Architecture and Monumentality in Literature: The Example of Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric

Abstract

The collective memory, shaped by a long and intense process of social experiences, is the only way that societies sustain their past knowledge, their essence, which distinguishes them from others, in other words, their cultural accumulation for centuries. Therefore, poems, legends, books, clothes and various cultural products are the main media that have the ability to transfer cultural characteristics and traditions to the future in order to legate the stored information from the past. At this point, one of the most important cultural productions is architectural spaces, therefore cities as physical environment. For this reason, literary works, events, lives and stories are constantly addressed through architectural spaces. In other words, architecture becomes the only tool that determines and directs the expression of the story. One of the best examples that can be given to this centuries- old tradition is the work of Ivo Andric called Bridge of Drina. While focusing on the Drina Bridge located in the city of Visegrad, Andric tries to investigate and explicate the evolution of the social structure in the region and the great historical thresholds experienced on a global scale, through the bridge. In this direction, the main goal is to examine and evaluate the relationship between literature and architecture in the context of monument and memory, through the example of the Drina Bridge. The monumentalization of the Drina bridge and its place in collective memory will be investigated and discussed in the frame of the role and power of architectural structures in literary expressions.