The Web link doesn't work

It worked for me. --denny vrandečić 02:42, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

Seems weird to read that he was put in a detention camp for pro-Serb activities without being mentioned that he considered himself Serb. Jakob Stevo

If in point of wiew of author of the aticle his best works are short stories, it doesn't mean others think that.

The biography - as presented - does not make sense. It makes more sense to learn the biographies he authorized - as the ones written by Lovett F. Edwards and William H McNeill in the Andric's The Bridge on Drina, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1977

See http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1961/.

Roman Catholic - my foot!

from: Ivo Andric The Bridge on the Drina The University of Chicago Press, 1977

Introduction by William H. McNeil, p 3

Ivo Andric was born in Travnik, Bosnia, in 1892, but he spent his first two years in Sarajevo, where his father worked as a silversmith. This was a traditional art, preserving artisan skills dating back to Ottoman times; but taste had changed and the market for the sort of silverwork Ivo's father produced was severely depressed. The family therefore lived poorly; and when the future writer was still an infant, his father died, leaving his peniless young widow to look after an only child. They went to live with her parents in Visegrad on the banks of the Drina, where the young Ivo grew up in an artisan family (his grandfather was a carpenter) playing on the bridge he was later to make so famous, and listening to tales about its origin and history which he used so skillfully to define the character of early Ottoman presence in that remote Bosnian town. The family was orthodox Christian, i.e. Serb; ...

Translator's Foreword by Lovett F. Edwards, p 7

Dr Ivo Andric is himself a Serb and a Bosnian.

P.S.

There is a number of Croatians thinking as if they acquired some rights to proprely align Andric with their idea of ethnicity.

The very great writer, many times in his life, was forced to explicitly express and declare himself as a Serb. At least, his attitude and perception of his ethnic background has to be respected ultimately.

Ungh, I edited the article without validating this. Can anyone here 100% validate this info so that I can either keep it or revert? HolyRomanEmperor 17:49, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1961/press.html

As a young Serbian student, he joined the national revolutionary movement, 

suffered persecution, and was imprisoned in 1914 when the war broke out.

The bit about Andrić's mother being Serbian seems to be wrong/not supported by data. I did some googling on this (the results can be found in Croatian on hr:Talk:Srbi and hr:Talk:Ivo Andrić) and found no confirmations, and plenty of data about Katarina Pejić being Catholic (i.e. Croat). Her father's name was Antun (uncommon among Orthodox Serbs), her family was originally from Grahovik, a part of Dolac (a predominantly Catholic town near Travnik), she did some work at the Catholic church in the Sarajevo neighbourhood of Bistrik, she managed a household of a Catholic parish priest and, last but not least, her religious affiliation (together with her husband's) is mentioned as being Catholic in the Ivo Andrić's birth and baptism record (she was 22 at the time).

It seems that the only remotely "Serbian" thing about her is a Serbian-sounding surname Pejić, but a quick search of the Bosnian telephone directory reveals numerous Pejićs living in Western Herzegovina–a Croat area–and having Croat (Catholic) names, so the surname Pejić is obviously both Serbian and Croatian. --Elephantus 20:19, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The note above is an utter nonsense and proof of nothing. The the data in the biographical notes written by McNeil, Edwards and Oesterling ARE the data coming from the very Ivo i.e. indirectly authorized by him.

A serious man shoud respect the fact that Lovett Edwards, the translator of the "Na Drini cuprija" novel was of the one of closest Ivo's friends which gives a lot credibility to the data he put in the biographical note.

The Oesterling's text is his the Nobel Prize Winner presentatition speech heard by very Ivo.

The Internet is not a reliable source of any data and the search this person did is just a vaste of time and efforts.

So, this "biography" will be and remain a trash proving that it was written according the political agenda that supports nonsenses as those: Marco Polo - Croat, Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovic - Croat

Ehm, the official biography on the Nobel foundation site says nothing at all about ethnicity. A mention of "a young Serbian student" in the presentation speech is probably a mistake because as a student Andrić received a scholarship from the Croatian cultural support society "Napredak" ("Progress") which gave scholarships only to Catholics (ie. Croats). He may have been a Yugoslav nationalist (fashionable among young intellectuals at the time) but that hardly makes him a Serb.

