[In the following essay, Gorup explores the ways in which Andrić's portrayal of male-female relationships provides insights into women's psyches.]

Andrić's short stories and novels are populated with extraordinary women characters. Women are on equal terms with men in Andrić's writing. Juxtaposed with his famous male characters—for example, Djerzelez, Mustafa the Hungarian, Fra Petar, Ćamil, Ćorkan, Karadjoz, Karas, Alidede—there are women like Mara, Anika, Fata, the German girl, Lotika, Rajka, Saida, Rifka, and many more, named or unnamed. The titles of Andrić's works often reflect his preoccupation with women: “Anika's Times,” “The Pasha's Concubine,” “Woman on the Rock,” “Ćorkan and the German Girl,” “Jelena, the Woman Who Is Not,” “Mila and Prelac,” and The Woman from Sarajevo (among others).

Most of Andrić's prose works unfold in the exotic setting of Ottoman Bosnia, a place “between the two worlds of Islam and the West, belonging to both yet ambiguously remote from either one.”¹ Both the male and female protagonists of these works are Bosnian Muslims (ethnically Slavs) who converted to Islam to protect their families and property, Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Sephardic Jews. However, although Andrić's works are imbued with a sense of history, their subject matter has a universality which is not reducible to simple time and space.

Both male and female characters in Andrić's works are psychological studies in miniature. In Andrić's stories the drama of man's destiny unfolds on this plane rather than in its historical and temporal perspective. The author penetrates and explores the inner world of his characters, their conscious and subconscious, their dreams and nightmares, their fears and obsessions. This inner aspect of their existence is the true subject of Andrić's stories.

Andrić depicts both the good and the bad in his characters as entirely human attributes, reflecting the universal order in which he saw both evil and good coexisting side by side, with evil tipping the balance. This evil surfaces in Andrić's characters as suffering, violence, grief, fear, and isolation, which both men and women experience in everyday life. The characters exhibit a broad spectrum of human emotions. Often, a character, after experiencing a trauma, becomes mentally unbalanced and ends up with a distorted view of reality. Many characters in Andrić's prose are subject to some obsessive behavior.

There have been attempts to classify the rich kaleidoscope of Andrić's female characters into two, three, and even up to seven different types. However, as has been pointed out by Dragan Jeremić and others offering these classifications, character types often overlap, as many characters span more than one category.² A more fruitful approach than such a classification of types is to explore the dynamics of male-female relationships in Andrić's stories. An exploration into the ways in which male and female characters interact and affect each other will also reflect the major themes as well as the poetics of Andrić's works.

In Andrić's stories, woman is in the forefront, always stirring a powerful reaction in men. Alidede, the central character in “Death in Sinan's Tekke,” expresses this just before his death:

Zaboravio sam da žena stoji, kao kapija, na izlazu kao i na ulazu ovoga sveta.

(I forgot that woman, just like a gate, stands both at the entrance and at the exit of this world.)³

In his first published work, Ex Ponto (1918), Andrić describes woman:

ulomak jednog ljepšeg neba koje je sjalo nad srećnijim stvorovima no što smo mi i za neke strahovite kataklizme prslo u parčad.

(a fragment of a once beautiful firmament which illuminated a then happier humanity, which in some cataclysm burst into pieces).⁴

Men, for Andrić, are constantly striving to collect and put these pieces together.

In the mind of Andrić's male characters, woman is often an idea, something beautiful that gives meaning to man's life. In “Jelena, the Woman Who Is Not,” woman is a metaphor for happiness. She appears to the first-person narrator suddenly and without any warning, and even though he cannot see her, he feels her presence intensely:

A ja satima živim u svesti o njenom prisustvu što je mnogo više od svega što mogu da daju oči i uši i sva sirota čula.

(For hours I exist conscious of her presence, a feeling more intense than eyes, ears, or all that the inadequate senses could provide.)⁵

He wakes up before dawn and waits for her. His longing is real and powerful. Jelena's appearance takes different forms. She appears most frequently from April until November and is usually associated with sunlight. Only once does the narrator dare address the apparition:

Zaboravio sam se i prekinuo za sekund ćutanje, tek toliko da joj sa pola reči kažem kako sam neizmerno srećniji od svih ljudi na zemlji, koji svoj dan i svoju noć, svoj hleb i svoj log dele sa avetima, a ne kao ja, sa istinskom ženom savršenog bića i lika.

