Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić

First published:Travnicka hronika, 1945 (Bosnian Story, 1958; better known as Bosnian Chronicle)

Type of work: Historical chronicle

Time of work: 1806-1814

Locale: Travnik, Bosnia

Principal Characters:

• Jean Baptiste-Etienne Daville, a French consul in Travnik
• Josef von Mitterer, an Austrian consul
• Mehmed-Pasha, ,
• Ibrahim-Pasha, and
• Ali-Pasha, Turkish viziers

The Novel

Bosnian Chronicle is a chronicle of life in Travnik, a provincial Turkish capital in Bosnia during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Since then, Travnik has lost all significance and is now merely a small town, but in those days, it was an administrative seat at the westernmost border of the Ottoman Empire and the residence of a vizier. Because the French occupied nearby Dalmatia and the Turks were forced to retreat from Hungary, Travnik became important beyond its true political and strategic value. It was so important that in 1806 the French found it necessary to send a consul, Jean Baptiste-Etienne Daville, to keep an eye on the Turks. This appointment, in turn, prompted the Austrians to send their own consul, Josef von Mitterer.

Both consuls find themselves under the constant vigil of the distrustful Turks. Non-Turkish inhabitants welcome them, each group in its own way: Catholic Croats are friendly toward von Mitterer while shunning Daville; the small Jewish community supports Daville; and the Orthodox Serbs distrust both, pinning their hopes on Russia, which is expected to send its consul also. Yet they are all powerless under the Turkish domination.

Daville, a middle-aged diplomat who writes classical poetry and tries to keep the semblance of civilization in a town whose life-style resembles that of the Middle Ages, finds it difficult to function, yet he endures for the sake of his idol Napoleon Bonaparte and for the glory of France. Von Mitterer has it somewhat easier, for Bosnia is in Austria’s backyard and the non-Turkish population is more sympathetic to him. Both of them, however, must deal primarily with Turkish viziers, who wield all power and can thwart all of their efforts by various means at their disposal. The work of the two Western consuls is further complicated by the necessity to play against each other. The entire novel chronicles the lives and endeavors of these participants in world politics in a most unlikely place—a sleepy provincial town in the Bosnian backwaters.

During the time of the novel, from 1806 to 1814, there are three Turkish viziers confronting Daville and von Mitterer. The first, Mehmed-Pasha, a Georgian by birth and a loyal servant of the empire, is a reasonable and good-hearted man. Daville has a relatively easy time dealing with him, and an aura of mutual respect and even trust develops between them. If he cannot succeed in every effort, Daville at least enjoys working with Mehmed-Pasha. After falling victim to internal Ottoman intrigues and struggles for power, Mehmed-Pasha is replaced by Ibrahim-Pasha, his exact opposite. Morose and taciturn, eaten internally by illness, Ibrahim-Pasha is extremely difficult, allowing the two consuls little room for success. His retinue of assistants and servants whom he brings from Turkey—the local people call them a “museum of monsters”—makes working with Ibrahim-Pasha even more difficult. Under this unpleasant veneer, Daville discovers a very unhappy man who is not as unpleasant and difficult as he seems, and with whom he develops a modicum of cooperation. The third vizier, Ali-Pasha, is the worst of the three. Frightfully efficient and merciless, he determines to execute immediately all thieves, gamblers, idlers, and even some political prisoners whom he finds in the prison. Having established his rule of terror and fear, he proceeds to be polite and even friendly with Daville and von Mitterer, as much as his position allows.

Even though the two consuls and their families eventually adjust to the unusual life in Travnik, both have difficulties leading a normal life, especially Daville’s gentle wife, who during their stay loses a child and gives birth to two. Yet she is more practical and more religious than her husband and is therefore better equipped to cope with the life in a foreign land. When, finally, Napoleon’s fortunes turn sour and Daville’s mission is terminated, both he and his wife are glad to leave, as are von Mitterer and his family. The chronicle of the attempts of the Western powers to intrude on the life of this strange, though fascinating, country comes to an end, and Travnik again recedes into the darkness of a life outside history, leaving its people to remember for a long time “the times of the consuls.”

The Characters

Many characters parade through the novel, as befits a chronicle of turbulent, even if peripheral, events in history, the Napoleonic wars. Many of the characters, though masterfully sketched, remain sketches nevertheless, serving only to highlight the protagonists. Among the main characters are the two consuls and the three viziers.

