.370 --> 00:02:06.189 from Berlin. We're also going to do a deep literary 00:02:06.189 --> 00:02:08.990 analysis of his major works, especially the Bridge 00:02:08.990 --> 00:02:12.000 on the Drina. And we have to step carefully through 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:14.460 the minefield of his legacy, don't we? Because 00:02:14.460 --> 00:02:16.479 looking at the research, it seems like after 00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:19.139 his death, everyone either wants to claim him 00:02:19.139 --> 00:02:22.099 as their hero or disown him as a traitor. It's 00:02:22.099 --> 00:02:24.939 a total tug of war. To understand Andridge is 00:02:24.939 --> 00:02:26.780 to understand the fracture lines in that entire 00:02:26.780 --> 00:02:29.830 region. He's like a prism. You hold him up to 00:02:29.830 --> 00:02:31.830 the light, and depending on the angle, he looks 00:02:31.830 --> 00:02:34.590 like a Serbian patriot, a Croatian collaborator, 00:02:34.669 --> 00:02:37.669 or a misunderstood Bosnian chronicler. It is 00:02:37.669 --> 00:02:40.050 incredibly complex. Well, there's only one place 00:02:40.050 --> 00:02:42.150 to start, and that's at the beginning. Part one. 00:02:42.590 --> 00:02:44.810 Roots in a divided land. Let's set the scene. 00:02:44.969 --> 00:02:46.590 Okay, so we need to transport ourselves back 00:02:46.590 --> 00:02:50.090 to the year 1892. Andrzej is born in a small 00:02:50.090 --> 00:02:52.009 village called Dolak, which is near the town 00:02:52.009 --> 00:02:54.090 of Travenik. Now, you have to understand what 00:02:54.090 --> 00:02:56.969 this place is. Politically, it's the Austro -Hungarian 00:02:56.969 --> 00:03:00.479 Empire. So... German -speaking bureaucrats, rigid 00:03:00.479 --> 00:03:03.520 order, trains running on time. That's the new 00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:05.939 layer on top, yes. The Habsburgs had occupied 00:03:05.939 --> 00:03:08.879 Bosnia and Herzegovina just over a decade earlier. 00:03:09.099 --> 00:03:12.479 But underneath that, culturally, this is the 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:15.300 deep Balkans. It's a place still breathing the 00:03:15.300 --> 00:03:17.879 air of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled it 00:03:17.879 --> 00:03:22.020 for 400 years. So he was born in Dolak, but that's 00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:24.280 not the place that really defines him. The sources 00:03:24.280 --> 00:03:27.530 all point to one town. Visegrad is everything. 00:03:27.729 --> 00:03:30.349 It's the core of his emotional and literary universe. 00:03:30.650 --> 00:03:33.270 His family tragedy forces him to move there as 00:03:33.270 --> 00:03:35.789 a toddler, and it imprints on him for the rest 00:03:35.789 --> 00:03:38.289 of his life. And to understand Visegrad, you 00:03:38.289 --> 00:03:39.949 mentioned a specific term we need to get our 00:03:39.949 --> 00:03:43.650 heads around. The casaba. The casaba, yes. Now, 00:03:43.689 --> 00:03:46.430 on one level, it just translates to a small provincial 00:03:46.430 --> 00:03:48.830 town. But that's like saying a diner is just 00:03:48.830 --> 00:03:50.830 a place that serves food. It misses the whole 00:03:50.830 --> 00:03:52.849 cultural meaning. It's an atmosphere, not just 00:03:52.849 --> 00:03:55.610 a location. It's a whole atmosphere. A cassava 00:03:55.610 --> 00:03:58.509 in this Ottoman Balkan context is a place where 00:03:58.509 --> 00:04:01.250 life is lived on a very human, very intimate 00:04:01.250 --> 00:04:03.629 scale. Everybody knows everybody's business, 00:04:03.789 --> 00:04:06.810 everybody's secrets. But at the same time, the 00:04:06.810 --> 00:04:09.650 cultural collision is massive. So what does that 00:04:09.650 --> 00:04:11.949 look like on a daily basis? It means in Visrad, 00:04:12.090 --> 00:04:14.889 you had the centuries old legacy of the Ottomans. 00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:18.699 The mosques, the Turkish coffee houses, the slow, 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:21.800 fatalistic pace of life. And crashing right into 00:04:21.800 --> 00:04:25.459 that is the new, efficient, and to many, alienating 00:04:25.459 --> 00:04:27.800 bureaucracy of Austria -Hungary. So you've got 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:29.540 Austrian officials with their pocket watches 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:32.439 and their clipboards walking past Ottoman -era 00:04:32.439 --> 00:04:34.699 shopkeepers who are smoking pipes and measuring 00:04:34.699 --> 00:04:37.740 time by the sun. Precisely. It's a cultural crossroads 00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:40.060 made of flesh and blood. You have Orthodox Serbs, 00:04:40.100 --> 00:04:42.639 Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats, and even a 00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:45.240 significant Sephardic Jewish community. They 00:04:45.240 --> 00:04:47.279 are all living together in this tight, narrow 00:04:47.279 --> 00:04:49.560 river valley. And are they mixing? Yeah. Or getting 00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:52.060 along? Yes and no. They have to rely on each 00:04:52.060 --> 00:04:53.819 other. They do business together. They're neighbors. 00:04:54.199 --> 00:04:58.339 But there are these deep, often invisible lines 00:04:58.339 --> 00:05:01.519 of religion and history and custom that run between 00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:04.600 them. There's a surface level harmony. But underneath, 00:05:04.819 --> 00:05:07.079 the tensions are always there. And running right 00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:09.060 through the heart of this cassava, this town, 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:12.680 is the Drina River. And spanning that river is 00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:15.079 the bridge. The Mehmet Pasha Sokolovich Bridge. 00:05:15.259 --> 00:05:17.639 We have to stop and emphasize this right at the 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:19.680 start. This is not just a piece of scenery. It's 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:22.620 not just infrastructure. For Andrich's life and 00:05:22.620 --> 00:05:24.959 certainly for his writing, this bridge is the 00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:27.839 central totem. It is the anchor of his entire 00:05:27.839 --> 00:05:30.360 worldview. What's its story? It's an architectural 00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:33.259 wonder. It was built in the 16th century, commissioned 00:05:33.259 --> 00:05:35.819 by a grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire who was 00:05:35.819 --> 00:05:38.519 actually born as a Serb boy in a nearby village, 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:40.939 taken as part of the devshirim system. The so 00:05:40.939 --> 00:05:43.480 -called blood tax. The blood tax, yes. He rose 00:05:43.480 --> 00:05:45.579 to the highest echelons of power in Istanbul 00:05:45.579 --> 00:05:47.959 and then built this bridge as a gift or maybe 00:05:47.959 --> 00:05:50.220 a monument to the home he was taken from. It 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:53.500 has 11 sweeping stone arches. It is beautiful, 00:05:53.699 --> 00:05:56.519 it is powerful, and it is permanent. And for 00:05:56.519 --> 00:05:59.720 a young boy whose life was about to become incredibly 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:03.480 unstable. That permanence must have meant something. 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:06.379 It meant everything. He played on it as a child. 00:06:06.439 --> 00:06:08.560 He watched the seasons change the color of the 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:11.720 water flowing under it. He saw it as the one 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:15.019 thing in his world that outlasted human grief, 00:06:15.259 --> 00:06:19.079 human conflict, human foolishness. It was his 00:06:19.079 --> 00:06:22.100 stone god. Let's talk about that grief, because 00:06:22.100 --> 00:06:25.079 his start in life was marked by real tragedy. 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:27.459 This was not a privileged childhood. Not even 00:06:27.459 --> 00:06:30.300 close. It was the opposite. He was born to Catholic 00:06:30.300 --> 00:06:33.439 croat parents, Antoon and Katerina. His father, 00:06:33.560 --> 00:06:35.819 Antoon, was a struggling silversmith who just 00:06:35.819 --> 00:06:37.839 couldn't catch a break. He eventually had to 00:06:37.839 --> 00:06:40.120 take a job as a school janitor in Sarajevo just 00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:42.420 to make ends meet. But the real shadow hanging 00:06:42.420 --> 00:06:45.399 over the family was tuberculosis. The great plague 00:06:45.399 --> 00:06:47.939 of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was 00:06:47.939 --> 00:06:49.959 a death sentence. It had already killed most 00:06:49.959 --> 00:06:51.600 of his father's siblings, and it was coming for 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:54.120 his father, too. When Imo Andrich was only two 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:56.160 years old, his... his father died. So at two, 00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:59.180 he's fatherless. Fatherless and utterly destitute. 