(I forgot myself and broke the silence, for a second, to tell her how immensely happy I was, happier than all the men in the world who share their days and nights, their bed and bread with apparitions and not, like I, with a real woman, a perfect and beautiful creature.)⁶

Thus the female is portrayed as a platonic idea, perceived by the narrator in a dream-like or hallucinatory state, but with such intensity of feeling that she becomes more tangible for him than any reality. In other words, the woman, who is virtual reality, is the only reality.

Perceiving reality in dreams is a standard procedure for Andrić's characters. For them, things exist and do not exist at the same time. The moment of reality becomes blurred and spills over its bounds when man realizes that life is not exhausted in the visible and concrete. When the narrator, no longer a young man, doubts that Jelena will manifest herself to his dull senses, he nevertheless wants the feeling of expectation to persist. He wants his dreams to last and he abandons himself to the beauty of the spring:

Opet proleće. Bogat sam i miran, i mogu da čekam. Da, ničeg nije bilo i ničeg nema, jasnog i sigurnog, ali ništa nije ni izgubljeno ili isključeno, nepovratno i potpuno. Znam da u svetu ima mnogo napola otvorenih prozora u koje kuca prolećni vetrić, sunčanih odblesaka na metalu ili vodi. … Znam da se svuda i svagda može javiti Jelena, žena koje nema. Samo da ne prestanem da je iščekujem.

(Now it is spring again. I feel rich, at peace and capable of waiting. True, there is not and there has never been anything clear and certain and yet at the same time, nothing has been lost or become out of question, completely and irretrievably either. I know that in this world, there are many half-open windows at which the spring breeze taps, reflections of the sunlight on the metal and water. … I know that Jelena, the woman who is not, could appear any time, any place. I only wish not to stop expecting her.)⁷

Other male characters dream about woman along similar lines as the narrator of “Jelena, the Woman Who Is Not.” The narrator in “The Ivory Woman” literally dreams that the ivory figurine he purchased from a Chinese merchant is transformed into a woman. Zaim in The Devil's Yard, shutting out the reality of his prison life, constantly changes his story while he is retelling, over and over again, the imaginary story of his marriages, every time to an ideal woman who made his life full and happy. Although there is not a single female character in the story, most of the prisoners in The Devil's Yard dream about women who thus become a strong presence and a virtual reality in the story.

Andrić's female characters are not only products of dreams, however. They are also women of flesh and blood, often fully aware of the power they hold over men. But even as full-blooded, live creatures, they often remain unattainable. Woman is experienced by Andrić's male characters as an uncontrollable force which takes over their destinies. Whether they are young or old, rich or poor, monks or ruffians, this force guides them and often destroys them.

When Andrić's characters catch sight of a beautiful woman, they completely lose sense of themselves and their reality. With their hands outstretched, they grope toward the object of their desire, becoming ridiculous and pathetic in their effort. Andrić developed this theme in his first Bosnian story, “The Journey of Alija Djerzelez,” which he wrote in 1918. In it, a flood had temporarily obstructed the crossing over the Drina. A motley group of travelers had to interrupt their journey and lodge in the old khan. Alija Djerzelez, the legendary hero of Muslim heroic ballads, arrives at the khan with his splendid retinue. Once he dismounts from his horse, he is seen to be short and ungainly, presenting a very different picture from the one people have of an epic hero. Soon afterwards, Djerzelez reveals his obsessive nature when he catches sight of an anonymous beautiful woman from Venice. The desire for this woman turns into an overriding passion:

Djerzelez je planuo. … Bol mu je zadavala ta nježnost i ljepota u njegovoj blizini. Djerzelez se zanio i, naravno, postao smiješan.

(He seemed to take fire. … He felt something akin to pain at all that softness and beauty so close at hand. He went into rapture and he became ridiculous.)⁸

Noticing this, the other travelers start to make fun of him. Djerzelez accepts a wager to win the beautiful foreigner with his prowess. When he realizes that it was all a practical joke,

Bijesno i neodoljivo zažele kaurkinju, da je vidi, da je ima, da zna na čemu je ili inače da pobije i polomi sve oko sebe.