Daville is a typical representative of the French power and culture of the times. Well educated, thoroughly civilized, and professionally trained, he does his job well, within the limitations imposed by circumstances. He also serves as a striking foil to the world in which he finds himself. Amid illiteracy and backwardness, he writes an epic poem about Alexander the Great, thus retaining a civilized decorum even when it seems out of place. He also keeps a polite demeanor even when most people around him either lose theirs or never had it. Not exceptionally clever or gifted, he nevertheless reaches the level of competence without losing the human touch that is often lacking among his cohabitants. At the same time, he is often unable to cope with the strange world, because he lacks temperament and strong individuality. He is therefore lonely, melancholy, and constantly worried. It is his faith in human values exemplified, in his opinion, by Napoleon, that enables him to survive even after the demise of his idol. In this sense, he is also a victim of his faith and ideals, yet he shows no regrets, resigning himself to his destiny. Lacking the religious fervor of his wife and the expediency and practicality of his younger assistant des Fosses, he seems to be ill-suited for the changes around him and certainly for the strange world into which he was thrust for a while. Yet he comes out of all these predicaments battered but not defeated, saddened but not bitter.

His counterpart, von Mitterer, is in many ways his opposite. Capable and meticulously efficient, purposeful, polite but unemotional, he does what he is supposed to do. He sees an enemy in Daville but not personally, realizing that he is only doing his duty and tacitly assuring Daville that their enmity is only on a professional basis. Confronted with the alien world and aware that Daville as a Westerner is still closer to him than the local populace, he nevertheless follows his sense of duty; he even seems to enjoy his skirmishes with his Western rival. Lacking the inner life and mental agility of his French counterparts and constrained by his military-diplomatic vocation, he is depicted much less favorably than Daville, mainly because he sacrifices his human qualities on the altar of duty and expediency.

The three Turkish viziers, though different in many ways, share the indelible stamp that their culture left on them. As representatives of an empire, they see it as their duty to uphold the laws and interests of the empire, yet they go a step further. Even when they are polite and friendly on the surface, they seldom show the concern for human values found among their Western counterparts. Ibrahim-Pasha, for example, flaunts a pile of cut-off noses and ears from the slain Serbian rebels. Whether it is the nature of their position that makes them inscrutable and efficacious or whether it is a conviction that an empire can survive only through rigorous means without sentimentality, they are all portrayed as ruthless and implacable servants of the state, embodiments of a way of life that is indeed different from that of the Western world.

Other characters are too minor to merit much attention. Daville’s wife is depicted as the most humane of all the characters in the novel, a woman of simple yet true nobility. Daville’s assistants and allies, des Fosses and d’Avenat, show a balance of virtues and vices. D’Avenat, an adventurer and a connoisseur of people, is especially colorful. Von Mitterer’s replacement,von Paulich, is the exact pendant of des Fosses, young, energetic, practical,and unencumbered with superfluous concerns. They all serve to fill the rich tapestry of the life in Travnik and are indispensable even though they lack full portraiture.

Critical Context

Bosnian Chronicle was the first of three novels—along with Na Drini cuprija (1945; The Bridge on the Drina, 1959) and Gospodjica (1945; The Woman from Sarajevo, 1965)—Andrić wrote in Belgrade during the German Occupation of World War II. Together with the other two novels, it represents the culminating point in his career, winning for him the Nobel Prize in 1961. After years of writing short stories, he turned to novels, only to abandon this genre once again after the publication of these novels. Some critics consider Prokleta avlija (1954; Devil’s Yard, 1962) a short novel, but it is actually a long story or a novella.

According to some critics, Bosnian Chronicle is a better novel than The Bridge on the Drina. It is certainly more of a true novel, preserving the unity of time, place, and plot. Yet the two novels should be considered organic pieces of a whole that, together with the unfinished novel Omerpasa Latas (1976; Omer Pasha Latas), constitute the true Bosnian trilogy.

Like many other works, this novel serves Andrić in part as a vehicle for his own thoughts and ideas about life and history. Furthermore, just as the bridge in The Bridge on the Drina is the symbol of bridging the differences between worlds, Travnik is a symbol of a kasaba (provincial little town) in the backwaters of an empire, where little is happening yet people continue to strive against all odds. Thus, even though the picture Andrić presents is often bleak and melancholy, life pulsates beneath the surface with full vigor. His skillful depiction of this multifaceted life made Andrić a leading figure in modern world literature. His mastery of the psychology of his characters against the backdrop of events over which they have little control reached its highest peak in Bosnian Chronicle.

Bibliography

Cooper, Henry R., Jr. “The Image of Bosnia in the Fiction of Ivo Andrić,” in Serbian Studies. III (1984/1985), pp. 83-105.

Dzadzic, Petar. Ivo Andrić, 1960.

Ferguson, Alan. “Public and Private Worlds in Travnik Chronicle,” in The Modern Language Review. LXX (1975), pp. 830-838.

Goy, Edward D. “The Work of Ivo Andrić,” in Slavonic and East European Review. XLI (1963), pp. 301-326.

Kadic, Ante. “The French in The Chronicle of Travnik,” in California Slavic Studies. I (1960), pp. 134-169.