00:06:59.540 --> 00:07:02.180 His mother, Katerina, was a young widow with 00:07:02.180 --> 00:07:05.540 no skills, no money, no support system. The sources 00:07:05.540 --> 00:07:08.060 say she literally could not afford to feed him. 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:10.519 That's a horrifying position for a mother to 00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:12.939 be in. So she makes the most heartbreaking choice 00:07:12.939 --> 00:07:15.420 a parent can face. She packs up her toddler, 00:07:15.620 --> 00:07:17.759 takes him to Visegrad, and leaves him there to 00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:20.399 be raised by her sister -in -law, his aunt Anna, 00:07:20.620 --> 00:07:23.579 and her husband Ivan. That separation must have 00:07:23.579 --> 00:07:26.920 left a profound mark on him. A deep, deep scar. 00:07:27.139 --> 00:07:29.500 He was effectively orphaned, even though his 00:07:29.500 --> 00:07:32.160 mother was still alive. Now, the saving grace 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:34.459 was that his aunt and uncle provided a stable, 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:37.300 loving home. Ivan was a police officer in the 00:07:37.300 --> 00:07:39.339 Austro -Hungarian Gendarmerie, so they had a 00:07:39.339 --> 00:07:41.660 steady income. They were childless, and they 00:07:41.660 --> 00:07:43.500 poured all their affection into this sickly little 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:46.680 boy. He even called Visegrad his real home later 00:07:46.680 --> 00:07:49.399 in life. He did. But that trauma of being sent 00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:51.439 away, of his mother having to go back to Sarah, 00:07:51.470 --> 00:07:53.610 Sarajevo to work in a rug factory just to survive. 00:07:53.810 --> 00:07:56.550 That sense of being an outsider, of being fragile 00:07:56.550 --> 00:07:58.990 and at the mercy of larger forces that never 00:07:58.990 --> 00:08:01.649 left him. Eventually, though, he has to leave 00:08:01.649 --> 00:08:05.709 this real home. He gets older and it's time for 00:08:05.709 --> 00:08:09.310 high school. He moves to Sarajevo to attend the 00:08:09.310 --> 00:08:11.740 great Sarajevo gymnasium. Which was the best 00:08:11.740 --> 00:08:14.459 school in the entire province. The pinnacle of 00:08:14.459 --> 00:08:17.600 Austro -Hungarian education in Bosnia. And here's 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:19.500 a detail from the records that I just love because 00:08:19.500 --> 00:08:23.399 it makes this future literary giant feel so incredibly 00:08:23.399 --> 00:08:26.199 human. He was a terrible student. He was genuinely 00:08:26.199 --> 00:08:29.779 awful at it. It's fantastic. He failed mathematics 00:08:29.779 --> 00:08:32.279 completely. He wasn't just bad at it. He failed 00:08:32.279 --> 00:08:35.200 the entire subject. He had to repeat the sixth 00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:37.720 grade. That's a serious academic stumble. It 00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:40.419 was. It got so bad that he lost his scholarship 00:08:40.419 --> 00:08:43.220 from a Croatian cultural society called Naprodak 00:08:43.220 --> 00:08:45.580 Progress because his grades were just in the 00:08:45.580 --> 00:08:47.759 toilet. They basically said, we can't keep funding 00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:50.019 you if you're failing. So what was going on? 00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:52.620 Was he not intelligent? Was he lazy? Was he just 00:08:52.620 --> 00:08:54.889 a teenage rebel? It was a form of rebellion, 00:08:54.950 --> 00:08:57.470 I think, a passive resistance. You have to understand 00:08:57.470 --> 00:08:59.450 the school itself. The entire curriculum was 00:08:59.450 --> 00:09:02.669 designed with one goal in mind, to produce loyal, 00:09:02.929 --> 00:09:05.190 German -speaking, efficient bureaucrats for the 00:09:05.190 --> 00:09:07.610 Habsburg monarchy. An assembly line for empire. 00:09:08.029 --> 00:09:10.629 A perfect description. The teachers were often 00:09:10.629 --> 00:09:13.730 imported from Vienna or Prague or Budapest. They 00:09:13.730 --> 00:09:15.950 didn't care about Bosnia or its culture. They 00:09:15.950 --> 00:09:17.809 were just doing their tour of duty in the provinces. 00:09:19.049 --> 00:09:20.929 Andrzej later described the whole experience 00:09:20.929 --> 00:09:24.950 as Rough, crude, automatic. He said it was an 00:09:24.950 --> 00:09:28.210 education without concern, faith, humanity, warmth, 00:09:28.370 --> 00:09:30.870 or love. So he felt like he was being processed, 00:09:31.049 --> 00:09:33.789 not educated. Exactly. He was this sensitive, 00:09:33.889 --> 00:09:36.509 poetic kid who was obsessed with history and 00:09:36.509 --> 00:09:38.610 stories, and they were trying to cram geometry 00:09:38.610 --> 00:09:41.470 and Germanic discipline down his throat. So he 00:09:41.470 --> 00:09:44.129 checked out. He was rejecting the entire system 00:09:44.129 --> 00:09:46.950 by failing within it. But he did find an outlet. 00:09:47.110 --> 00:09:49.110 He wasn't just failing. While he was bombing 00:09:49.110 --> 00:09:51.830 in math and science, he was secretly devouring 00:09:51.830 --> 00:09:54.009 literature and obsessively learning languages. 00:09:54.289 --> 00:09:56.830 Latin, Greek, German. He was building his own 00:09:56.830 --> 00:09:59.889 curriculum. And crucially, he found a mentor. 00:10:00.330 --> 00:10:03.750 A teacher named Tugimir Alapovich. There's always 00:10:03.750 --> 00:10:05.909 that one teacher, isn't there? The one who sees 00:10:05.909 --> 00:10:09.330 the spark. Always. Alapovich was a writer himself. 00:10:10.059 --> 00:10:12.620 He looked at this sullen, underachieving kid 00:10:12.620 --> 00:10:16.139 and saw that he wasn't stupid. He was just profoundly 00:10:16.139 --> 00:10:18.940 bored and alienated. He started giving him books, 00:10:19.059 --> 00:10:21.419 encouraging him to write, telling him his voice 00:10:21.419 --> 00:10:23.539 mattered. And that's where the kindling caught 00:10:23.539 --> 00:10:26.279 fire. So he starts writing poetry. He gets his 00:10:26.279 --> 00:10:28.720 first poems published in 1911 in a very well 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:31.320 -regarded journal called Bozanska Vila, The Bosnian 00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:34.279 Fairy. But he's not just a moody poet scribbling 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:36.759 in a notebook. This is where we pivot to part 00:10:36.759 --> 00:10:40.490 two, The Radical Student and the Assassin. Because 00:10:40.490 --> 00:10:42.409 the political atmosphere in the Balkans is reaching 00:10:42.409 --> 00:10:45.129 a boiling point, and Andrich dives in headfirst. 00:10:45.389 --> 00:10:47.710 He doesn't just dive in. For a time, he's one 00:10:47.710 --> 00:10:50.269 of the leaders. This is the era of revolutionary 00:10:50.269 --> 00:10:52.649 South Slav nationalism. You have to remember, 00:10:52.750 --> 00:10:55.190 the Austro -Hungarian Empire had formally annexed 00:10:55.190 --> 00:10:57.990 Bosnia in 1908, moving it from occupation to 00:10:57.990 --> 00:11:00.009 a permanent part of the empire. And that went 00:11:00.009 --> 00:11:02.960 over badly. It was a political earthquake. To 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:05.960 the local population, the Serbs, Croats, and 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:08.340 Muslims who were dreaming of independence, this 00:11:08.340 --> 00:11:11.059 felt like the prison door slamming shut and locking 00:11:11.059 --> 00:11:14.220 for good. They were enraged. They wanted the 00:11:14.220 --> 00:11:16.419 empires, both the ghost of the Ottoman and the 00:11:16.419 --> 00:11:18.700 reality of the Austro -Hungarian out. And what 00:11:18.700 --> 00:11:21.399 does a young, angry, intellectual poet do in 00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:24.279 that situation? He becomes a revolutionary. In 00:11:24.279 --> 00:11:27.159 1911, he is elected the very first president 00:11:27.159 --> 00:11:29.720 of a student organization called the Serbo -Croat 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:32.200 Progressive Movement. Now, that sounds tame, 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:34.820 but it was essentially a secret society. And 00:11:34.820 --> 00:11:36.919 what was their core beliefs? We see this term 00:11:36.919 --> 00:11:39.899 in the sources, integral Yugoslavism. Let's break 00:11:39.899 --> 00:11:42.759 that down. It was a radical, romantic, and ultimately 00:11:42.759 --> 00:11:45.960 utopian idea. Andris and his generation of student 00:11:45.960 --> 00:11:48.320 radicals believed that Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.360 were not separate peoples. They believed they 00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:53.100 were one people, one nation, divided by religion. 