(He felt a savage and fierce desire for the infidel girl—to see her, possess her, to settle this thing once and for all, or else to smash and break everything around him.)⁹

At that same moment, he catches a glimpse of the Venetian woman, whose sight elicits from him a groan and leaves him in an affect, “dahnući vas znojem i muškom snagom” (sweating profusely and exuding male force).¹⁰

In the other two episodes of the trilogy, Djerzelez dismally fails to reach his goal. In the second episode, the object of his desire is the playful gypsy woman Zemka. Trying to reach her, Djerzelez literally falls into a ravine. In the third, the young girl Katinka, “about whose beauty songs were sung all over Bosnia,” is spirited away by her parents and hidden. In each of these instances,

On izgubi u tili čas svaki račun o vremenu i istinskim odnosima, i svako razumevanje za stvarnost koja rastavlja ljude jedne od drugih.

(He loses all sense of time and proportion, as well as all understanding of the reality that separated people one from another.)¹¹

Djerzelez never doubts that just wishing for these women gives him the right to possess them. After each failed attempt he feels wrath and misery. Like Andrić's other characters who yearn for the impossible, Djerzelez lives in the world of illusion.

Ćorkan is another of Andrić's colorful heroes who experiences rapture before the beauty of a woman. A bastard son of a local gypsy and an Austrian soldier, Ćorkan becomes enthralled with a German girl, a circus tightrope dancer. Like Djerzelez, Ćorkan loses himself in dreams in which he idealizes this stranger. Ćorkan possesses an inner existence, independent of an outward life filled with pain and humiliation, which he endures as everyone's errand boy in the marketplace:

Čim se napije, on, zaljubljen, vidi sebe “u srcu” i “kakav jest,” i onog drugog Ćorkana što kopa kanale i grobove i sahranjuje sve što ugine u varoši, što svaki dan igra i tambura nasred čaršije za veselje i zabavu dućandžija. I ta ogromna razlika izmedju ta dva Ćorkana to je njegov bol.

(Whenever enamoured Ćorkan gets drunk, he sees his inner ego, “the way he is,” but he also sees that other Ćorkan who digs ditches and graves and buries all that dies in the town, who every day dances and plays his tamburitza in the middle of town to cheer and entertain town merchants. And the huge gap between the two Ćorkans produces an unbearable pain.)¹²

Many other male characters experience woman in the same way as the simple Ćorkan—for example, Salko, the young barber apprentice in Bosnian Chronicle. While he observed the daughter of the Austrian consul,

Salko je zaboravljao potpuno svet i gubio osećanje o vremenu, mestu, i srazmerama svoga rodjenog tela.

(Salko forgot the world utterly, lost all sense of time, and the existence of his own body.)¹³

He is punished by his master, but he is unable to control his dreams. In “Mila and Prelac,” the young boy finds contentment and happiness in the presence of his young and proud aunt and has difficulty understanding her feelings for the vagabond stranger. In “Woman on the Rock,” the old hired hand Matija is dazzled by the beauty of a young girl.

Woman for these men represents a higher idea of beauty, grace, and harmony. From the tragicomical hero Djerzelez to the poor old Matija, they are all passionate admirers of woman's beauty. Entangled in a net of dreams and illusions, so different from their everyday existence, they strive to fulfill a longing that is tearing them apart. They love and feel elation and believe that they were made for a better world than the one in which they live.

Monks experience women as an unsettling influence, almost as an evil. When Fra Marko is asked to thrash a Christian girl who insists on converting to Islam in order to marry her lover, he accidentally touches and feels her breasts. This immediately causes uneasiness and doubt in him. His well-ordered world of custom and dogma collapses, and he is no longer able to act. Another young monk appears in Bosnian Chronicle, a frail, nearsighted man given to daydreaming:

A mladi fratar je gledao u nju kao u prividjenje, neočekivano i divno, suviše lepo i veliko da bi mogao bez bola da mu se raduje. Uska, bela čipka oko vrata … sjala je kao da je od svetlosne materije i zasenjivala zenice koje se nisu usudjivale da pravo gledaju u ženino lice. U njenom prisustvu kapelan je ceptio kao u groznici.

(The young monk gazed at her [Anna Maria, the wife of the Austrian consul], as if she were a marvelous and unexpected vision, too exalted and dazzling to be experienced without some pain. The narrow band of white lace around her neck … shone as if it were made of light itself; to pupils who never dared to look a woman straight in the face, it was blinding stuff. In her presence, the young monk shivered as if in fever.)¹⁴

In “Death in Sinan's Tekke,” at the moment of his death, the dervish Alidede, who never experienced carnal pleasure, feels a restlessness never known before. The last things the dervish recalls before he dies are two seemingly unimportant incidents of his life, both involving women. These two experiences sum up his life. Alidede is afraid of women. On both occasions when he encounters women, he fails to act. This ultimately means that his life is an existential failure because despite his life of learning and teaching, it remains without substance.

