Ivo Andrić (Serbian Cyrillic: Иво Андрић; born Ivan Andrić; October 9, 1892 – March 13, 1975) was a Yugoslav writer who wrote novels, poems, and short stories. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. His books mainly focused on life in his home country of Bosnia during the time when the Ottoman Empire ruled there.
He was born in Travnik, which is now part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He attended high school in Sarajevo and joined groups that supported the unity of South Slavic people. In June 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Andrić was arrested by Austro-Hungarian police because they suspected he was involved. Since there was not enough evidence against him, he was mostly under house arrest during World War I. He was released in 1917 after a general pardon. After the war, he studied history and literature at universities in Zagreb and Graz, earning his PhD in 1924. He worked in the diplomatic service of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1920 to 1923 and again from 1924 to 1941. In 1939, he became Yugoslavia’s ambassador to Germany, but his position ended in 1941 when Germany invaded Yugoslavia. After the invasion, he returned to Belgrade, which was then under German control. He lived quietly in a friend’s apartment during World War II and wrote some of his most important works, including Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge on the Drina).
After the war, Andrić held several ceremonial roles in Yugoslavia, which had become a communist country. In 1961, the Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, choosing him over other famous writers like J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, and E. M. Forster. The committee praised his ability to tell powerful stories about his country’s history and people. His books were translated into many languages and gained international recognition. In later years, he received many awards in his home country. His health worsened in late 1974, and he died in Belgrade in March 1975.
After his death, the apartment in Belgrade where he lived during World War II was turned into a museum, and a nearby street was named after him. Other cities in the former Yugoslavia also have streets named in his honor. In 2012, filmmaker Emir Kusturica started building a town in eastern Bosnia named after Andrić. As Yugoslavia’s only Nobel Prize-winning writer, Andrić was respected in his homeland. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, some Bosniak critics have criticized his work for appearing to be biased against Muslims since the 1950s. In Croatia, his books were sometimes banned after Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s but were later accepted again by the literary community. He is highly valued in Serbia for his contributions to Serbian literature.
Early life
Ivan Andrić was born on October 9, 1892, in the village of Dolac, near Travnik, while his mother, Katarina (born Pejić), was visiting relatives in the town. Both of his parents were Catholic Croats, and he was their only child. His father, Antun, was a silversmith who worked as a school janitor in Sarajevo to support his family. When Antun died of tuberculosis at age 32, Ivan was only two years old. After his father’s death, Ivan’s mother, who was now without money or family support, took him to Višegrad and placed him in the care of her sister-in-law Ana and brother-in-law Ivan Matković, a police officer. The couple, who had no children of their own, raised Ivan as their own. Meanwhile, Ivan’s mother returned to Sarajevo to find work.
Višegrad, where Ivan grew up, was a small town with many different ethnic and religious groups, including Serbs (Orthodox Christians) and Bosniaks (Muslims). Though it was not a large city, it inspired Ivan deeply, and he later called it “my real home.” He played with friends near the Drina River and the famous Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge.
At age six, Ivan began primary school, which he later described as the happiest time of his life. At ten, he received a three-year scholarship from a Croat cultural group called Napredak (Progress) to study in Sarajevo. He attended the Great Sarajevo Gymnasium, the oldest secondary school in Bosnia. While in Sarajevo, Ivan lived with his mother, who worked in a rug factory. The city had many people from different parts of Austria-Hungary, and many languages were spoken there. Schools focused on teaching Germanic culture, and most teachers were not from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ivan disliked the curriculum, which aimed to create loyal supporters of the Austrian-Hungarian government.
Ivan struggled in school, especially with math, and had to repeat a grade. He lost his scholarship temporarily due to poor grades. However, he excelled in languages like Latin, Greek, and German. He later focused on literature, influenced by two Croat teachers, Đuro Šurmin and Tugomir Alaupović. Ivan admired Alaupović the most, and the two became lifelong friends.
Ivan believed he was meant to be a writer. He began writing in secondary school, though his mother did not encourage him. She once asked him, “Did you write this? What did you do that for?” In 1911, while still in school, Ivan published his first two poems in a journal called Bosanska vila (Bosnian Fairy), which promoted unity between Serbs and Croats. Before World War I, his poems, essays, and translations appeared in other journals like Vihor, Savremenik, Hrvatski pokret, and Književne novine. Ivan preferred writing lyrical, reflective prose, and many of his early works were poetic essays. A historian described his early poetry as “subjective and mostly sad.” Ivan also translated works by August Strindberg, Walt Whitman, and Slovene authors during this time.
In 1908, Austria-Hungary officially took control of Bosnia and Herzegovina, angering South Slav nationalists like Ivan. In 1911, Ivan became the first president of the Serbo-Croat Progressive Movement (SHNO), a secret group in Sarajevo that promoted unity between Serb and Croat youth and opposed Austro-Hungarian rule. Members of SHNO were criticized by both Serb and Croat nationalists, who called them “traitors.” Ivan continued to speak out against the Austro-Hungarian government. In 1912, he addressed 100 student protesters at Sarajevo’s railway station, urging them to keep demonstrating. The Austro-Hungarian police later harassed SHNO members, punishing some by expelling them from school. Ivan avoided punishment. He also joined the South Slav student movement known as Young Bosnia, becoming one of its most active members.