Nonsense again. The named society scholaship is not a proof of Ivo's ethnic background i.e. his mother's background. The practice of Swedish Royal Academy is and was to collect the biographical data form the very prize winner.

The biographical note by McNeill added to the 1977 edition (ie, two years after Andrić's death and 18 years after the first edition of the translation was published) quoted above is also

   Sir, this is the edition where you can find information. Who was, when and how McNeil 
   collected the data - you apparently have no clue. The University of Chicago Press 
   contacted Andric long ago before 1977

problematic because many other sources give a completely different, detailed and convincing story: www.ivoandric.org.yu, the official site of the Ivo Andrić foundation in Serbia: "Faced with penury, Katarina Andrić took her only child to be raised by her husband’s sister Ana and Ana’s husband Ivan Matkovščik in Višegrad."; an excerpt from the book Rani Andrić (Early Andric) by a Serbian expert on Andrić, Miroslav Karaulac: "Without anyone in the world and without money, Andrić's mother went to her husband's sister Ana who lived in Višegrad, married to the Austrian sergeant Ivan Matkovščik and financially secure. We know that Ana Andrić, who was 34 at the time, happily agreed to take in her nephew."

     And at what time is this story published? Authorized by Andric? Sir, if yu like 
     to pass your claim as a truth - the truth must be verifiable.

Also, on this site there is a scanned page from the baptism registry on which it can be seen that he was baptised as a Catholic and that both parents were Catholic. --Elephantus 23:00, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  That note does not support a conclusion that a woman marrying a catholic is a catholic

In the spring of 1914. Andrić enrolled in the University of Cracow and, according to Milorad Živančević (lecturer of the then-Serbo-Croatian at the same university in the 1960s, [1]), this is what he put in the enrollment form:

Nazwisko i imię ucznia: Ivo Andrić. Jest uczniem zwyczajnym czy nadzwyczajnym: zwyczajny. Oznaczenie Wydziału: filozoficzny. Miejsce urodzenia: Travnik. Wiek: 1892. Religia: kat. Narodowość: Hrvat. Poddaństwo: Bosna. Mieszkanie w Krakowie, ul.: Bonerowska, 1. domu: 12/II. Opiekun [staratelj]: Ivan Matkovcsik, Višegrad, Bosna. Zakład naukowy w którym uczeń słuchał ostatne półrocze: Wiedeń. Na jakiej zasadzie (…): Świadectwo odejścia uniw. Wiedeńskiego. W dniu: 24. 4. 1914.

     So, this document is publicly available where? What is the proof of its existence?
    And this is a proof who his mother was? 
    So, the very Andric says - I am a Serb and then some others claim - no he is a Croat!

I do believe only to the people who were in touch

I rest my case. --Elephantus 01:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

     In order to support the credibility of information related to the Andric's ethnicity - 
     here is the answer who was the man who wrote the foreword to the 1977 University of 
     Chicago Press edition of the "The Bridge on Drina" novel

The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community by McNeill, William H.

About this title: "The Rise of the West, winner of the National Book Award for history in 1964, is famous for its ambitious scope and intellectual rigor. In it, McNeill challenges the Spengler-Toynbee view that a number of separate civilizations pursued essentially independent careers, and argues instead that human cultures interacted at every stage of their history. The author suggests that from the Neolithic beginnings of grain agriculture to the present major social changes in all parts of the world were triggered by new or newly important foreign stimuli, and he presents a persuasive narrative of world history to support this claim. In a retrospective essay titled "The Rise of the West after Twenty-five Years," McNeill shows how his book was shaped by the time and place in which it was written (1954-63). He discusses how historiography subsequently developed and suggests how his portrait of the world's past in The Rise of the West should be revised to reflect these changes. "This is not only the most learned and the most intelligent, it is also the most stimulating and fascinating book that has ever set out to recount and explain the whole history of mankind. . . . To read it is a great experience. It leaves echoes to reverberate, and seeds to germinate in the mind."--H. R. Trevor-Roper, "New York Times Book Review

