The character of Mehmed-paša Sokolović in Ivo Andrić’s works

Summary Ivo Andrić was searching and finding material for his stories and novels in the past, especially in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which represents the central topos in his literary output. As noted in the explanation of the Nobel Committee, Andrić received in 1961 the Nobel Prize in Literature “for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country”. The protagonists of Andrić’s stories and novels rarely include important historical personalities, and the most significant among them as a literary subject was Mehmed-paša Sokolović, the 16th century Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. The way in which Andrić portrayed the character of Mehmed-paša Sokolović in the novel ‘The Bridge on the Drina’ (Na Drini ćuprija) reflects some of the fundamental premises of his approach to narration, including his profoundly humanist intentions. Andrić held that oral (and written) stories and legends contained the true history of the humanity, and that one could grasp from them the real meaning of that history. Accordingly, in portraying Sokolović’s character, being confronted with historical documents on the one hand, and folkloric material on the other, Andrić gave primacy to the latter, even at the cost of disagreement between historical fact and oral tradition. Moreover, Andrić did not seek “the meaning of history” of Mehmed-paša Sokolović and his bridge in the historical data from Sokolović’s impressive political career accomplished in the Ottoman Empire, but in the bridge which outlived him and started the legend about him. With the novel ‘The Bridge on the Drina’ he created a “literary history” about the creation and meaning of the Višegrad bridge on these grounds – a unique literary “legacy for Mehmed-paša’s legacy”, widening and deepening the legend of Mehmed-paša Sokolović.