The Woman from Sarajevo by Ivo Andrić

First published:Gospodjica, 1945 (English translation, 1965)

Type of work: Psychological and social criticism

Time of work: 1900-1936

Locale: Sarajevo and Belgrade

Principal Character:

• Rajka Radaković, a spinster from Sarajevo

The Novel

The beginning of The Woman from Sarajevo finds Rajka Radaković, a middle-aged spinster, in Belgrade, the capital city of Yugoslavia, where she moved after World War I from her native Sarajevo. She has lived alone with her mother since the age of fifteen, when her beloved father, a well-known businessman, died, bankrupt and in disgrace. In flashbacks, the story of her happy childhood and unhappy girlhood is told. The only child, withdrawn and overly serious for her age, she felt secure while her father was alive. Just before he died, he warned her to “save, save always, everywhere and in everything,” and not to trust people because “all our feelings and concerns for others show our weaknesses only.” He wanted to warn his child not to become a victim, as he had, of scrupulous ethics in business, which had brought him to ruin. This warning marks the beginning of an aberration in young Rajka that will eventually grow to monstrous proportions. She takes her father’s advice literally and from an early age begins a life of excessive thrift and self-denial that borders on obsession. As soon as she comes of age, she takes over her father’s business and, with a remarkable dexterity, rebuilds the family fortune, mainly by lending money at exorbitant rates. She denies both her mother and herself all normal pleasures, save for very basic needs. She isolates herself from her friends and, little by little, turns away all family friends and most of her relatives. Her life centers exclusively on money matters, out of a pathological fear that she will suffer the same financial ruin as her father. That insecurity, coupled with some peculiar strains in her character—excessive egotism, selfishness, miserliness, and lack of normal human drives—follows her throughout her life, until she ruins everyone with whom she associates and, finally, herself.

Not even World War I can make her change her ways. As a Serb, she escapes the pogroms, to which many of her compatriots have fallen victim, mainly by continuing her old way of life—by lending money and even supporting the enemy. Because of her activities, she is forced to flee with her mother to Belgrade, where she loses herself in a big city while finding greater opportunities for financial deals. As in Sarajevo, she shuns relatives and friends, oblivious to the world outside her narrow financial concerns. Not even her uncle, a friendly and sociable man, succeeds in drawing her out of her shell.

To be sure, she meets people and even allows herself to become friendly with some of them, but such efforts last only a short time; in the end, the old distrustful Rajka reasserts herself. There is only one occasion when she lets her guard down and allows herself to be sidetracked from her single-minded direction. An attractive and pleasant young man, a war hero, needs money to obtain a Ford dealership and asks Rajka for it. Because he resembles so much her younger uncle, whom she loved and who died young and penniless because of his irresponsibility, Rajka lends the young man a sizable amount of money, against her better judgment. When, after patiently waiting for him to return the money, she discovers that he has been squandering it on women and an easy life, she is almost crushed, but she recovers. She is also reaffirmed in her belief that no one is to be trusted and that one must think of oneself exclusively. The most disturbing aspect of this affair is her realization that she has let her emotions guide her even after so many years of conditioning herself to do the opposite.

This experience makes Rajka even more suspicious of everything, so much so that she develops a persecution mania. She is frightened to death by the apparition of an intruder who, she thinks, has come to rob her, and she dies of a heart attack, all alone. Her body is discovered two days later by a mailman.

The Characters

The main character of The Woman from Sarajevo is Rajka. All other characters are only props in Ivo Andrić’s efforts to draw the unusual character of this woman. Rajka is the quintessential miser, recalling the classic examples of the type portrayed in works such as Plautus’ Aulularia (The Pot of Gold), Moliere’s L’Avare (1668; The Miser, 1672), and Jovan Sterija Popovic’s Tvrdica: Ili, Kir Janja (1837; the miser). She leaves little to the reader’s imagination as far as her avarice is concerned. She saves on firewood, for example, while her hands are purple, her lips are gray, and her nose is red from the cold. She dresses poorly, without attention to fashion and to the normal woman’s need to adorn and beautify herself. To Rajka, beauty is insanely expensive, a worthless and fickle thing. One can always save and shortchange time, warmth, light, food, rest—even when it seems to be impossible. She refuses to make a donation to any charitable cause, which earns for her the nickname “Shylock in a Skirt.” She carries her stinginess into the nonmaterial world, such as in her relationships with other people; unless necessary, she does not say even “hello.”