A World History by McNeill, William H

About this title: Global in scope, William McNeill's widely acclaimed one-volume history emphasizes the four Old World civilizations of the Middle East, India, China, and Europe, paying particular attention to their interaction across time as well as their impact on historical scholarship in light of the most recent archaeological discoveries. The engaging and informative narrative touches on all aspects of civilization, including geography, communication, and technological and artistic developments. This new edition includes a thoroughly updated bibliographic essay and a new discussion of the most significant events in world history and civilization since 1976.

McNeill is a historian and the South Slavic literature in general and Ivo Andrić in particular weren't his subject. Chicago University Press published several of his books in the 1970s and it wouldn't have been unusual if he had written the foreword as a favour to his CUP editor – he had some name recognition and his name looked good on the cover.

 Please, stop distorting the truth! McNeil was an Andric's contemporary and only a (world-renown) 
 historian. He contacted - many times, as a historian-  the very Andric to get his, Ivo's opinion
 about the historical facts related to the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian Empires.
 So, that man was in touch with Ivo and a nonsense as "he had written the foreword as a favour 
 to his CUP editor" - as an "explanation" of the McNeil's motive to write the foreword - sounds
 here really miserable.

I'm not trying to explain his motives, I'm just hypothesizing on the reason for the sloppy research. --Elephantus 21:22, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  And the criteria are? McNeil did not follow some political agenda? My poor friend, bear in
  mind that Ivo's idea of his lineage and ethnicity is something that shall be respected and 
  not negated by some "researchers" and "interperters" of the same information made public
  with his consent and during his life.
 

The story about Orthodox carpenter grandfather is not only unconfirmed by any other source, it is disproved by this text which is an excerpt (published in the Belgrade daily Večernje Novosti) from the book "Early Andrić" by Miroslav Karaulac, a Serbian Andrić scholar, in which he says: Otac Katarine Pejić, takođe Antun, kada Ivi budu dve godine, obesiće se u gradskoj bolnici. ("The father of Katarina Pejić, also named Antun, hanged himself in the city hospital, when Ivo was two years old.") So there. --Elephantus 14:45, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

 And THAT automatically disqualifies McNeil's knowledge about Andric????

It doesn't disqualify his whole knowledge, only the passage in question. --Elephantus 21:22, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

 Which piece of your wisdom exactly? Maybe, this one: "hanged himself in the city hospital"?
 So Karaulac is a scholar who disqualifies what?

On a related note, Andrić's "Nationality:Croat" entry in the enrollment form of the Cracow University can be found here, it's a paper published by Milorad Živančević in the Zbornik Matice srpske za slavistiku, 1985, br. 28, str. 7-43. ("Collection of Works in Slavistics by Matica srpska") --Elephantus 15:00, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So - it is fine with me. But apparently Andric did not give the approval to Zivancevic to put in 
Andric's biography nor interpret any data like those as Zivancevic published:

   Dragi druže Živančeviću,

  Dobro je što ste me pitali za mišljenje. Nikako ne želim da se u moju biografiju unose 
  pojedinosti koje nemaju veze sa književnim radom i duhovnim razvitkom pisca. Kad su u pitanju 
  moje studije i mesta službovanja, dovoljno je kazati da sam studirao u Zagrebu, Beču, Krakovu 
  i Gracu, a službovao u Rimu, Bukureštu, Madridu, Berlinu.

  Biografije koje se nalaze u probnom primerku Matičinog Leksikona — sa podacima o 
  "rigorozumima", sa godinom rođenja pesnikove žene itd. mogu da posluže kao primer kako ne 
  treba pisati. Molim da se, bar u mom slučaju, ne postupi tako.