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:55.580 So Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, they saw these 00:11:55.580 --> 00:11:58.360 as artificial divisions. Exactly. They believed 00:11:58.360 --> 00:12:00.700 these were wedges driven between them by foreign 00:12:00.700 --> 00:12:03.820 empires. The Ottomans, the Austrians, the Hungarians. 00:12:03.980 --> 00:12:06.860 as a classic divide -and -conquer strategy. Their 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:09.679 goal was to erase those lines, destroy the empires, 00:12:09.740 --> 00:12:12.960 and create a single, unified state of all South 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:16.019 Slavs. A Yugoslavia. Wow! Literally, the land 00:12:16.019 --> 00:12:18.720 of the South Slavs. That was the dream, and Andrić 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:20.860 was a firebrand for it. He was giving speeches 00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:23.299 at train stations to departing students. He was 00:12:23.299 --> 00:12:25.379 organizing protests. He was writing passionate 00:12:25.379 --> 00:12:28.059 articles. He was burning with this ideal. And 00:12:28.059 --> 00:12:30.399 it's in these circles, in these smoky cafes and 00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:33.379 secret meetings, that he befriends a name. That 00:12:33.379 --> 00:12:36.259 will echo through history. Rilo Princip. Yes. 00:12:36.460 --> 00:12:40.740 The man who, in 1914, would assassinate the Archduke 00:12:40.740 --> 00:12:42.820 Franz Ferdinand and trigger the chain of events 00:12:42.820 --> 00:12:45.759 that led to World War I. They weren't just acquaintances. 00:12:45.820 --> 00:12:47.919 They were part of the same revolutionary milieu, 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:50.740 a broader movement called Young Bosnia. So they 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:52.679 were comrades. They were comrades. They were 00:12:52.679 --> 00:12:55.100 reading the same forbidden books, debating the 00:12:55.100 --> 00:12:57.559 same revolutionary tactics, sharing the same 00:12:57.559 --> 00:13:01.120 dream of a unified, independent nation. That 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:03.740 connection puts Andrzej... Astonishingly close 00:13:03.740 --> 00:13:06.659 to the epicenter of 20th century history. It's 00:13:06.659 --> 00:13:09.460 incredible. So let's jump to that day, June 28th, 00:13:09.460 --> 00:13:13.279 1914, the day of the assassination in Sarajevo. 00:13:13.620 --> 00:13:17.080 Where is Andrzej? He's not in Sarajevo, which 00:13:17.080 --> 00:13:19.539 probably saved his life. He's actually in Krakow, 00:13:19.580 --> 00:13:21.559 Poland. He'd been bouncing around universities. 00:13:21.580 --> 00:13:24.220 He'd studied in Zagreb in Vienna and eventually 00:13:24.220 --> 00:13:26.779 landed at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:29.440 Why was he moving around so much? In part because 00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:31.889 of his health. His tuberculosis was a constant 00:13:31.889 --> 00:13:34.090 problem. He had to leave Vienna because he felt 00:13:34.090 --> 00:13:36.309 the climate was bad for his lungs. He was always 00:13:36.309 --> 00:13:37.850 searching for a place where he could breathe, 00:13:37.909 --> 00:13:40.350 both literally and intellectually. So he's in 00:13:40.350 --> 00:13:42.490 Poland and news arrives. The archduke and his 00:13:42.490 --> 00:13:44.830 wife have been shot and killed in Sarajevo. And 00:13:44.830 --> 00:13:47.370 the assassin is his friend, Gavrilo Principu. 00:13:47.590 --> 00:13:49.730 What's his reaction? It seems to have been a 00:13:49.730 --> 00:13:52.590 mix of shock, maybe a bit of revolutionary pride, 00:13:52.789 --> 00:13:55.669 but overwhelmingly a sense of duty and dread. 00:13:56.149 --> 00:13:58.720 He knew this was it. This was the smark that 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:01.139 would ignite the whole powder keg. So he doesn't 00:14:01.139 --> 00:14:03.220 stay in the safety of Poland. No, he does the 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:06.700 opposite. He immediately packs a small bag, leaves 00:14:06.700 --> 00:14:09.019 all his books and belongings behind, and gets 00:14:09.019 --> 00:14:11.240 on the first train heading south. He wants to 00:14:11.240 --> 00:14:13.919 be with his people, to be part of whatever comes 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:16.899 next. Which sounds incredibly noble, but also, 00:14:16.980 --> 00:14:19.960 from a practical standpoint, insane. It was almost 00:14:19.960 --> 00:14:22.879 suicidal. The Austro -Hungarian police machine 00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:25.620 was kicking into high gear. They were creating 00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:28.860 lists. Rounding up anyone and everyone even remotely 00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:31.759 associated with South Slav nationalism. And Andrich 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:33.740 wasn't just remotely associated. He was a known 00:14:33.740 --> 00:14:36.120 leader. He was the former president of the progressive 00:14:36.120 --> 00:14:38.820 movement. He's at the top of their list in Sarajevo. 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:42.059 He manages to travel from Krakow to Zagreb and 00:14:42.059 --> 00:14:44.659 then down to the coastal city of Split. But his 00:14:44.659 --> 00:14:48.019 luck runs out there. In late July or early August 00:14:48.019 --> 00:14:51.620 1914, as the world is declaring war, he is arrested. 00:14:51.759 --> 00:14:54.059 What were the official charges? Anti -state. 00:14:54.629 --> 00:14:57.409 activities. Now, to be very clear, the investigators 00:14:57.409 --> 00:14:59.950 tried desperately to link him directly to the 00:14:59.950 --> 00:15:02.450 assassination plot. They interrogated him for 00:15:02.450 --> 00:15:05.470 weeks, but there was absolutely no evidence that 00:15:05.470 --> 00:15:08.330 he knew about the guns, the bombs or the specific 00:15:08.330 --> 00:15:10.809 plan. He was, however, what they would call an 00:15:10.809 --> 00:15:13.330 ideological accomplice. He helped create the 00:15:13.330 --> 00:15:15.450 environment that led to the assassination. In 00:15:15.450 --> 00:15:17.850 their eyes, yes. So he goes from a university 00:15:17.850 --> 00:15:20.409 student to a political prisoner. And this period 00:15:20.409 --> 00:15:24.009 from 1914 through 1917 is the crucible. that 00:15:24.009 --> 00:15:26.629 forges him into the writer he will become. He's 00:15:26.629 --> 00:15:29.529 shuffled between prison split, then Ibenik, and 00:15:29.529 --> 00:15:32.070 finally to a prison in Maribor in modern -day 00:15:32.070 --> 00:15:33.690 Slovenia. And the conditions would have been 00:15:33.690 --> 00:15:36.190 horrific. Appalling, especially for someone with 00:15:36.190 --> 00:15:37.990 chronic lung disease. He's often in solitary 00:15:37.990 --> 00:15:40.289 confinement. His health completely collapses. 00:15:40.330 --> 00:15:43.110 He's coughing blood. He spends his days in silence, 00:15:43.269 --> 00:15:45.549 listening to the distant sounds of the prison, 00:15:45.710 --> 00:15:48.049 reading whatever he can get his hands on. What 00:15:48.049 --> 00:15:50.490 does that kind of isolation do to a young, fiery 00:15:50.490 --> 00:15:53.500 idealist? It burns away all the romanticism. 00:15:53.960 --> 00:15:57.019 He went into prison a loud, passionate revolutionary 00:15:57.019 --> 00:16:00.480 who believed in speeches and protests. He came 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:03.659 out a quiet, stoic, deeply fatalistic observer 00:16:03.659 --> 00:16:07.139 of human nature. It forced him inward. He read 00:16:07.139 --> 00:16:10.320 Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard. He later wrote that 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:12.360 it was in prison that he truly learned about 00:16:12.360 --> 00:16:14.700 silence and the immense weight of human suffering. 