In Andrić's poetic universe, sensual love plays the most important role in men's lives. That is why woman appears to hold the central position in Andrić's fiction. All men in Andrić's stories have to consider their relationship with women at some point:

Žene, vaša sjena leži na uspavanoj želji asketa i besanoj žudnji razvratnika.

(Women, your shadow falls over the dormant desire of ascetics and the sleepless longing of libertines.)¹⁵

In addition to experiencing women as esoteric creatures, out of reach for the men who pursue them, Andrić also portrays them as mothers, wives, daughters, and lovers. In everyday life, the fate of Andrić's heroines is predestined by the time and circumstances in which they live and which presuppose women's suffering. They are viewed as objects or possessions to be used and abused, physically and mentally. They are victims of society, their families, and husbands. An important attribute of all female characters in Andrić's writing is their intense suffering.

Hopeless or unhappy love is a theme which recurs in Andrić's works. In Andrić's poetic universe love does not have any rational foundation. It is a powerful force which is in and around us, which dazzles and destroys us. It arises in places where it does not have any perspective, between people of different religions, nationalities, and values:

Javljala se, kao podzemna voda, neslućeno i neočekivano i nastojeći da uhvati sve više maha i zavlada što većim brojem ljudskih bića oba pola. Tako je iskrsavala i tamo gde joj nije bilo mesta i gde se, zbog otpora na koji je morala naići, nije nikako mogla održati.

(It kept breaking into the surface like an underground stream, unbidden and unsuspected … testing its power on an ever greater number of human beings of both sexes. And so it erupted even in places where there was no room for it and where, because of the resistence it was bound to meet, it could not possibly maintain its hold.)¹⁶

Love causes a powerful and short elation, but then like a disease without cure, it brings disillusionment, pain, death, or prolonged dying.

Whereas male characters stricken with infatuation or love seek solace in drink and easy women, women follow their hearts blindly and are ready to die for love. Rifka in “Love in the Casbah” chooses to die when she can no longer meet with Ledenik. Fata in The Bridge on the Drina, unhappy with her father's choice of husband, jumps from the bridge right after the wedding ceremony. She thus fulfills both her father's promise to give her in marriage and a promise to herself not to live with a man she does not love. The young Christian girl in “By the Brandy Still” falls in love with a local Turk. She is determined to convert to Islam in spite of threats by her family and the clergy. Even when Fra Petar is summoned to try to change her mind,

A ona je svaki put dizala očne kapke i svojim svijetlim, mladim pogledom gledala netremice i smjelo dobričinu Fra Petra u oči.

(She raised her lids and fixed her bright young gaze, boldly and without flinching, on the eyes of the blustering yet at heart good-natured Fra Peter.)¹⁷

In Andrić's prose, the idea of beauty, in art as well as in nature, is always present as a counterpoint to the presence of desire. In the face of beauty all fades. Beauty fills life with happiness. The physical beauty of woman causes pleasure, elation, rapture. Andrić's beautiful women vary in age and origin. They make up many successful portraits of beautiful women. These are not, however, detailed descriptions, but rather broad outlines that provoke a feeling rather than a visual image. Andrić, the artist, captures the particular feature a girl possesses when a man first gets a glimpse of her and she becomes his obsession. Everything happens in a flash. In “The Pasha's Concubine,” Veli Pasha becomes infatuated with Mara when he glances through the window of a bakery and first sees just an outstretched arm and then the childish face and the merry eyes of young Mara Grgić. The pasha is not disappointed:

Bilo joj je nepunih šesnaest godina. Imala je velike oči golubinje boje, ugašena porculanskog sjaja, koje su se polagano kretale. Imala je sasvim svijetlu, tešku i tvrdu kosu. … I lice i ruke su joj bili obrasli, kao maškom, sitnim svijetlim maljama, koje su samo na suncu mogle da se vide.

(She was not quite sixteen. She had big eyes of a dovelike shade and muted porcelain luster, which moved languidly. Her hair was quite fair, heavy and thick. … Both her face and her arms were covered with a fine, light down, that was noticeable only in sunlight.)¹⁸

While the description of Mara is quite extensive, other women in Andrić's stories are often portrayed in one sentence. Rifka in “Love in the Casbah,” also not yet sixteen, cannot pass the marketplace without being noticed:

Ma kako udešavala hod, sve na njoj trepti, igra i drhti: haljina, grudi, kosa.