  Najlepše Vam zahvaljujem na predavanju u Krakovu.

  Srdačno Vas pozdravlja,

  Ivo Andrić

 As you can see, no credibility shall be given to the Zivancevic's writings related to Ivo's
 mathernal side ethnicity

In this letter Andrić expressed only his strong disapproval of the length of the biography prepared for the Lexicon of Yugoslav Writers, and asked that it should include just the minimal amount of information about his studies and diplomatic service.

 The great writer says:

 Nikako ne želim da se u moju biografiju unose 
 pojedinosti koje nemaju veze sa književnim radom i duhovnim razvitkom pisca.

 The sentence was quite clear - I do not want that in my biography goes anything not connected
 to the literary work or to the writer's spiritual growth. He never pointed at any minimum of
 anything. He pointed at the very content - what shal go into the biography and what shal not!

He didn't question the credibility of the data. Andrić was never too happy about the publicity he received after the Nobel Prize and rarely granted interviews, but a certain amount of interest in the details of his life and work was pretty much unavoidable as most people felt th at he deserved more research work and column space in various lexicons and encyclopedias. Andrić left a copious paper trail, though, including the notice of his presence in Cracow :-). --Elephantus 21:22, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've already said everything to be said about this and don't intend to repeat myself too much. In short: you provided a source, I provided more sources that are mutually independent, corroborate each other, and contradict yours. Until you provide more sources for your story I think there's not much more to talk about. Read more stuff on Andrić, don't limit yourself to a single introduction. :-)

On the merits: mixed marriages in late 19th century Bosnia were extremely uncommon. So uncommon, in fact, that one such marriage among the parents of a Nobel Prize winner would have been mentioned somewhere, anywhere. Yet there is no such mention in any biography of Andrić. Simply, the dog didn't bark. :-) --Elephantus 10:52, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've also removed the sentence about Andrić declaring himself a Serb until more sources are provided for this (eg. interviews, form entries, public declarations in other occasions etc.) In the course of the research I've done on this topic I haven't found a single instance of Andrić declaring himself Serb (or any other ethnicity, for that matter) except for the Cracow form where he stated he was Croatian. :-) --Elephantus 10:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is this general misunderstanding that everyone in this region who is a Catholic is automatically a Croat - but this is wrong. Ivo Andric father, Antun, was a Catholic Serb, not a Croat, his mother was also a Serb. There have been many Catholic Serbs throughout history. Under Vatican's unfluence, today it is believed that every Catholic Serb is a Croat, and this is one of the main misunderstandings in this region.

The ethnogenesis among the Balkan Slavs went along religious (and to a certain lesser extent linguistic) lines. By the time of Andrić's birth it had been completed. Both of Andrić parents were Catholic Croats and thought of themselves as such. Andrić was a Catholic Croat too and declared himself as such until his employment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes when it became highly inopportune to do so. --Elephantus 14:16, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As per very Andric- "I do not want that in my biography goes anything not connected to the literary work or to the writer's spiritual growth."

The biographical notes written by Ivo's contemporaries and the men who maintained personal contacts with him:

- by the world-renown historian William H. McNeil,

- by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, and

- by his friend and translator of his books, Lovett F. Edwards

are written that way.

All these three men gathered the Ivo's biographical data from the very Ivo and Ivo knew and saw the texts of these notes.

All the above gives a huge credibility to the information inside these notes.

As to a man's ethnic background - it is always a private matter and must remain strictly private. Whenever you are interested in such a type of data, they must be gotten from the very man you are interested in - approved by and accepted as given by that man.