00:16:15.259 --> 00:16:17.299 He's eventually released from prison in 1915 00:16:17.299 --> 00:16:19.679 due to a general amnesty, but he's not a free 00:16:19.679 --> 00:16:22.139 man. Not at all. He's immediately exiled. He's 00:16:22.139 --> 00:16:24.779 sent to a remote village in Bosnia called Ovacerevo 00:16:24.779 --> 00:16:27.159 to live under house arrest with a community of 00:16:27.159 --> 00:16:29.379 Franciscan friars. Which, on the face of it, 00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:31.700 sounds like just another form of prison. It could 00:16:31.700 --> 00:16:33.320 have been, but it turned out to be the greatest 00:16:33.320 --> 00:16:35.820 stroke of luck in his literary life. The friars 00:16:35.820 --> 00:16:38.419 took a liking to him. They saw this serious, 00:16:38.519 --> 00:16:41.019 intelligent young man who was wasting away, so 00:16:41.019 --> 00:16:42.759 they did something extraordinary. They gave him 00:16:42.759 --> 00:16:44.740 the key to the monastery's archives. And what 00:16:44.740 --> 00:16:47.769 was in there? Centuries of history. The raw data 00:16:47.769 --> 00:16:51.070 of Bosnian life. The friars had kept meticulous 00:16:51.070 --> 00:16:53.649 chronicles records of harvests, floods, plagues, 00:16:53.730 --> 00:16:56.809 Ottoman tax collections, disputes between Catholic 00:16:56.809 --> 00:16:59.529 and Orthodox communities, local legends. For 00:16:59.529 --> 00:17:01.470 the rest of the war, Andrzej basically locked 00:17:01.470 --> 00:17:03.730 himself in that archive and read. He was doing 00:17:03.730 --> 00:17:06.309 the primary source research for his future masterpieces. 00:17:06.569 --> 00:17:09.450 Unknowingly, yes. He was absorbing the deep history, 00:17:09.609 --> 00:17:11.950 the textures, the language, the psychology of 00:17:11.950 --> 00:17:14.269 the land that would eventually become the bridge 00:17:14.269 --> 00:17:16.859 on the Drina and Travnik Chronicle. The war was 00:17:16.859 --> 00:17:19.180 raging outside, but inside he was building his 00:17:19.180 --> 00:17:22.019 own world out of dusty old papers. So the war 00:17:22.019 --> 00:17:25.380 finally ends in 1918. The Austro -Hungarian Empire 00:17:25.380 --> 00:17:28.380 is in ashes. And his dream, the thing he went 00:17:28.380 --> 00:17:31.700 to jail for, comes true. The kingdom of Serbs, 00:17:31.700 --> 00:17:34.339 Croats, and Slovenes is born. The dream is realized. 00:17:35.049 --> 00:17:37.210 But now he faces a much more mundane but very 00:17:37.210 --> 00:17:39.549 urgent problem. The revolutionary poet is now 00:17:39.549 --> 00:17:41.789 a man in his mid -20s, his health is shot, and 00:17:41.789 --> 00:17:43.750 he is flat broke. He needs a job. This is where 00:17:43.750 --> 00:17:46.089 we get to part three. The poet becomes a diplomat. 00:17:46.349 --> 00:17:49.670 A truly shocking pivot. He basically has to trade 00:17:49.670 --> 00:17:52.349 the prison uniform and the poet's garret for 00:17:52.349 --> 00:17:54.869 a diplomat's tailcoat. How does he even make 00:17:54.869 --> 00:17:57.349 that happen? Through his connections. He reaches 00:17:57.349 --> 00:17:59.950 out to his old mentor, Tugamir Alapovich, the 00:17:59.950 --> 00:18:02.430 teacher who first encouraged him to write. By 00:18:02.430 --> 00:18:05.009 now, Alapovich is a big shot in the New Kingdom's 00:18:05.009 --> 00:18:07.150 government. He's the minister of religious affairs. 00:18:07.450 --> 00:18:10.710 He pulls some strings and in 1920 gets Andrich 00:18:10.710 --> 00:18:13.470 a low -level job in the diplomatic service. And 00:18:13.470 --> 00:18:15.509 he starts at the embassy to the Vatican. Yes. 00:18:15.529 --> 00:18:17.710 Then he's posted to Bucharest, then Trieste, 00:18:17.809 --> 00:18:21.269 then Graz in Austria. And it turns out all those 00:18:21.269 --> 00:18:23.809 qualities he developed in prison, the quietness, 00:18:23.910 --> 00:18:26.450 the discretion, the ability to observe without 00:18:26.450 --> 00:18:29.369 judging, his mastery of languages, made him a 00:18:29.369 --> 00:18:31.410 surprisingly good diplomat. He's climbing the 00:18:31.410 --> 00:18:34.049 ladder. Yeah. But then he hits a major bureaucratic 00:18:34.049 --> 00:18:38.029 wall in 1923. A huge wall. The new kingdom, trying 00:18:38.029 --> 00:18:41.170 to professionalize, passes a law. It states that 00:18:41.170 --> 00:18:43.730 all high -level civil servants must hold a doctoral 00:18:43.730 --> 00:18:46.509 degree, a PhD. Which Andrzej absolutely does 00:18:46.509 --> 00:18:48.869 not have. He's a college dropout who spent the 00:18:48.869 --> 00:18:51.769 war in jail and exile. Exactly. So he gets the 00:18:51.769 --> 00:18:54.289 official notice. His diplomatic career is over. 00:18:54.329 --> 00:18:56.690 He's out to be fired. But he gets a lifeline. 00:18:56.890 --> 00:19:00.009 His friends and patrons intervene again. They 00:19:00.009 --> 00:19:02.690 lobby the foreign ministry, begging them to keep 00:19:02.690 --> 00:19:05.390 him on as a low -paid day worker while he scrambles 00:19:05.390 --> 00:19:07.630 to get his degree. He enrolls at the University 00:19:07.630 --> 00:19:10.650 of Graz and is told he has to write and defend 00:19:10.650 --> 00:19:13.650 a full doctoral dissertation in record time. 00:19:14.230 --> 00:19:16.930 We really need to pause and look at this dissertation. 00:19:16.990 --> 00:19:19.589 It's written in 1924 under immense pressure. 00:19:20.839 --> 00:19:23.000 What's the title? The title is The Development 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:25.480 of Spiritual Life in Bosnia Under the Influence 00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:28.039 of Turkish Rule. It sounds like a dry, standard 00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:30.660 academic paper, but it becomes one of the most 00:19:30.660 --> 00:19:33.160 controversial things he ever wrote. Why? Because 00:19:33.160 --> 00:19:35.619 of the central argument he makes. In this thesis, 00:19:35.859 --> 00:19:38.619 Andrzej presents a deeply, deeply negative view 00:19:38.619 --> 00:19:41.720 of the Ottoman legacy in the Balkans. He characterizes 00:19:41.720 --> 00:19:44.640 the centuries of Ottoman rule not as a complex 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:48.160 historical period, but simply as a yoke. He says 00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:50.680 its influence was absolutely negative. That's 00:19:50.680 --> 00:19:53.900 a very strong, uncompromising phrase. It's incredibly 00:19:53.900 --> 00:19:56.839 strong. He argues that the Ottomans brought no 00:19:56.839 --> 00:19:59.559 meaningful cultural content, no sense of a higher 00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:02.079 civilizing mission, and that their presence essentially 00:20:02.079 --> 00:20:04.460 froze the spiritual and intellectual development 00:20:04.460 --> 00:20:07.180 of the South Slav peoples for centuries. How 00:20:07.180 --> 00:20:09.819 does he frame Islam in this thesis? That's the 00:20:09.819 --> 00:20:12.400 most contentious part. He essentially treats 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:15.630 Islam... Not as a faith adopted by native Slavs, 00:20:15.630 --> 00:20:18.910 but as a foreign Asiatic imposition that held 00:20:18.910 --> 00:20:21.970 the region back from its natural European path 00:20:21.970 --> 00:20:25.289 of development. It's a very stark, very Eurocentric 00:20:25.289 --> 00:20:28.009 perspective. And I imagine for his modern critics, 00:20:28.170 --> 00:20:31.569 this thesis is exhibit A. It is the smoking gun, 00:20:31.750 --> 00:20:34.690 especially for many Bosniak Muslim scholars today. 00:20:34.750 --> 00:20:37.109 They point to this document and say, see, this 00:20:37.109 --> 00:20:39.029 wasn't just a literary choice in his novels. 00:20:39.150 --> 00:20:41.130 This was his core belief. He had a fundamental 00:20:41.130 --> 00:20:47.349 academic level bias. But in Graz in 1924, this 00:20:47.349 --> 00:20:49.170 viewpoint wasn't seen as particularly controversial. 00:20:49.509 --> 00:20:51.910 Not at all. It fit perfectly within the mainstream 00:20:51.910 --> 00:20:54.950 European academic thought of the time, which 00:20:54.950 --> 00:20:57.170 was still very much in the grip of Orientalist 00:20:57.170 --> 00:21:00.019 thinking. For his Austrian professors, it was 00:21:00.019 --> 00:21:03.420 a perfectly acceptable, even laudable thesis. 00:21:03.859 --> 00:21:07.119 So he gets the PhD. He gets the PhD. He saves 00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:09.880 his career. And from that point on, his ascent 00:21:09.880 --> 00:21:12.980 is meteoric. He is a man with credentials now. 00:21:13.180 --> 00:21:16.559 He gets posted to Marseille, Paris, Madrid, Brussels, 00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:20.200 Geneva. He's at the heart of European diplomacy 00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:22.859 in the interwar years, representing the kingdom 00:21:22.859 --> 00:21:25.299 of Yugoslavia. He's living this life that seems 00:21:25.299 --> 00:21:28.299 glamorous from the outside. But all his diaries 00:21:28.299 --> 00:21:30.660 and letters from the time show that he remained 00:21:30.660 --> 00:21:33.980 that quiet, solitary man. He hated the cocktail 00:21:33.980 --> 00:21:36.359 parties. He found the diplomatic schmoozing exhausting. 