(However she tried to adjust her walk, all trembles, quivers, shakes: her dress, her breasts, her hair.)¹⁹

Anika, of “Anika's Times,” who wreaks havoc in the town and ruins men and families, is also very briefly described. The reader is just told that one spring she showed herself to the townsfolk, completely transformed from an ugly duckling into a beautiful young woman:

Pogled joj se oslobodi, tamne oči dobiše ljubičast ton, koža postajaše belja, pokreti sporiji i prirodniji.

(The expression of her eyes became freer, her eyes acquired a purple hue, her skin whiter and her moves slower and more natural.)²⁰

However, unlike the beauty of art and other manmade objects, the beauty of Andrić's women is transient, and because of that, carries a germ of tragedy. Woman in “Woman on the Rock” is a metaphor of that finality. She is described as an opera singer, a middle-aged woman “bez sjaja i svežine, koju samo mladost daje” (without the radiance and freshness that only youth can give).²¹

For Andrić, woman possesses an almost metaphysical quality that transcends the physical and psychological of the phenomenological world. Whereas man is more in touch with manmade objects, woman is closer to nature and the primordial forces of existence. She is able to communicate with nature and discover its secrets. She is incorporated into the rhythm of nature, which includes the cycle of birth and death. In describing a woman's appearance, Andrić often likens her behavior to that of animals. In “The Pasha's Concubine,” young Mara behaves like an animal in danger:

Pokatkad mu se činila kao zvjerka koja, pritjerana uz liticu, drhti a zjenice joj zapadaju.

(At times she appeared to him [the pasha] like a young animal which, driven to the edge of a precipice, quivers in her whole body, her pupils contracting.)²²

The daughter of the Austrian consul is depicted as a playful young animal:

A djevojka je, uverena da je potpuno sama, obilazila cveće, zagledala koru po drveću, preskakala s jednog kraja puteljka na drugi. … (Tako i mlade životinje zastaju u igri, ne znajući više kud bi sa svojim telom.)

(The girl, believing herself quite alone, walked among the flowers, studied the bark of trees, hopped from one side of the path to the other then paused. … [Much as young animals pause in the middle of their play, not knowing what to do with their bodies.])²³

Andrić's women are also seen as part of the world of plants:

Njemu je ona izgledala kao deo toga bogatog vegetalnog sveta. … Onako rumena, nasmejana i stidljiva, obarajući svaki čas glavu kao cvet krunicu, ona je zaista u njegovim mislima bila vezana za cveće i voće.

([Jelka from Dolac] appeared to him [the young French consul] as an aspect—a distinct flesh-and-blood aspect—of that rich, pullulating world of plants and animals and trees. … With that rosy skin and bashful smile of hers, and that trick of hanging her head like a flower nodding in the wind, she did, indeed, become associated in his mind with flowers and fruits.)²⁴

To him she is also “pliant as a reed,” “a branch of a fruit tree,” and “a sapling.” In “Byron in Sintra” Andrić wrote:

Ništa nema uzbudljivije od usana ovih portugalskih žena! One imaju nešto i od vegetalnog i od mineralnog sveta.

(There is nothing more exciting than the lips of the women of Portugal. They have something from the world of vegetation and minerals.)²⁵

Women's closeness to nature is also revealed in the manner they feel colors:

To su te žene koje imaju u najvećoj meri razvijeno, kao urodjeno, osećanje za boje i sklad boja. One, kao biljke, govore i žive bojama. … U stvari, one ih samo otkrivaju našim očima, koje inače ne bi umele da ih vide.

([The woman on the rock] is one of those women in whom the feeling for color and chromatic harmony is highly developed, as if inborn. Like plants, they live and they talk in colors. … Actually all they do is to uncover them to our eyes, which otherwise wouldn't know how to see them.)²⁶

Because they are more in tune with nature, women bear losses somewhat more easily than men; they are more composed in the face of danger, and rather than follow what society dictates, they follow their instincts.

