By Ivo Andric (1892-1975), this was originally published in 1945. The English translation, by Joseph Hitrec, came out in 1963.

It tells the story of a Bosnian town called Travnik, in the period 1807-14. The Ottomans are still in control, although they're constantly riven by internal intrigue, and Istanbul sometimes feels very far away. And with the European Great Powers continually probing and circling, riled up by the rise and fall of Napoleon, this is also the era of the consuls (these are the hapless representatives of said powers, who do their utmost to influence the Travnik tide of events in the interests of their various lords and masters). There's talk of the arrival of a Russian consul, but that event doesn't materialize, so our focus is on the French official (Jean Daville), his assistant (Desfosses), and his Austrian counterpart (initially Joseph von Mitterer, and later Lt-Col von Paulich). All these protagonists have actual historical models.

Andric was born in or near Travnik, although his parents were from Sarajevo, and he subsequently studied in Zagreb, Vienna, and Krakow, and began his diplomatic career in Belgrade (serving the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes). Briefly posted to Paris, Andric became familiar with the correspondence of Pierre David, the real French consul in Travnik on whom the Daville figure is based. When Belgrade was occupied by the Germans during World War II, Andric continued to live there, effectively under house arrest. It was during this period of seclusion that he wrote Bosnian Chronicle. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961.

My audio-version was expertly narrated by Helen Lloyd. And it's a story that really works as an audio-book. Within a few pages, I was not only hooked, but was changing our forthcoming travel itinerary to take in Travnik (whether -- given the severity of the winters described in Bosnian Chronicle -- this was a wise decision remains to be seen).

Partly, the audio-book format owes its success to the author's avoidance of complicated time shifts. The story starts at the beginning (with the Bosnian Muslim aristocrats -- known as begs -- contemplating the arrival of the consuls), and marches straight on, in chronological order, to the end (where those same begs are reflecting on the departure of the consuls). But there's some other quality that makes it mesmerizing, and I'm not totally sure I can put my finger on it.

It shouldn't work, really. The book is essentially the compilation of a series of incidents (young Desfosses, for example, falling first for a servant, and then for the wife of the Austrian consul; or the young French businessman trying to actualize Napoleon's "Continental System"; or the local riffraff laying plans to steal from the French cotton convoys; or the French consul's wife giving birth and tending her garden). Time after time, the tension is raised, and we expect a truly pivotal event. But, aside from a few untimely deaths, nothing comes of anything. There's no narrative arc except the arc of history.

And that's the point, of course. Consuls come, and consuls go. Sultans and viziers likewise come and go. What remains is Bosnia, with its harsh winters, and its brief, bright summers, and its tough, indomitable people.


We're hoping to get to Travnik before the year's end. These pics are from our March trip from Bratislava to Ljubljana

A powerful quality of melancholy hangs over the whole story. Change is difficult, Andric tells us, and life is unpredictable. You feel for all the human beings caught up in this maelstrom, with so few control mechanisms at their disposal.

Also fascinating are the many snippets of Bosnian life that Andric presents us with, which include both everyday elements and shocking one-off events. So, for example, we hear about how to survive the winter; how plum brandy is made; how medicine is practised; how practitioners of Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim creeds attempt to coexist, despite their radically different political aspirations; and how cosmopolitan people like "Illyrians" and "Levantines" try to make their way in the world. But we're also shown what a riot in the bazaar feels like; or a lynch-mob; or the murder of an Ottoman emissary ("Daville was shocked and dumb with amazement. It all sounded to him like a lurid, improbable tale...")

And the characters are very strong, very vivid, very three-dimensional. Daville is the one we get to know best. He is a melancholy type of person. He tries to do right; he is conscientious and loyal. Yet he cannot bring himself to like Bosnia, and over the years an immense weariness has settled on his soul: "At times it seemed to him that life demanded unconscionable efforts and each effort a disproportionate amount of courage." This little bit of profiling reminded me uncomfortably of myself: "Terrified of faltering and remaining still, a man deceived himself by burying his unfinished business under new tasks, which he would never finish either, and in these fresh enterprises and endeavors sought new strength and a new lease of courage. And so he cheated himself and as time went on piled up an ever greater and more hopeless debt to himself and to everyone around him."

Daville develops a good relationship with the first of the Viziers he encounters (there will be three in that short period of time). With the second, too, and his "incurable pessimism", he finds a point of contact. But just as the assassination of the envoy curbed his optimism in the case of the first Vizier, so too -- with this second one -- did the announcement of an Ottoman victory in Serbia, which is underlined by the delivery, in the presence of the two consuls, of several containers filled with human ears and noses... (The following day, Daville and von Mitterer meet: "They kept shaking hands and looking into each other's eyes like two shipwrecked men.") The third of the Viziers is the hardest to cope with: "It was the first time Daville was confronted with one of those unlearned, coarse, and bloody Turkish governors about whom he had so far known only from books and popular tales."