When Krleza attempted to allign Ivo with Croats - Ivo responded this way

 Enes Cengic; "Krleza post mortem",  I-III. Svjetlost, Sarajevo, 1990. 2. part, pages 171-172

 " Medjutim, s tekstom o Andricu za staru Enciklopediju stvari su tekle ovako:
 Tekst je napisao Milan Bogdanovic i poslao ga meni na imprimatur, kao biva, da li ga primam  ili ne. Kao ni mnoge druge tekstove,
 vjerovali vi sad meni ili ne ... ja tekst o Andricu nisam citao. Mislio sam: Neka pise sto hoce, tako cemo to i objaviti. Ionako 
 je bilo iznad moje moci da tu ista diram i ispravljam. Mjesec ili ne znam koliko nakon sto mi je poslao tekst, primim od Milana 
 pismo u kojem mi kaze da je kopiju teksta dao Ivi Andricu na uvid te da on moli da budem ljubazan i da u tekstu nesto izmijenim, 
 a to je:

 Ivo Andric, rodjen u Travniku 10.10.1892. godine, hrvatskog porijekla, zavrsio skole itd.... Moli me da brisem da je hrvatskog 
 porijekla. Na to odgovaram Bogdanovicu (oprostite sto citiram):
     
 Dragi moj Milane,

 Pozdravi Ivu Andrica u moje ime, veoma srdacno,i poruci mu, ako mozes, da mu ja jebem hrvatsku majku, brisat cu da je hrvatskog 
 porijekla." 

Shortly, Milan Bogdanovic wrote a text of Andric's biography, presented a copy of this text to Andric. Andric asked Bogdanovic to remove the note saying that he (Ivo) was a man of Croatian lineage.

Here, in this "biography", the ethnic background of Andric and his parents is gotten through a "research" conducted by some people long after Ivo's death, contrary to the Ivo's attitude about his own ethnic background, and contrary to the norms of a civilized behaviour. At the end, the ethnic backgrounds were derived in a talibanic way according to the religious affiliations of his parents - and as it was recorded by some priest of a Roman Catholic church in Bosnia!

Also, as written in this "biography"

"great part of his best earlier work was written in the Croatian language (as different from Serbian Ijekavian language writers such as Petar Kočić or Aleksa Šantić)"

has nothing to do with the Ivo's language itself - from a serious linguist prospective. It is a current political agenda product applied to Ivo's work which (agenda) Ivo never supported or practicized.

The comparisons like:

" Croats have never considered him an equal to Miroslav Krleža, while Serbs affirm aesthetic primacy of Miloš Crnjanski"

are really miserable and primitive. Which Serbs, which Croats? Could you imagine the same type of comparisons applied to Hemingway or Steinbeck vs. some American provincial writers?

The only way to deal with these type of politically correct "biographies" is to leave them as they are written.

Their very existence will defeat any serious public interest in them.

I think that you should have another look at the Croatian wikipedia. Even Mir Harven clearly states that he concidered himself a Serb. :-) HolyRomanEmperor 14:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think that you should have another look at the Croatian wikipedia: [[2]]. Even Mir Harven clearly states that he concidered himself a Serb. :-) HolyRomanEmperor 14:41, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mir seems to think that in order to be considered a Croat, you have to somehow "earn it" – proudly wave it around in spite of all the trouble that may bring you. Andrić probably thought of Croats and Serbs as one people – a claim rejected by large majorities of both peoples. Does that opinion of his make him a Serb in the modern sense of the word (ie. not the 1920s - 1950s unitarist sense)? I don't think so. I also don't think you should cherry-pick Andrić's ideology because it basically makes it possible to claim, conversely, that Serbs are in fact Orthodox Croats – and we all know who claimed that one to be true. --Elephantus 15:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can't seem to understand your reference ...Serbs are are in fact Orthodox Croats... Anyone on Earth can be a Serb if he wants :) Besides, there were many Catholic Christian Serbs in the past :-) But what wonders me is that you probably misunderstood me. It is clear that he is ethnicly a Croat. But that has nothing to do whatsoever with the fact that he declared himself (and concidered) as a Serb. We are not discussing his nationality, but this. HolyRomanEmperor 17:05, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  You are wasting your time while trying to explain very simple things - to this man whose nickname is Elephantus. This nickname 
is the proper one - he has a stubbornness of an elephant and ability to trample across the facts. Pay attention to three things 
only:
 - Elephantus stated:  "Because of his political activities, Andrić was interned by the Austrian government during World War I ..."
The world renown historian McNeil says – Andric was a member of the Serbian revolutionary organization “Mlada Bosna”. Apparently, 
for Elephantus, this is not something he wants to be seen here - it might harm Elephantus' claim about Andric ethnic background
 - also, this is laughable: “his official website” – how it might be possible? Andric died in the year of 1975. How Ivo became 
aware of this website and how he authorized it??? Apparently Elephantus thinks it is useful to have it named this way ("official")
for it supports Elephantus' claim that Andric was a Croat.
 - at the end: Elephantus still thinks that somebody's ethnic background is not a private matter - rather the matter of some other
people who acquired "rights" to judge about it - their own way. Andric admitted publicly being a Serb - three times (Lovett, 
Österling, McNeil) and opposed to be aligned with Croats (Bogdanovic, Krleza). Elephantus argues: "Does that opinion of his make
him a Serb in the modern sense of the word"??? So if I say - I am an American - someone shall apply some "modern sense" to prove 
that I am not???