Beautiful women in Andrić do not profit much from their beauty. On the contrary, this quality carries the germ of their tragedy. Whether the woman gives in to the advances of her pursuer or not, she is doomed. Mara in “The Pasha's Concubine” reflects the tragedy of women's existence in Bosnia. Veli Pasha sees the innocent sixteen-year-old Mara and arranges to have her as his concubine. She submits to her fate and suffers her humiliation in silence. When the pasha has to leave Bosnia, Mara is left behind at the mercy of her countrymen. Even though she was placed in the position of a concubine through no fault of her own, the local folk cannot forgive her. The church itself, perhaps the only institution which could have provided some comfort to the innocent victim, rejects her. She is placed in the house of a rich Sarajevo family, where she continues to live a life of shame and humiliation and where she becomes the potential victim of further abuse. Mara feels completely cut off from other people and from her faith. Her mortification, her self-accusations, and the feeling of shame intensify progressively to a high pitch. Her hallucinations of the terror of damnation are so strong that she loses her mind.

The institution of marriage provides an environment in which Andrić had plenty of opportunity to explore the theme of oppression. Once married, female characters in Andrić's stories lead an existence full of suffering. They live without love or understanding and most suffer in silence. While not limited to them, this is particularly true of the characters in Andrić's Bosnian stories because of the historical conditions under which Bosnian women lived. Nevenka Pamuković, a poor Christian girl married to a rich merchant in “The Pasha's Concubine,” suffers in her loveless marriage and is subjected to her husband's physical and mental abuse and his family's contempt. However, unlike Mara and other generally very submissive characters, Nevenka remains defiant, complains to her mother, and even physically defends herself when her husband beats her.

Other women are depicted as martyrs of a different kind. They are forced to live locked in their houses, enslaved, either to satisfy their husbands' physical desires or simply to be objects of possession. Such a character is Anica in “Tormenting,” which takes place in modern times. Unlike other characters who are physically abused, Anica suffers largely from verbal abuse. When Andrija, a successful merchant, marries her, a young but poor girl, the townsfolk are sure that she has made an excellent match. However, she becomes just the crown of his worldly possessions. Without paying any attention to her needs, he soon starts to torment her regularly with his grand ideas and his pretensions, to which he forces her to listen day in and day out. When she leaves him, the local people are completely amazed. The young woman in “Olujaci” is married and brought from Mostar to a remote village with very crude inhabitants. Her husband keeps her isolated and torments her with his jealousy. In a jealous rage, he locks her in the house while her brother is visiting and burns them and the house down.

Another theme which recurs in Andrić is that of violence against women. Scenes of rape and masochistic behavior are striking and powerful. In “In the Camp,” a girl from Trebinje who was kidnapped is rescued and is kept in the house of the local judge. The poor woman, traumatized by her experience, loses her ability to speak and sits in the corner of the room, her hands pressed between her knees. The judge waits for the pasha to send his men to escort the girl. Mullah Yusuf is entrusted with that mission. The pasha knows that Mullah Yusuf has abused and even killed women and he does not particularly like him, but he finds him useful. Mullah Yusuf, who apparently enjoys inflicting pain, attacks the poor creature:

A djevojka je stajala kao izvan sebe i puštala sve tupim, teškim mirom koji bludniku vraćaše svijest i izazivaše želju da slast produži i pooštri, da izazove otpor i pokret.

(The girl stood there absently and permitted everything with an air of grave, dull apathy that brought the old lecher back to his senses and spurred a desire to prolong and sharpen the thrill, to draw forth some protest and movement.)²⁷

He then attacks the girl with a razor blade and mutilates her.

The young granddaughter of baba Anusha in “The Pasha's Concubine” is violated. When people find the child,

Košulja joj je bila prebačena preko glave, a djetinje tijelo kao neka stvar, malena, izgubljena i zgažena, gubilo se medju oštrim sivim stijenama na suncu. Nad njim su zujale muhe.

(Her shirt was pulled back over her head, and her child's body, resembling a small object, squashed and lifeless, seemed of a piece with the sharp, near-white rocks basking in the sun. Above it the flies were buzzing.)²⁸

In Omer Pasha Latas, soldiers find a young gypsy girl and gang rape her. She does not defend herself. When the commander finds the unit, he realizes what has happened:

Na zemlji je ležalo jadno, mršavo ženino telo u slabim trzajima, sa penom na usnama. Dimije i košulja na njoj bili su pocepani.

(On the ground lay the thin body of the woman quivering weakly, with foam on her lips. Her clothes were all torn apart.)²⁹

The commander instructs the soldiers to cover the woman with a blanket and then orders them to move. Before they reach a certain distance, the unit can hear the woman screaming and cursing them and see her standing at the doorstep, covered with a blanket, under which her torn pantaloons can be seen, and bending like a scarecrow in the wind.