Andrić describes her succinctly at a later stage in her life:

Her ties even with the deceased relatives are weaker and weaker.... In town she doesn’t see anybody. She doesn’t need people; they pass her by, are born, grow and die, yet they are only one of the harmful or useful, good or dangerous factors in her savings. Otherwise she is not aware of their presence and has nothing in common with them. Even time does not exist for her—only the deposit and pay-off deadlines. There is no future, and the past is buried.

At that late stage in her life, she finds the greatest pleasure in watching with glee her gold pieces, “the basis, meaning and goal of life.” Her only goal is to add to the principal and watch it grow. In addition, she refuses to marry throughout her life, even though she had suitors in the beginning. For this reason, she is called “Miss” and is better known by the nickname than by her own name.

Rajka seems to be a pathological miser and seems to have no redeeming qualities. Andrić provides two explanations for her affliction. One is a desire to avenge and redeem her father, who was ruined financially and who eventually died from grief because of his trust in others and his desire to help rather than to amass wealth. Rajka’s justification for her behavior, stemming from the experience of her father as she understood it, is rather simple: The world is basically evil, selfish, insensitive, even cruel; it kills soft and honest people like her father, but is subservient before the hard and unscrupulous ones, like herself. She has therefore become avaricious, insensitive, and even cruel only to protect herself from the evil world, and if she avenges her father’s untimely death in the process, it will give her an added satisfaction.

This kind of thinking reveals the second reason for her behavior—her insecurity and her inability to lead a life without fear. Left fatherless early in life, with a good-hearted but weak mother, she finds security and solace in wealth, which will protect her from all evil. For a long time this proves to be true, as far as her financial independence is concerned. Her insecurity is best expressed by her refusal during the war to identify with fellow Serbs, especially students and revolutionaries: “My life does not depend on those people but on my work. When I suffer a loss or damage, no one will come and ask me how I am and whether I can manage.” This rather naive rationalization explains why she feels happy at the time, “like a mole which burrows blindly in the darkness and silence of the soft earth, in which there is plenty of food and there are no barriers and dangers.” Security provided by money becomes a god to which Rajka is willing to sacrifice everything.

Thus, an inborn trait in her character, her desire for revenge, and her insecurity complex have combined to create a monster of a human being. Still, Andrić does not leave her without some redeeming qualities. Her desire to avenge her father and her insecurity are all too understandably human. Moreover, when she for once shows understanding and compassion with the young war hero, she is bitterly deceived, which confirms her distrust and forces her to shun people for the rest of her life.

Other characters are much less developed, so that Rajka’s strong character is constantly in the limelight. Her mother is present only in body. Unable to stand up to her daughter’s will, she leads the life of a meek, powerless person. Rajka’s business partners are also constantly overshadowed by her iron will, and her uncles do not seem to be able to bridle her selfishness either. Perhaps the strongest of the secondary characters is Rajka’s father, but he quickly disappears from the scene, looming over the rest of the novel as the driving force in Rajka’s relentless quest for wealth, revenge, and security.

Critical Context

The Woman from Sarajevo was the third novel by Ivo Andrić written in Belgrade in a relatively short span of time, during his enforced retirement in World War II. After writing Na Drini cuprija (1945; The Bridge on the Drina, 1959) and Travnicka hronika (1945; Bosnian Story, 1958; better known as Bosnian Chronicle, 1963), which are artistically superior and much more expansive works, it is understandable that in The Woman from Sarajevo Andrić shows signs of narrowing the scope and moving inward. One would be tempted to think that Andrić wrote this novel as a form of relaxation after his previous lengthy novels, but the intense concentration on one character and on a single theme requires as much energy. While the two other novels in many ways surpass The Woman from Sarajevo, there are some qualities that make this work a worthy companion to its predecessors: the concentration on one character and the resulting depth; the brilliant penetration into the psyche of a woman unusual in many ways; the strange attachment to this character, an attitude that Andrić has shown in few other works; and the attention to the more modern era, whereas most of Andrić’s work dwells in the distant past. For these reasons, this novel, though less acclaimed critically than most of Andrić’s other works, has a significance and charm of its own. It is indeed a worthy detail in the panoramic mural of Andrić’s world that continues to intrigue and enchant his readers.

Bibliography

Dzadzic, Petar. Ivo Andrić, 1960.

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

Hawkesworth, Celia. Ivo Andrić: Bridge Between East and West, 1984.

Mihailovich, Vasa D. “The Reception of the Works of Ivo Andrić in the English-speaking World,” in Southeastern Europe. IX (1982), pp. 41-52.

Rosslyn, Felicity. “Ivo Andrić and The Woman from Sarajevo,” in Serbian Studies. II (1984), pp. 21-40.

Zuckerman, A. Review in The New York Times Book Review. LXX (April 11, 1965), p. 4.