Like user:Macedonian once said: Whatever you are (Croatian or Serb), is what you feel, not what someone else made you. Anyway, at the end, we are all just humans... :-) HolyRomanEmperor 17:17, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And yes, Ivo Andrić should be put into the category together with us who think that Croats and Serbs are one people. He was a proud Yugoslav and a great supporter of King Alexander and his unitary ideology. As well as a great enemy to Croatian seperatists, especially a man whome he blackened almost every moment when he got opportunity - Stjepan Radić. According to many Croats, we can also fold him under Greater Serbian propaganda spreaders. :) HolyRomanEmperor 17:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You are most definetly wrong abour Mir Harven. Rudjer Boskovic didn't do anything for the Croatian people (and even isn't ethnicly a Croat) and Mir Harven claims him Croatian :-) Even if his alleged Croatian ethnicity is correct, you still have nothing that did for the Croatian people :) HolyRomanEmperor 21:31, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The "quotes" from McNeill and Lovett F. Edwards about Andrić being Serbian or having a Serbian mother always looked kind of suspicious to me, so I went to a bookstore and got a copy of "The Bridge over the Drina" with the Introduction and the Translator's Foreword included. And guess what I found.... :-)))

Introduction by William McNeill, p. 3:

Ivo Andrić was born in Travnik, Bosnia, in 1892, but he spent his first two years in Sarajevo, where his father worked as a caretaker. The family lived poorly; and when the future writer was still an infant, his father died, leaving his penniless young widow to look after an only child. They went to live with her parents in Višegrad on the banks of the Drina, where the young Ivo grew up in an artisan family (his grandfather was a carpenter) playing in the bridge he was later to make so famous, and listening to tales about its origin and history which he used so skillfully to define the character of the early Ottoman presence in that remote Bosnian town. The family was Catholic, i.e., Croat; but in his boyhood and youth Andrić was thrown into intimate contact with the entire spectrum of religious communities that coexisted precariously in the Bosnia of his day; and his family shared the puzzling encounter with a strange new Austrian world that he portrays so sensitively in The Bridge over the Drina.

Translator's Foreword by Lovett F. Edwards, p. 7:

Dr Ivo Andrić is himself a Croat and a Bosnian. These provincial and religious subtleties are still as important in present-day Yugoslavia as they were in earlier times. But in the case of Dr Andrić they have had an effect different from that on other Yugoslav writers and politicians.

And last, but not least, the brief biography placed on the first page, immediately inside the covers:

IVO ANDRIĆ was born in 1892 in Travnik, Bosnia of Croat parents and grew up alongside Orthodox Christians, Moslems and Roman Catholics in Višegrad, the town on the banks of the Drina in which the book is set. Until 1941 he served as a Yugoslav diplomat, then, placed under house arrest in Belgrade by the occupying Germans, Andrić turned to writing. In 1961 he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. He died in 1975.