Even when they are no longer young and beautiful, evil pursues women and punishes them through their children, who pay for the sins of their fathers. Kata Bademić in “The Miracle at Olovo,” gives birth to many children, but they all die. She brings her last remaining child, a feeble daughter, to a spa known for miraculous cures. She watches in terror as the imbecile smile of her husband appears on her daughter's face.

While the wife is usually the oppressed party, there are female characters in Andrić's stories who are shrews. They are cruel by nature. They rule their husbands and households, destroying their husbands' individuality. Such is Kobra in “Zeko,” Natalija in “Family Portrait,” and to some extent Agata in “The Bar Titanic.”

A woman can be the instrument of man's downfall. In “Torso,” the Syrian woman whose family was slaughtered by Ćelebi Hafiz revenges her family's death. Being the only person on whom the tyrant took pity, she survives to become his favorite. While she pretends to be loyal to him, she waits for an opportunity to pay him back in the most terrible way. When the opportunity arises, she mutilates his body and burns his face and eyes, leaving only a torso. Krstinica in “Anika's Times” kills her husband savagely with the help of her young lover.

Less frequently women in Andrić's stories are in their traditional benevolent roles of wives and mothers who are honest and hard-working, like Andja in “The Rug” or Madame Daville, the wife of the French consul in Bosnian Chronicle. Andja orders her son to throw away a rug he bought from an Austrian soldier who most probably took it as booty. The old lady does not want to profit from other people's misfortunes. Good and unselfish, Madame Daville strives to create a warm and comfortable atmosphere around herself and her family. She gives birth, she raises children, she works in the house, and she teaches the local Bosnian girls how to improve their surroundings. She seems at ease with her life, and she suffers in silence when she has to bury her baby.

Good women like Madame Daville were perhaps not challenging enough for Andrić, however. He dedicates much more space to women characters who somehow depart from their traditional roles. He seems to prefer as subjects women who suffer through the acts of society, women who choose to live without men, or women rebels who try to avenge themselves on men.

Andrić gives more space in Bosnian Chronicle to Anna Maria, the wife of the Austrian consul, than to the model wife and mother Madame Daville. Anna Maria is depicted as an exalted, eccentric woman who does not seem to care much for her husband or daughter, while she is at the same time oversensitive to the plight of animals. She gets involved in other people's problems; she meddles in the affairs of the church, and this causes embarrassment for her husband. The reader does not have too much sympathy for this woman, who is so preoccupied with herself. Yet Anna Maria is a rebel of a kind and therefore of more interest to Andrić as a character. She harbors in her character the yet unidentified revolt of a feminist, unhappy with her lot and the role society has imposed on her. Basically an unhappy woman, she is trying to raise herself above the ordinary; she is looking for something that will give more contentment to her life. The only path that she finds open to her is in her romantic fantasies. She flirts with men, but the moment a man expresses an interest in a physical relationship, she realizes that she is trapped again, which sends her into deep depression. Every attempt to find a way out ends in just another failure for Anna Maria.

A rebel of an entirely different kind is Anika of “Anika's Times.” She is a renegade, waging war on the entire society. A beautiful woman, Anika realizes her power over men early in life. When the man she loves proves incapable of wooing her, Anika starts to sell her favors, using her body as an instrument of choice. She seduces men of the town and then rejects them. She destroys individuals and families and causes fights and hatred among people of the town. Anika's sexual prowess violates the moral order and disturbs society. To the townspeople, Anika is the personification of evil. An evil of this kind in Andrić's works can be removed only by death. The town is liberated from Anika and she herself finds peace only when her brother kills her.

Some of Andrić's female protagonists in more modern settings lead lives outside marriage. They work in generally male professions and they earn money. One example is Lotika, the manager of a new hotel built near the bridge in The Bridge on the Drina. An Austrian Jew, Lotika is a beautiful woman with “the heart of a man,” as Andrić describes her. A tireless worker, Lotika is able to control the town's drunks, lustful and aggressive men, and to keep a distance from her clients in the bar. She is able to find the right words for each of her guests. An unselfish woman, Lotika supports both numerous distant relatives throughout Eastern Europe and the local poor. Yet her personal life stays in the background and appears empty and without love.