Bosnia is "the East" for both the French and the Austrian consuls. Despite their constant jostling for position, and even when their countries are at war, there is a feeling that they have something in common which distinguishes them from their rough and ready surroundings.

But there are several interesting nuances that prevent this story becoming simplistically Orientalist.

The first is that the Ottoman Viziers despise Bosnia every bit as much as the West Europeans... In the first Vizier's initial meeting with Daville, he explains how the country is backward, and its people coarse and boorish.

The second is the gulf that separates Daville and Desfosses. The older man has seen the Revolution at first hand. He has personally had to confront violence and the upending of ideals. And after 25 years spent "questing for a 'middle road' that would lead to serenity and the kind of dignity without which an individual could not endure", he is now "inwardly wrung dry". It's a great description of burnout... And it's a poignant reminder that the coveted middle road might not exist. Instead, perhaps people are simply stumbling along the same old paths: "The only things that changed were the men and the generation who traveled the path, forever deluded... One simply went on. The long trek had no point or value, save those we might learn to discover within ourselves along the way. There were no roads, no destinations. One just traveled on. One traveled on, spent oneself, and grew weary."

Desfosses, on the other hand, was educated after the Revolution, and is one of "the new generation of Parisian diplomats". He's pragmatic, action-oriented, and ambitious (qualities Daville finds threatening). He is also curious, eager to learn, open to different ideas, and hugely energetic. He's much more willing to engage in cross-cultural studies, and is always off finding things out: "The 'young Consul' ... managed to see and learn things which Daville, grave and stiff and unbending as he was, would never see or learn. Daville, whose bitterness caused him to look on everything Turkish and Bosnian with distaste and mistrust, could see no purpose or official advantage in these excursions and reports of Desfosses. The easy optimism of the young man irritated him, as did his eagerness to delve deeper into the history, customs, and beliefs of the natives; his habit of explaining away their faults; and, lastly, his passion for discovering their good traits, which he believed were corrupted and smothered by the strange circumstances in which they were forced to live." For Daville, every problem or inconvenience is down to the "backwardness of these people". But Desfosses tries to understand WHY the Bosnians feel and act as they do: "The goodness and badness of a people are the product of conditions in which they live and develop."

Into the mouth of Desfosses are put the prophetic words that would only gain in relevance after Andric's death. Talking to a Bosnian Catholic, he says: "There's no doubt that one day your country will join the European family, but it might very well happen that she will do so divided and weighted down by a legacy of prejudice, habits, and tendencies which have become outdated everywhere else and which, like some malevolent ghosts, will stand in the way of her normal development and make of her an antiquated curiosity, an easy target for any comer, just as today she is for the Turk... One day when the Turkish Empire falls and abandons these parts, these people under the Turkish yoke, calling themselves different names and professing different faiths, will have to find some common ground for their existence, a broader, better, more sensible and humane rule of life."

The third contrast is seen in the difference between the consuls' wives. Anna Maria von Mitterer is moody, melodramatic, crisis-generating, and childish. She hates living in Travnik. "Joseph, for God's sake!" she interjects at regular intervals; "Joseph, for the love of God!" Madame Daville, on the other hand, is ultra-competent, industrious, and unflappable. She probably doesn't love Travnik, but she gets on with bearing children and planting her garden. And part of her, at least, is sad to leave at the end.



In the wake of the violence that racked the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Andric has been both celebrated and reviled. Celia Hawkesworth offers an excellent summary of the issues. There is no doubt that Andric's is a pessimistic vision. Peter Levine notes "the network of misunderstandings that structure the novel", and responds to critics who accuse Andric of anti-Muslim prejudice by pointing out: "Human faults and frailties are evenly distributed across the communities of the novel. Their common problem is a failure to connect."

We leave Daville packing up to move from Travnik. The anticipated new beginning restores some of his faith in the existence of the "right road". And, indeed, according to Giuseppe Pio Cascavilla, Pierre David, the character who inspired Daville, not only found such a highway, but opened it up for others: "David left Bosnia in 1814 and was then appointed to Smyrna, where as consul he would go on to save the lives of hundreds of people during the turmoil that followed the War of Greek Independence."

In all, this was a great introduction to a fascinating region. There are two more volumes in the Bosnian Trilogy (this is actually the second). I've rounded up copies already...