So next time, check your sources before quoting them or they may backfire on you in a nasty way... :-) --Elephantus 08:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

!!!WARNING!!! This man, signed as Elephantus below, is distorting the truth intentionally. In his (her?) "quotes" of McNeil's and Edwards' forewords, he simply replaced "Serb" by "Croat". Counting on peoples' naivety to believe him??? !!!WARNING!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.18.16.251 (talk • contribs)

Try to tone down the hysteria. And get a copy of the book and check it for yourself. --Elephantus 22:18, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I did not expect that you might blush after reading my comment. The very comment is a type of FYI note - for other people - not for you.

Wow, we all agreed that Ivo Andrić is ethnicly a Croat; but by nationality and selfdetermination a Serb. HolyRomanEmperor 13:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

... and now that we've completed a discussion on Ivo Andric who, in this enlightened Serbo-Croat discussion, seems to have no connections to Bosnia in which he was born, where he went to school and whose language, spirit and history make up for almost his entire opus, let's start a discussion on our other Nobel Laureate, Vladimir Prelog ... He was also born, bred and educated in Bosnia, however, I'm sure that he doesn't belong there either ...

Bosnia, of course, despite being an anthropologically identifiable cultural presence with its own people, habits, food, history, linguistical practice, etc ... simply can't claim its own ... for the fear of offending all of those Serbs and Croats that claim IT ... And for all of you who think that national identification begins and ends with narrow, nationalistic 'blood-definitions' -- has anyone heard of the IBM's Project Genom??? May science liberate us from a universal Serbo-Croatness! And let Andric rest in peace.

Let me recap this issue: The bit about Andrić's mother being a Serb is obviously false because the source on which it was based was misquoted (More specifically, every instance of the words "Croat" and "Catholic" in the original text was replaced by the words "Serb" and "Orthodox", respectively. The person who quoted this may have done it themselves, but may have also quoted from an already falsified source, in good faith. Anyway, I'll provide a scan/photo of the original text from the book on request).

As for Andrić considering himself and/or publicly declaring himself to be a Serb, I couldn't find any reliable sources on the Internet. If it's really printed somewhere, it shouldn't be that hard to check it and note it here. If, on the other hand, he said it to a friend over a cup of coffee and the guy didn't bother to publish it but simply spread it around as a rumour, it can't be included in the Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Verifiability. --Elephantus 13:38, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ivo Andric was a Croat that was a Serb. Mila Jovovich is an American that is a Serb; Ruđer Bošković was a Serb that was an Italian, French, English, Russian, Ragusian and somewhat Polish also. Anyone that hates democracy and deprives the people to declare themselves freely (nations are fictionous, by the way) must be sent back to World War II to sit with Adolf and Benito... HolyRomanEmperor 18:51, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Slavoljub Eduard Penkala is famed by all Croats as a Croat. He got assimilated. He was half Pole-half Dutch. Ivo Andrić, Croat by birth, a Serb by life. HolyRomanEmperor 19:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So, in his curriculum vitae he considered himself a Serb: [3] and even the site of Nobel Leaureates (most important thing in Ivo Andrich's life): [4] call him a Serbian. Want more? HolyRomanEmperor 19:14, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Serbian author: [5]... HolyRomanEmperor 19:19, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Message to paranoid Croatian nationalists: No one is trying to "steal" Andrich, he will always be ethnicly a Croat, but a Serb by nationality... HolyRomanEmperor 19:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Croat and Serb are exogenous national identifications in Bosnia, it was the national awakening of the 19th century and the desire for freedom from foreign rule that made it 'sexy' to be a Serb at the time'

So perhaps he was in fact ethnically a BOSNIAN CROAT or, to be more precise, a BOSNIAN CATHOLIC? The fact that at the time of his birth Austria-Hungary officially forbade the use of "Bosnian" as pertaining to nationality probably has a lot to do with the later, typically Balkan arguments over the ownership of prominent people, achievements, 'claims to fame'. The number one criterion of 'national determination' in this instance should be:

1. self-determination & 2. place of birth, language, religion.