Perhaps the most unorthodox role a female character can play in a largely male-oriented society is portrayed by the protagonist of The Woman from Sarajevo (Gospodjica), Rajka Radaković. Set partly in Sarajevo and partly in Belgrade, the novel is the story of a human obsession par excellence. Rajka is the female Shylock of Andrić's novel, which is without parallel in world literature.

Embittered by his financial failure, Rajka's father prepares his daughter to be a successful businesswoman by advising her to economize, save, and never trust anyone. Following this advice, Rajka gradually becomes a compulsive miser. She lends money at high interest rates, and she shows no compassion for distressed clients. As her business prospers, Rajka cuts herself off from all the pleasures of life and becomes indifferent to worldly things. Her passion becomes an irrational force which governs her life. She neglects her house and even her health, and she ruins the last years of her mother's life. The only real pleasure she finds is in mending and saving.

Rajka's financial practices during World War I are so ruthless that she feels obliged to leave Sarajevo. She moves with her mother to Belgrade, where her obsession undergoes a qualitative change. Rajka no longer strives to acquire more money but does everything in her power to save the money she has and to protect all she owns against natural decay. Only for a brief period does she lose control, when out of affection she lends money to a young man who reminds her of her beloved uncle. After that, Rajka quickly sobers up to continue her frenzied activities of saving and “enduring.” Rajka dies in her dilapidated house from a heart attack when she is frightened by the shadow of a coatrack, which she mistakes for a thief. The character of Rajka dominates the novel from beginning to end. Her self-denial has the zeal of religious devotion.

In conclusion, Andrić reveals through his female characters a world filled with evil, both hidden and exposed, which he sees not as the consequence of historical conditions but as something which exists in women and men. Andrić's prose depicts not only and not primarily the historical and social background in which his female characters are shaped. It also deals with their inner lives. In his poetic universe woman is primarily the object of desire, mostly unattainable and elusive but of incredible force, which is the driving force in society. While women hold a peripheral position in the society Andrić depicts in his works, they have an important position in his opus. The author compensated for women's reduced social status by endowing their lives with poetic meaning.

Notes

1. John Loud, “Between Two Worlds: Andrić the Storyteller,” Review of National Literatures 5, l (1974): 113.

2. Dragan M. Jeremić, “Žena i ljubav u delu Ive Andrića,” Savremenik 9, 18 (Belgrade, 1963): 327-36.

3. Ivo Andrić, Odabrane pripovetke (Belgrade: Srpska književna zadruga XLVIII, 1954), vol. 326-27, p. 52. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.

4. Ivo Andrić, Ex Ponto (Belgrade: Izdanje S.B. Cvijanovića, 1920), p. 44.

5. Ivo Andrić, Sabrana dela, 2d ed. (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1965), vol. 7, p. 263.

6. Ibid., p. 275.

7. Ibid., p. 293.

8. Ivo Andrić, Pripovetke (Belgrade: Nolit, 1985), p. 39. Translated by Joseph Hitrec in The Pasha's Concubine and Other Tales by Ivo Andrić (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), p. 18.

9. Andrić, Pripovetke, p. 41; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 22.

10. Andrić, Pripovetke, p. 42; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 22.

11. Andrić, Pripovetke, p. 51; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 35.

12. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 7, pp. 205-6.

13. Andrić, Sabrana dela, 3d ed., vol. 2, p. 183. Translated by Joseph Hitrec in Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), p. 171.

14. Andrić, Sabrana dela, p. 188; translation by Hitrec, Bosnian Chronicle, p. 175.

15. Andrić, Ex Ponto, p. 43.

16. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 2, p. 186; translation by Hitrec, Bosnian Chronicle, p. 174.

17. Andrić, Pripovetke, p. 103; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 68.

18. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 7, p. 103; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 124.

19. Andrić, Pripovetke, p. 59.

20. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 7, p. 30.

21. Andrić, Pripovetke, p. 219.

22. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 7, p. 104; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 125.

23. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 2, p. 183; translation by Hitrec, Bosnian Chronicle, p. 170.

24. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 2, p. 192; translation by Hitrec, Bosnian Chronicle, p. 179.

25. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 7, p. 256.

26. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 7, p. 220; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 233.

27. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 5 (Zagreb: Mladost, 1963), p. 21; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 117.

28. Andrić, Sabrana dela, vol. 7, p. 137; translation by Hitrec, The Pasha's Concubine, p. 153.

29. Andrić, Omer Pasha Latas, in Književnost (Belgrade, 1976), vol. 5-6, p. 522.