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:39.000 He was just doing his job. And in his spare time, 00:21:39.220 --> 00:21:41.400 he was writing short stories. He was always the 00:21:41.400 --> 00:21:43.799 observer, never the true participant. And then 00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:46.000 comes the assignment that will define him and 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:48.619 haunt him for the rest of his life. We're now 00:21:48.619 --> 00:21:51.180 in part four in The Court of the Enemy. The year 00:21:51.180 --> 00:21:54.890 is 1939. And Ivo Andrich, the former anti -imperialist 00:21:54.890 --> 00:21:57.349 radical, is appointed the royal Yugoslav ambassador 00:21:57.349 --> 00:22:00.009 to Germany. To Nazi Germany. He arrives in Berlin 00:22:00.009 --> 00:22:03.890 in April of 1939, just five months before Hitler 00:22:03.890 --> 00:22:07.109 invades Poland and kicks off World War II. The 00:22:07.109 --> 00:22:08.890 fact that the Yugoslav government sent him there 00:22:08.890 --> 00:22:11.839 tells you everything about his reputation. They 00:22:11.839 --> 00:22:14.799 sent their sharpest, most capable, most reliable 00:22:14.799 --> 00:22:17.779 man to the most dangerous and volatile capital 00:22:17.779 --> 00:22:19.960 in the world. Can you just imagine that scene, 00:22:20.059 --> 00:22:23.420 this quiet, introspective novelist from Bosnia? 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:26.420 walking into the Reich Chancellery to present 00:22:26.420 --> 00:22:29.460 his credentials to Adolf Hitler. There are photographs 00:22:29.460 --> 00:22:32.019 of it. They are profoundly chilling. You see 00:22:32.019 --> 00:22:34.220 Andrich looking very stiff and correct in his 00:22:34.220 --> 00:22:36.920 formal diplomatic uniform, standing next to the 00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:39.400 Fuhrer. His face is a mask. You can only imagine 00:22:39.400 --> 00:22:41.740 the turmoil going on inside. So what was his 00:22:41.740 --> 00:22:43.500 job in Berlin? What was he trying to achieve? 00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:46.589 His mission was simple. By time. Yugoslavia was 00:22:46.589 --> 00:22:48.529 desperately trying to maintain a position of 00:22:48.529 --> 00:22:50.710 neutrality. It was surrounded. To the north was 00:22:50.710 --> 00:22:52.970 Germany. To the west was Italy. They were being 00:22:52.970 --> 00:22:55.609 squeezed from both sides. So he's sending cables 00:22:55.609 --> 00:22:58.630 back to Belgrade. What's the message? The message 00:22:58.630 --> 00:23:01.109 is consistently one of caution. He's warning 00:23:01.109 --> 00:23:04.049 them, do not trust their promises. Their ambitions 00:23:04.049 --> 00:23:06.230 are limitless. We are in an extremely dangerous 00:23:06.230 --> 00:23:08.769 position. He was trying to manage the day -to 00:23:08.769 --> 00:23:10.450 -day relationship while telling his government 00:23:10.450 --> 00:23:13.009 that war was inevitable. But the pressure just 00:23:13.009 --> 00:23:16.690 keeps mounting. By 1941, the Nazis are demanding 00:23:16.690 --> 00:23:19.910 that Yugoslavia join the club. They have to sign 00:23:19.910 --> 00:23:22.970 the Tripartite Pact, formally aligning with the 00:23:22.970 --> 00:23:25.930 Axis powers. This was Andrzej's nightmare scenario. 00:23:26.210 --> 00:23:29.779 He personally loathed the Nazis. He saw them 00:23:29.779 --> 00:23:31.819 as just a more efficient, more brutal version 00:23:31.819 --> 00:23:34.660 of the Austro -Hungarian imperialism he had fought 00:23:34.660 --> 00:23:37.160 against as a young man. This went against every 00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:39.140 fiber of his being. So what did he do? Did he 00:23:39.140 --> 00:23:41.579 protest? He did more than protest. He tried to 00:23:41.579 --> 00:23:45.099 resign. On March 17, 1941, just days before the 00:23:45.099 --> 00:23:47.319 pact was to be signed, he wrote a formal letter 00:23:47.319 --> 00:23:49.720 to the foreign ministry in Belgrade. He begged 00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:51.720 to be relieved of his duties. He said he could 00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:53.960 not, in good conscience, be the one to preside 00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:56.299 over this national humiliation. But the resignation 00:23:56.299 --> 00:24:00.009 wasn't accepted in time. No. The wheels of state 00:24:00.009 --> 00:24:02.470 were already turning. The government in Belgrade 00:24:02.470 --> 00:24:05.789 had decided to capitulate. So Andric, as the 00:24:05.789 --> 00:24:08.170 ambassador, was ordered to attend the signing 00:24:08.170 --> 00:24:11.150 ceremony at the Belvedere Palace in Berlin. He 00:24:11.150 --> 00:24:13.970 had to sit there and watch his country formally 00:24:13.970 --> 00:24:16.109 align itself with Hitler. It must have been the 00:24:16.109 --> 00:24:18.490 lowest, most bitter moment of his entire life. 00:24:18.690 --> 00:24:21.650 But then history takes a wild turn. Back in Belgrade, 00:24:21.750 --> 00:24:23.789 the Serbian people and military officers rise 00:24:23.789 --> 00:24:26.069 up. There's a coup. The government that signed 00:24:26.069 --> 00:24:28.170 the pact is overthrown. People are in the streets 00:24:28.170 --> 00:24:31.619 shouting, Bolzhegrob negorob. Better the grave 00:24:31.619 --> 00:24:34.200 than a slave. Hitler is enraged by this defiance. 00:24:34.299 --> 00:24:36.920 He sees it as a personal betrayal, and he orders 00:24:36.920 --> 00:24:39.359 the immediate punitive invasion of Yugoslavia. 00:24:39.539 --> 00:24:43.650 Operation Punishment. On April 6, 1941, the Luftwaffe 00:24:43.650 --> 00:24:46.470 begins the carpet bombing of Belgrade. The Wehrmacht 00:24:46.470 --> 00:24:49.490 pours across the border. Yugoslavia is dismembered 00:24:49.490 --> 00:24:51.390 in a matter of days. And Andrzej is still in 00:24:51.390 --> 00:24:54.049 Berlin, an enemy ambassador in the capital of 00:24:54.049 --> 00:24:55.750 the nation that is currently destroying his country. 00:24:55.930 --> 00:24:57.869 And this is where we get a moment of truth, a 00:24:57.869 --> 00:24:59.990 moment that I think reveals his core character. 00:25:00.250 --> 00:25:02.970 It really does. The German foreign ministry, 00:25:03.130 --> 00:25:06.299 under Ribbentrop, calls him in. They actually 00:25:06.299 --> 00:25:08.440 treated him with a strange kind of respect. They 00:25:08.440 --> 00:25:11.759 saw him as an honorable, old -school diplomat. 00:25:11.859 --> 00:25:14.059 And they offer him a way out. They offer him 00:25:14.059 --> 00:25:16.420 the golden ticket. They tell him, Mr. Ambassador, 00:25:16.819 --> 00:25:19.380 we can arrange for you to have safe passage to 00:25:19.380 --> 00:25:21.819 neutral Switzerland. You can check into a nice 00:25:21.819 --> 00:25:24.279 hotel on Lake Geneva and sit out the rest of 00:25:24.279 --> 00:25:27.220 the war in comfort and peace. He could have saved 00:25:27.220 --> 00:25:30.259 himself. No one would have blamed him. But there 00:25:30.259 --> 00:25:32.880 was a catch. They told him, you personally can 00:25:32.880 --> 00:25:36.180 go, but your embassy staff... the attachés, the 00:25:36.180 --> 00:25:38.259 clerks, the drivers, their families. They are 00:25:38.259 --> 00:25:40.920 now enemy citizens on our soil. They will be 00:25:40.920 --> 00:25:43.200 sent back to occupied Belgrade. They will effectively 00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:46.000 be prisoners. And what was his response? He refused, 00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:49.099 without hesitation. He told the Germans, if my 00:25:49.099 --> 00:25:51.359 staff is going to Belgrade, then I am going with 00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:53.859 them. He chose to return to a conquered, burning 00:25:53.859 --> 00:25:56.279 city rather than abandon the people who had served 00:25:56.279 --> 00:25:58.259 under him. That is an act of profound integrity 00:25:58.259 --> 00:26:00.720 and courage. It's incredible. So the Nazis put 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:03.640 him and his entire staff on a sealed train and 00:26:03.640 --> 00:26:06.000 they transport them back to occupied Belgrade. 00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:09.519 Which brings us to part five, the silent years 00:26:09.519 --> 00:26:12.880 and the masterpieces. The diplomat is gone. The 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:15.380 revolutionary is a distant memory. He's now just 00:26:15.380 --> 00:26:18.259 a man in a city under military occupation. He 00:26:18.259 --> 00:26:20.380 moves into a friend's apartment on Przrenska 00:26:20.380 --> 00:26:23.400 Street, and he effectively puts himself under 00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:26.180 a self -imposed house arrest. He enters a state 00:26:26.180 --> 00:26:29.200 of what he called internal exile. Was he actually 00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:32.240 imprisoned by the Germans? No, but he was under 00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:34.859 constant surveillance. The Gestapo knew who he 00:26:34.859 --> 00:26:38.000 was. They kept a close eye on him. But he made 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:41.450 a conscious decision to simply... Did he collaborate 00:26:41.450 --> 00:26:43.970 in any way with the occupation or the Serbian 00:26:43.970 --> 00:26:46.289 puppet government? Absolutely not. This is a 00:26:46.289 --> 00:26:48.509 key part of his legacy. The collaborationist 00:26:48.509 --> 00:26:50.950 government under General Netic offered him his 00:26:50.950 --> 00:26:52.970 state pension, which he was entitled to as a 00:26:52.970 --> 00:26:55.690 former ambassador. He refused it. They repeatedly 00:26:55.690 --> 00:26:57.910 asked him to sign public anti -communist appeals, 00:26:58.150 --> 00:27:00.089 which many other prominent intellectuals did. 00:27:00.210 --> 00:27:02.690 He refused every single time. He just withdrew. 