Whether and why Croatians, Serbs or Bosnians really need to individually OWN Andric is a question for contemporary social psychology to deal with. Surely, though, he is as much of an exclusively Croatian or Serbian writer as Kundera is French (though he lived in France and wrote in French)??? Further, Mesa Selimovic also claimed he was Serbian, though it's hard to put him in the same basket as Dobrica Cosic, really ... but that doesn't stop everyone from considering Selimovic one of the most important Bosnian writers ... why? :-))) it's the same argument, really - religion-culture continuum.

So, then there is the question of why nobody in this discussion, but I mean NOBODY -- seems to be even considering his Bosnian origin and his entire orientation towards Bosnian culture as a writer?

It was absolutely normal in Andric's lifetime to express affinity towards Serbia, Serbian culture, Serbian language, both as an expression of the South Slavic desire for unification and independence, and as the wider signature of the time he was living in - anyone heard of national-romanticism? It was the time of national self-determination, and that time came after a long, long period of foreign domination in South-Slavic lands.

Being a member of "Mlada Bosna" was definitely to say that one was a freedom-fighter (the organisation aimed for the liberation of Bosnia from Austria-Hungary, and the rest of Serbia, Montenegro, etc from the Turks). It was initially Serb-only, but very soon Muslims joined in.

This was primarily an organisation that wanted freedom from foreign rule and unification of South Slavs led by Serbia. It was not abnormal at that time to declare one-self a 'Serb' since Serbia was the first former Yu country to recover its sovereignty and was looked up to in this context.

One cannot really seriously compare national self-determination at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century with the hysterical natio-fascism of today. The whole point of Andric's "Serbianness" runs counter to those who want to claim him as Serb (or Croat for that matter) today.

Ivo Andrić, 1923. quote: Ponekad ne mogu da izdržim, banuću jednom u sav taj haos i baciti se svom težinom kao 1912. (srpski revolucijski pokret) godine. Ujedinjenje valja provesti ponovo, ono prvo je, bar za Zagreb bilo pretjerano, a platit ćemo ga ili mi ili taj Radić i fukara koja je oko njega kao rulja seoskih pasa oko slepca. HolyRomanEmperor 19:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Croatian separatist movement was tearing apart the Kingdom, all of Yugoslavia was bleeding because of it. Ivo found sanctuary amongst the Serbian populace. Don't forget that Stjepan Radić was one of the greatest Croatian national heros... This is probably the reason why was/is Andrić generallz hated amongst Croats... and why they "exiled" him from Croatdom into Serbdom... HolyRomanEmperor 19:30, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Encarta encyclopedia: [6] Serb... etc. HolyRomanEmperor 19:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

more: [7] HolyRomanEmperor 19:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

more: [8] and [9] HolyRomanEmperor 19:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

more: [10] and [11] HolyRomanEmperor 19:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yet, more: [12] and [13] HolyRomanEmperor 19:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Then [14] and [15]... Anyway, this is enough to put an end to Greater Croatdom, I think.

!!!WARNING!!! This man, signed as Elephantus, is distorting the truth intentionally. In his (her?) "quotes" of McNeil's and Edwards' forewords, he simply replaced the words - "Serb" by "Croat". Counting on peoples' naivety to believe him??? !!!WARNING!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.18.16.251 (talk • contribs)

Read Image:Andric1.png, Image:Andric2.png and also Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Harassment. --Elephantus 19:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I do not approve insulting. user:Elephantus may be a Greater Croatian extreme nationalist, but we must all stay cool and civil on this free Internet encyclopedia. HolyRomanEmperor 20:58, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Insulting??? Do you know what he did? Offered as "a proof" the photocopied pages of the book "fixed" by a photoshop tool!!! What is civil and free in this case?

Yeah, I spent many sleepless nights on it so it can't be distinguished from the original by known scientific methods. :-) --Elephantus 17:31, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]