00:27:02.690 --> 00:27:05.069 He pulled the blinds, sat down at his desk and 00:27:05.069 --> 00:27:07.150 shut the door on the world. And the world outside 00:27:07.150 --> 00:27:09.509 that apartment was hell on earth. Belgrade was 00:27:09.509 --> 00:27:11.589 being bombed first by the Germans and later by 00:27:11.589 --> 00:27:14.450 the Allies. There was a brutal civil war raging 00:27:14.450 --> 00:27:16.470 in the countryside between the royalist Chetniks 00:27:16.470 --> 00:27:19.009 and Tito's communist partisans. There was a genocide 00:27:19.009 --> 00:27:22.049 being carried out. And inside this quiet apartment. 00:27:22.329 --> 00:27:25.490 Inside, he was writing like a man possessed. 00:27:25.670 --> 00:27:28.029 It was in this period of absolute darkness and 00:27:28.029 --> 00:27:31.890 chaos from 1941 to 1945 that he had the single 00:27:31.890 --> 00:27:34.230 most productive, creative burst of his life. 00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:37.980 He wrote three complete novels. His Bosnian trilogy. 00:27:38.339 --> 00:27:41.299 Exactly. He writes Travnik Chronicle, a novel 00:27:41.299 --> 00:27:43.759 about diplomats in Bosnia during the Napoleonic 00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:47.059 era. He writes The Woman from Sarajevo, a psychological 00:27:47.059 --> 00:27:50.259 study of a female miser. And he writes his magnum 00:27:50.259 --> 00:27:52.480 opus, the book that would change everything, 00:27:52.779 --> 00:27:55.400 The Bridge on the Drina. Let's do a proper deep 00:27:55.400 --> 00:27:57.950 dive into The Bridge on the Drina. Because this 00:27:57.950 --> 00:28:00.230 is the book that wins him the Nobel. And it's 00:28:00.230 --> 00:28:02.130 not a conventional novel at all, is it? No, it 00:28:02.130 --> 00:28:03.430 breaks all the rules. The first thing you have 00:28:03.430 --> 00:28:05.470 to understand is that there is no single protagonist. 00:28:05.650 --> 00:28:08.089 You don't follow one hero on their journey. The 00:28:08.089 --> 00:28:10.829 main character of the book is the bridge itself. 00:28:11.170 --> 00:28:14.250 How does that work as a story? The novel is structured 00:28:14.250 --> 00:28:17.660 as a chronicle. The timeline spans nearly 400 00:28:17.660 --> 00:28:20.920 years. It begins in the mid -16th century with 00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:23.259 the story of how and why the bridge was built 00:28:23.259 --> 00:28:26.680 by the Grand Vizier. And it ends in August 1914 00:28:26.680 --> 00:28:30.400 when the Austro -Hungarian army blows up one 00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:32.299 of its arches at the very beginning of World 00:28:32.299 --> 00:28:35.279 War I. So the human characters are just... Temporary 00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:37.759 figures passing through. Precisely. They are 00:28:37.759 --> 00:28:39.819 like waves in the river that flows under the 00:28:39.819 --> 00:28:42.160 bridge. Generations of townspeople come and go. 00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:44.279 We see them as children playing on the bridge, 00:28:44.299 --> 00:28:46.900 as young lovers meeting there at night, as old 00:28:46.900 --> 00:28:49.380 men sitting on its central portion, the copia 00:28:49.380 --> 00:28:51.940 drinking coffee and telling stories. We see their 00:28:51.940 --> 00:28:54.880 births, their dramas, their deaths, and the bridge 00:28:54.880 --> 00:28:57.500 silently watches it all. Give us an example of 00:28:57.500 --> 00:28:58.920 one of these stories, one of these vignettes 00:28:58.920 --> 00:29:02.079 that plays out on or around the bridge. Oh, there 00:29:02.079 --> 00:29:04.319 are so many powerful ones. Early in the book, 00:29:04.319 --> 00:29:05.940 during the bridge's construction, there's the 00:29:05.940 --> 00:29:09.160 story of a local Serb peasant named Ratasav who 00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:11.880 tries to sabotage the work. He spreads rumors 00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:14.039 that a water spirit is undoing the construction 00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:17.500 at night. The Ottoman foreman, Abedaga, is ruthless. 00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:21.140 He catches Ratasav and has him publicly executed 00:29:21.140 --> 00:29:23.599 by impalement on the construction site as a warning 00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:26.059 to others. It's incredibly brutal. It's horrifying. 00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:28.980 But then, centuries later on that same spot, 00:29:29.099 --> 00:29:31.240 you have scenes of incredible beauty. comedy. 00:29:31.660 --> 00:29:34.000 There's the story of Fata, a beautiful Muslim 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:36.279 girl who chooses to leap from the bridge to her 00:29:36.279 --> 00:29:38.619 death rather than be forced into a marriage she 00:29:38.619 --> 00:29:40.980 doesn't want. There's the story of the great 00:29:40.980 --> 00:29:44.099 flood of 1896 that threatens to destroy the bridge, 00:29:44.220 --> 00:29:47.180 uniting the whole town in a shared sense of terror. 00:29:47.460 --> 00:29:49.519 So what's the central metaphor here? What is 00:29:49.519 --> 00:29:52.220 Andrich trying to say? He's exploring the relationship 00:29:52.220 --> 00:29:55.279 between permanence and transience. Human lives, 00:29:55.420 --> 00:29:58.180 he shows us, are short, often brutal, and filled 00:29:58.180 --> 00:30:01.660 with suffering. Empires Rise and fall, first 00:30:01.660 --> 00:30:03.700 the Ottomans with their turbines and scimitars, 00:30:03.779 --> 00:30:06.359 then the Austrians with their railroads and regulations. 00:30:06.859 --> 00:30:09.599 But the bridge, this great work of art and engineering, 00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:13.099 it connects them. It endures. It stands above 00:30:13.099 --> 00:30:16.380 the messy, bloody flow of human history. And 00:30:16.380 --> 00:30:18.400 it's impossible to separate the book from the 00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:20.500 context in which he wrote it. He's writing about 00:30:20.500 --> 00:30:22.720 a symbol of permanence while bombs are literally 00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:25.299 rattling his apartment windows. That is the absolute 00:30:25.299 --> 00:30:27.380 key. He is writing about something that survives 00:30:27.380 --> 00:30:29.769 because he is living in a world of total. destruction. 00:30:30.029 --> 00:30:32.130 He is trying to build a monument with his words 00:30:32.130 --> 00:30:34.309 because all the stone monuments around him are 00:30:34.309 --> 00:30:36.410 being turned to rubble. It's an act of profound 00:30:36.410 --> 00:30:39.569 artistic defiance. So the war finally ends in 00:30:39.569 --> 00:30:43.410 1945. The Nazis are gone. The partisans, led 00:30:43.410 --> 00:30:46.950 by Joseph Bras Tito, are victorious. And this 00:30:46.950 --> 00:30:49.130 brings us to another perilous transition for 00:30:49.130 --> 00:30:52.559 Andridge. Part 6, Surviving the Peace. This is 00:30:52.559 --> 00:30:54.900 an incredibly tricky moment for him. You have 00:30:54.900 --> 00:30:57.400 to remember his resume. He was a high -ranking 00:30:57.400 --> 00:30:59.220 official of the royalist government. He served 00:30:59.220 --> 00:31:02.099 the king. By all rights, the new communist regime 00:31:02.099 --> 00:31:04.880 should have viewed him as a class enemy, a potential 00:31:04.880 --> 00:31:07.819 threat. They were purging and executing former 00:31:07.819 --> 00:31:10.400 royalists left and right. So why didn't they 00:31:10.400 --> 00:31:13.660 purge him? Why did he survive? For one very simple 00:31:13.660 --> 00:31:17.420 reason. They needed him. The communists had won 00:31:17.420 --> 00:31:20.160 the military victory. They had the guns and the 00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:23.240 power. But they desperately lacked cultural legitimacy. 00:31:23.720 --> 00:31:26.619 They were, in the eyes of many, just a group 00:31:26.619 --> 00:31:29.329 of uneducated guerrilla fighters. They needed 00:31:29.329 --> 00:31:31.809 to co -opt the nation's great intellectuals to 00:31:31.809 --> 00:31:34.089 legitimize their rule. And Andrzej was now the 00:31:34.089 --> 00:31:36.369 biggest intellectual of them all. He was. The 00:31:36.369 --> 00:31:38.910 Bridge on the Drina was published in March 1945, 00:31:39.210 --> 00:31:41.730 right as the war was ending. It was an instant, 00:31:41.829 --> 00:31:44.529 massive success. The communists hailed it as 00:31:44.529 --> 00:31:46.829 a foundational masterpiece of the new Yugoslav 00:31:46.829 --> 00:31:49.470 literature. It perfectly fit their new state 00:31:49.470 --> 00:31:52.549 ideology of brotherhood and unity, showing Serbs, 00:31:52.549 --> 00:31:54.869 Muslims, and Kropes living together over centuries. 00:31:55.190 --> 00:31:56.710 So instead of putting him on trial, they put 00:31:56.710 --> 00:31:58.869 him on a pedestal. They embraced him completely. 00:31:59.029 --> 00:32:00.970 He becomes the first president of the Yugoslav 00:32:00.970 --> 00:32:03.210 Writers Union. He's made a member of parliament. 00:32:03.470 --> 00:32:05.250 He's given a State Department and a pension. 00:32:05.609 --> 00:32:08.430 He becomes a cultural figurehead for the new 00:32:08.430 --> 00:32:11.690 regime. But was he a true believer? Did he genuinely 00:32:11.690 --> 00:32:14.410 convert to communism? This is one of the biggest 00:32:14.410 --> 00:32:16.549 debates about his life. The evidence suggests 00:32:16.549 --> 00:32:20.190 probably not. He did eventually join the Communist 00:32:20.190 --> 00:32:23.990 Party, but very late, not until 1954. Most of 00:32:23.990 --> 00:32:26.670 his biographers, like Celia Hawksworth, argue 00:32:26.670 --> 00:32:29.410 that it was not an act of deep ideological conviction. 00:32:29.769 --> 00:32:32.529 It was more likely an act of pragmatism, of duty, 00:32:32.609 --> 00:32:35.309 maybe even of fear. It was the price of survival 00:32:35.309 --> 00:32:37.390 and the price of being able to continue his work 00:32:37.390 --> 00:32:39.289 in peace. There's a quote I found from one of 00:32:39.289 --> 00:32:41.549 his close friends that is just haunting. The 00:32:41.549 --> 00:32:44.180 friend said that Andrew seemed... Born afraid. 00:32:44.420 --> 00:32:46.700 Born afraid. I think that captures the private 00:32:46.700 --> 00:32:50.019 man perfectly. He was profoundly cautious, risk 00:32:50.019 --> 00:32:52.559 -averse. He had seen too much violence, too many 00:32:52.559 --> 00:32:55.259 ideologies rise and fall. He just wanted to be 00:32:55.259 --> 00:32:57.680 left alone to write. This is reflected in his 00:32:57.680 --> 00:32:59.819 personal life, too. He didn't get married until 00:32:59.819 --> 00:33:03.099 1958 when he was 66 years old. Why wait so long? 00:33:03.279 --> 00:33:06.279 He married Milika Babic, a costume designer he 00:33:06.279 --> 00:33:08.640 had been in love with for decades, but she had 00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:11.410 been married to his best friend. Only after her 00:33:11.410 --> 00:33:14.230 husband died did they finally get together. But 00:33:14.230 --> 00:33:16.769 Friends suggested it was more than that. He was 00:33:16.769 --> 00:33:19.029 simply afraid of life, afraid of commitment, 00:33:19.289 --> 00:33:22.029 afraid of bringing a family into such an unstable 00:33:22.029 --> 00:33:24.930 world. He was married to his writing and his 00:33:24.930 --> 00:33:27.430 fear. There's another major shift that happens 00:33:27.430 --> 00:33:29.970 in this post -war period, and it's something 00:33:29.970 --> 00:33:32.170 that becomes a huge point of contention for his 00:33:32.170 --> 00:33:34.630 legacy later on, his shift in language. Yes, 00:33:34.630 --> 00:33:36.190 this is crucial for understanding the modern 00:33:36.190 --> 00:33:39.390 controversies. Andrich was born a croat. He grew 00:33:39.390 --> 00:33:41.930 up speaking and writing in the Edukavian variant 00:33:41.930 --> 00:33:44.509 of Serbo -Croatian, which is typical for Bosnia 00:33:44.509 --> 00:33:46.569 and Croatia. And for our English -speaking listeners, 00:33:46.829 --> 00:33:49.029 what's the difference between Edukavian and Ekavian? 00:33:49.470 --> 00:33:51.630 It's a dialectical difference, most famously 00:33:51.630 --> 00:33:54.170 in how the old Slavic vowel jat is pronounced. 00:33:54.450 --> 00:33:57.269 So, for example, the word for milk is mlijeko 00:33:57.269 --> 00:34:01.130 in Ajikavian and lajko in Akavian. It's a subtle 00:34:01.130 --> 00:34:03.849 but instantly recognizable marker of regional 00:34:03.849 --> 00:34:06.089 identity. And when Andrade settles in Belgrade 00:34:06.089 --> 00:34:09.280 after the war, he makes a conscious switch. He 00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:12.559 does. He begins writing exclusively in the Akavian 00:34:12.559 --> 00:34:15.679 dialect, which is the standard in Serbia. For 00:34:15.679 --> 00:34:18.300 him, a committed Yugoslav, it probably seemed 00:34:18.300 --> 00:34:20.760 like a non -issue. It was all one language and 00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:22.820 he was living in the capital, Belgrade, so he 00:34:22.820 --> 00:34:25.539 adopted the local standard. But in the Balkans, 00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:27.760 language is never just language, it's identity. 00:34:28.219 --> 00:34:31.489 It's politics. It's everything. So decades later, 00:34:31.610 --> 00:34:34.409 when Yugoslavia violently disintegrated, that 00:34:34.409 --> 00:34:36.590 choice was reinterpreted through a nationalist 00:34:36.590 --> 00:34:39.690 lens. To many Crote nationalists, it was proof 00:34:39.690 --> 00:34:42.269 that he had betrayed his roots and become a Serb. 00:34:42.530 --> 00:34:44.789 To Serb nationalists, it was proof that he had 00:34:44.789 --> 00:34:47.130 chosen them and therefore belonged to Serbian 00:34:47.130 --> 00:34:49.170 literature. It's a burden he never could have 00:34:49.170 --> 00:34:51.710 anticipated. But in the late 50s and early 60s, 00:34:51.710 --> 00:34:54.570 none of that mattered yet. He was on top of the 00:34:54.570 --> 00:34:57.570 world. And that brings us to part seven. The 00:34:57.570 --> 00:35:00.309 Nobel Prize. The year is 1961. The Swedish Academy 00:35:00.309 --> 00:35:02.489 makes its announcement. And the names on the 00:35:02.489 --> 00:35:04.469 shortlist that year that he beat are, as we said, 00:35:04.610 --> 00:35:07.469 just incredible. Tolkien, Frost, Steinbeck, Forster. 00:35:07.690 --> 00:35:09.690 It's true. And there's a fun tidbit from the 00:35:09.690 --> 00:35:11.690 Nobel archives that were declassified a few years 00:35:11.690 --> 00:35:14.789 ago. One of the jurors dismissed Tolkien's The 00:35:14.789 --> 00:35:17.610 Lord of the Rings, saying his prose was poor. 00:35:18.309 --> 00:35:20.449 I'm sure Tolkien's millions of fans would have 00:35:20.449 --> 00:35:23.230 a thing or two to say about that. No doubt. But 00:35:23.230 --> 00:35:26.139 the committee chose Andrich. Their official citation 00:35:26.139 --> 00:35:28.739 praised him for the epic force with which he 00:35:28.739 --> 00:35:31.239 has traced themes and depicted human destinies 00:35:31.239 --> 00:35:33.800 drawn from the history of his country. It was 00:35:33.800 --> 00:35:35.940 a recognition of his life's work. And it put 00:35:35.940 --> 00:35:38.860 Yugoslavia and Balkan literature on the global 00:35:38.860 --> 00:35:41.460 map for the first time. What was the reaction 00:35:41.460 --> 00:35:44.300 back home? It was a national event of immense 00:35:44.300 --> 00:35:48.019 pride. Pandemonium. His apartment in Belgrade 00:35:48.019 --> 00:35:50.159 was mobbed by reporters and well -wishers for 00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:52.780 days. He became a global celebrity overnight, 00:35:53.019 --> 00:35:55.500 which for a man who craved privacy and silence 00:35:55.500 --> 00:35:57.860 was probably a kind of torture. And what he chose 00:35:57.860 --> 00:35:59.780 to do with the prize money is just an incredible 00:35:59.780 --> 00:36:02.480 act of generosity. It was a fortune at the time, 00:36:02.539 --> 00:36:05.679 about 30 million Yugoslav dinars. He didn't keep 00:36:05.679 --> 00:36:08.440 a single dinar for himself. He donated the entire 00:36:08.440 --> 00:36:10.940 sum to a fund for the purchase of library books 00:36:10.940 --> 00:36:13.679 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He gave it all back 00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:15.639 to where he started. He wanted the children of 00:36:15.639 --> 00:36:17.940 Bosnia to have the books he never had access 00:36:17.940 --> 00:36:20.900 to as a boy. It was a beautiful, full circle 00:36:20.900 --> 00:36:23.420 gesture. He wanted to build bridges of knowledge. 00:36:23.639 --> 00:36:27.119 He passes away in 1975. He's given a massive 00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:30.340 state funeral. He's mourned as the greatest Yugoslav 00:36:30.340 --> 00:36:33.739 writer. But the story doesn't end there. In fact, 00:36:33.860 --> 00:36:38.119 part eight. Legacy, controversy, and the ethnotown 00:36:38.119 --> 00:36:40.679 is where the story gets really complicated and 00:36:40.679 --> 00:36:43.360 sad. Because the country he believed in, the 00:36:43.360 --> 00:36:45.840 Yugoslavia he served and represented, didn't 00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:48.860 survive him for long. In the 1990s, it tore itself 00:36:48.860 --> 00:36:52.280 apart in a series of horrific ethnic wars. And 00:36:52.280 --> 00:36:54.719 Andrzej's legacy was fractured right along with 00:36:54.719 --> 00:36:57.480 the country. Let's break it down nation by nation. 00:36:57.940 --> 00:37:00.869 How is he viewed in Serbia today? In Serbia, 00:37:01.090 --> 00:37:03.510 he is unequivocally claimed as one of their own. 00:37:03.630 --> 00:37:05.730 He lived in Belgrade for the last half of his 00:37:05.730 --> 00:37:07.789 life. He wrote in the Serbian Akavian dialect. 00:37:07.909 --> 00:37:09.969 He's buried there. He is considered a central 00:37:09.969 --> 00:37:12.670 pillar, perhaps the central pillar of 20th century 00:37:12.670 --> 00:37:14.989 Serbian literature. And what about in his native 00:37:14.989 --> 00:37:18.630 Croatia? It's been a journey. In the hyper -nationalist 00:37:18.630 --> 00:37:21.889 atmosphere of the 1990s, he was effectively blacklisted. 00:37:22.070 --> 00:37:25.360 He was seen as a traitor. a Yugoslav unitarist 00:37:25.360 --> 00:37:28.440 who abandoned his Croatian roots. One nationalist 00:37:28.440 --> 00:37:31.139 critic famously said he missed the Chetnik train 00:37:31.139 --> 00:37:34.139 by a small margin. His books were purged from 00:37:34.139 --> 00:37:36.280 some school curriculums. But has that changed? 00:37:36.750 --> 00:37:39.449 Yes, thankfully. In the last couple of decades, 00:37:39.670 --> 00:37:42.650 that nationalist fever has broken. He has been 00:37:42.650 --> 00:37:46.010 largely rehabilitated in Croatia. They now acknowledge 00:37:46.010 --> 00:37:48.550 his genius and his Croatian origins, even if 00:37:48.550 --> 00:37:50.590 they still see him as a kind of prodigal son 00:37:50.590 --> 00:37:53.670 who chose Belgrade over Zagreb. And then there's 00:37:53.670 --> 00:37:56.469 Bosnia, specifically the Bosniak or Bosnian Muslim 00:37:56.469 --> 00:37:58.690 perspective. This seems to be where the controversy 00:37:58.690 --> 00:38:01.829 is deepest and most painful. It is. For many 00:38:01.829 --> 00:38:03.789 Bosniaks, his work is viewed through the trauma 00:38:03.789 --> 00:38:06.980 of the 1990s war and the genocide it's They look 00:38:06.980 --> 00:38:10.280 back at his 1924 PhD thesis, at his portrayals 00:38:10.280 --> 00:38:12.380 of Ottoman officials as cruel or corrupt in his 00:38:12.380 --> 00:38:14.880 novels, and they see a pattern. They argue that 00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:17.440 his work is Orientalist, that it reinforces negative 00:38:17.440 --> 00:38:19.739 stereotypes of Muslims as being inherently foreign, 00:38:19.880 --> 00:38:22.500 backward, or violent. And they argue that these 00:38:22.500 --> 00:38:25.000 literary stereotypes were then used as a kind 00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:27.860 of cultural justification for the real -world 00:38:27.860 --> 00:38:30.400 violence that happened in the 90s. That is precisely 00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:33.519 the argument. That his work, intentionally or 00:38:33.519 --> 00:38:35.880 not, provided a kind of high culture intellectual 00:38:35.880 --> 00:38:39.239 cover for Serbian nationalism. And this anger 00:38:39.239 --> 00:38:42.179 became physical right in his hometown of Visegrad. 00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:45.699 The statue incident. Yes. In 1991, on the eve 00:38:45.699 --> 00:38:48.659 of the Bosnian War, a Bosniak nationalist in 00:38:48.659 --> 00:38:51.840 Visegrad took a sledgehammer and publicly destroyed 00:38:51.840 --> 00:38:55.000 a statue of Ivo Andrić in the town square. That 00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:57.860 is such a potent symbolic act of rejection. It's 00:38:57.860 --> 00:38:59.989 devastating. The man who made the town world 00:38:59.989 --> 00:39:02.150 famous was being violently rejected by a part 00:39:02.150 --> 00:39:04.670 of the town itself. And then, tragically, during 00:39:04.670 --> 00:39:07.110 the war, Visegrad became the site of some of 00:39:07.110 --> 00:39:09.849 the most horrific ethnic cleansing. The bridge, 00:39:09.929 --> 00:39:11.690 his very symbol of connection and endurance, 00:39:12.030 --> 00:39:14.690 was used by Bosnian Serb paramilitaries as a 00:39:14.690 --> 00:39:17.289 site to execute Bosniak civilians and throw their 00:39:17.289 --> 00:39:19.369 bodies into the river. It's a complete nightmare 00:39:19.369 --> 00:39:22.469 inversion of his metaphor. The worst imaginable. 00:39:22.590 --> 00:39:24.730 And to add another layer of complexity, in the 00:39:24.730 --> 00:39:28.090 2010s, a new, very controversial project was 00:39:28.090 --> 00:39:30.909 built there. Something called Andrichgrad. Andrichtown. 00:39:31.070 --> 00:39:33.829 Yes. It was masterminded by the famous and controversial 00:39:33.829 --> 00:39:37.750 filmmaker Emir Kusturica. It's an ethnotown built 00:39:37.750 --> 00:39:39.710 out of stone right near the historic bridge. 00:39:39.949 --> 00:39:42.530 It's a tourist attraction dedicated to Andrich. 00:39:42.710 --> 00:39:46.489 But it's not universally loved. It's deeply divisive. 00:39:46.809 --> 00:39:48.670 It was funded and supported by the government 00:39:48.670 --> 00:39:51.210 of Republika Sprupska, the Serb majority entity 00:39:51.210 --> 00:39:54.230 within Bosnia. It was officially inaugurated 00:39:54.230 --> 00:39:56.829 on June 28th, Vid of Don, the anniversary of 00:39:56.829 --> 00:40:00.349 the Franz Ferdinand assassination. For many Bosniaks, 00:40:00.369 --> 00:40:02.570 it feels like a Serbian nationalist theme park 00:40:02.570 --> 00:40:05.110 built on the scene of horrific war crimes, using 00:40:05.110 --> 00:40:07.510 Andrzej's name as a cultural shield. So even 00:40:07.510 --> 00:40:10.170 in death. Decades later, he cannot escape the 00:40:10.170 --> 00:40:12.329 political battlefield. He is a battleground himself. 00:40:12.590 --> 00:40:14.909 The man who wrote about bridges has become a 00:40:14.909 --> 00:40:17.349 bridge that everyone is fighting to control or 00:40:17.349 --> 00:40:19.510 to blow up. It's a heavy, complicated legacy. 00:40:19.809 --> 00:40:21.750 But it's important not to lose sight of the art 00:40:21.750 --> 00:40:23.809 itself. The bridge on the Drano is still read 00:40:23.809 --> 00:40:25.769 and admired all over the world. And it should 00:40:25.769 --> 00:40:28.400 be. Because if you can, for a moment, strip away 00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:30.360 the modern political warfare being fought over 00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:33.019 his corpse, the book itself speaks to something 00:40:33.019 --> 00:40:35.559 universal. It's a profound meditation on time, 00:40:35.659 --> 00:40:38.980 suffering, and the stubborn, beautiful, messy 00:40:38.980 --> 00:40:41.679 persistence of life in the face of history's 00:40:41.679 --> 00:40:44.320 brutality. We've covered such a massive arc today. 00:40:44.639 --> 00:40:47.579 From that sickly, fatherless boy in the Visegrad 00:40:47.579 --> 00:40:49.880 Casaba, to the polished diplomat in the Nazi 00:40:49.880 --> 00:40:52.980 capital, to the silent writer, to the Nobel laureate, 00:40:52.980 --> 00:40:56.199 and finally to a contested ghost. Ivo Andrić 00:40:56.199 --> 00:40:58.760 truly was a mirror held up to the entire Balkan 00:40:58.760 --> 00:41:01.300 20th century. He absorbed all of it, the utopian 00:41:01.300 --> 00:41:03.619 dreams, the horrific violence, the grand hopes, 00:41:03.760 --> 00:41:06.420 and the deep despair. And he managed to transform 00:41:06.420 --> 00:41:09.619 it all into art that has, so far, outlasted the 00:41:09.619 --> 00:41:12.099 empires and the nations he served. And I think 00:41:12.099 --> 00:41:14.659 that brings us to our final provocative thought 00:41:14.659 --> 00:41:17.599 for you to take with you. Andrić wrote with the 00:41:17.599 --> 00:41:20.380 belief that understanding history, seeing its 00:41:20.380 --> 00:41:23.079 patterns, could help us avoid repeating the mistakes 00:41:23.079 --> 00:41:26.320 of the past. He wanted to build bridges of understanding. 00:41:26.920 --> 00:41:29.340 Yet when you look at how his own work is now 00:41:29.340 --> 00:41:32.159 used as a weapon by different sides in the very 00:41:32.159 --> 00:41:34.719 conflicts he wrote about, you have to ask a difficult 00:41:34.719 --> 00:41:38.219 question. Can art ever truly transcend the politics 00:41:38.219 --> 00:41:41.320 of the land it describes? Or is the writer, no 00:41:41.320 --> 00:41:43.619 matter how great their vision, always doomed 00:41:43.619 --> 00:41:45.880 to be pulled back into the trench to have their 00:41:45.880 --> 00:41:48.059 work become just another flag on the battlefield? 00:41:48.400 --> 00:41:50.760 That's the question Evo Andrage's legacy leaves 00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:53.880 us with. difficult and still unanswered question. 00:41:54.059 --> 00:41:56.460 Thanks for listening to this deep dive. We'll 00:41:56.460 --> 00:41:57.039 see you next time.