In 1912, Ivan enrolled at the University of Zagreb with a scholarship from a Sarajevo foundation. He studied math and natural sciences, as those were the only fields offering scholarships, but also took some courses in Croatian literature. He was popular among South Slav nationalists and participated in protests, which led to reprimands from the university. In 1913, he moved to the University of Vienna to continue his studies. In Vienna, he joined groups promoting Yugoslav unity and worked with student societies that supported “integral Yugoslavism,” the idea of uniting all South Slav cultures into one.
Despite finding like-minded students in Vienna, the city’s cold climate hurt Ivan’s health. He contracted tuberculosis and became seriously ill. He asked to leave Vienna to study elsewhere, though some believe he may have been involved in a protest against German-speaking universities. Ivan considered moving to Russia but instead completed his fourth semester at Jagiellonian University in Kraków in early 1914. He began his literary career as a poet, contributing to Hrvatska mlada lirika (Croatian Youth Lyrics) in 1914 and continuing to publish translations, poems, and reviews.
World War I
On June 28, 1914, Andrić learned about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The assassin was Gavrilo Princip, a Young Bosnian and close friend of Andrić who had joined the SHNO in 1911. After hearing the news, Andrić decided to leave Kraków and return to Bosnia. He traveled by train to Zagreb and in mid-July went to the coastal city of Split with his friend, the poet and South Slav nationalist Vladimir Čerina. Andrić and Čerina stayed at Čerina’s summer home for the rest of July. As the month passed, they became worried about the growing political problems that followed the Archduke’s assassination and eventually led to World War I. They then traveled to Rijeka, where Čerina left Andrić without explanation, saying he needed to go to Italy. A few days later, Andrić learned that Čerina was being looked for by the police.
By the time war was declared, Andrić had returned to Split feeling tired and sick. Because many of his friends had already been arrested for nationalist activities, he believed he might be arrested too. Even though he was not involved in the assassination, he was arrested in late July or early August for “anti-state activities” and sent to prison in Split. He was later moved to a prison in Šibenik, then to Rijeka, and finally to Maribor, arriving there on August 19. Suffering from tuberculosis, Andrić spent his time reading, talking to his cellmates, and learning languages.
By the next year, the case against Andrić was dropped because there was not enough evidence, and he was released from prison on March 20, 1915. The authorities sent him into exile to the village of Ovčarevo, near Travnik. He arrived there on March 22 and was placed under the care of local Franciscan friars. Andrić quickly became friends with the friar Alojzije Perčinlić and began studying the history of Bosnia’s Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities under Ottoman rule. He lived in the parish headquarters, and the Franciscans gave him access to monastery records. In return, he helped the parish priest and taught religious songs to students at the monastery school. Andrić’s mother soon visited him and offered to work as the parish priest’s housekeeper. “Mother is very happy,” Andrić wrote. “It has been three whole years since she saw me. And she can’t grasp all that has happened to me in that time, nor the whole of my crazy, cursed existence. She cries, kisses me and laughs in turn. Like a mother.”
Andrić was later moved to a prison in Zenica, where Perčinlić regularly visited him. The Austro-Hungarian Army declared Andrić a political threat in March 1917 and exempted him from military service. He was registered with a non-combat unit until February of the following year. On July 2, 1917, Emperor Charles announced a general amnesty for all political prisoners in Austria-Hungary. With his freedom restored, Andrić visited Višegrad and reunited with several school friends. He stayed there until late July, when he was mobilized. Because of his poor health, Andrić was sent to a Sarajevo hospital and avoided military service. He was then transferred to the Reservospital in Zenica, where he received treatment for several months before going to Zagreb. There, Andrić fell seriously ill again and sought care at the Sisters of Mercy hospital, which had become a place for dissidents and former political prisoners.
In January 1918, Andrić joined several South Slav nationalists in editing a short-lived pan-Yugoslav magazine called Književni jug (Literary South). In this and other publications, he wrote book reviews, plays, poems, and translations. Over several months in early 1918, Andrić’s health worsened, and his friends thought he was near death. However, he recovered and spent the spring of 1918 in Krapina writing Ex ponto, a book of prose poetry published in July. It was his first book.
Interwar period
After World War I ended, Austria-Hungary broke apart, and a new country was formed called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. This country later changed its name to Yugoslavia in 1929. In late 1918, Andrić returned to the University of Zagreb to continue his studies. By January 1919, he became sick again and was sent to the hospital. A fellow writer, Ivo Vojnović, worried about Andrić’s health and asked his former teacher, Tugomir Alaupović, who had recently become the Minister of Religious Affairs, to help Andrić find treatment abroad. In February, Andrić wrote to Alaupović and asked for help finding a government job in Belgrade. Eventually, Andrić chose to receive treatment in Split, where he stayed for six months. While in Split, he finished a second book of prose poetry called Nemiri, which was published the next year. By the time he left Split, he had almost fully recovered and joked that he was cured by the "air, sun, and figs." Troubled by news that his uncle was very sick, Andrić left Split in August to visit him in Višegrad. He returned to Zagreb two weeks later.
Soon after the war, Andrić showed a stronger connection to Serb identity. In a letter from December 1918, Vojnović described Andrić as "a Catholic… a Serb from Bosnia." By 1919, Andrić had earned his undergraduate degree in South Slavic history and literature from the University of Zagreb. He was often poor and made very little money from his writing and editing work. By mid-1919, he realized he could not support himself or his aging mother, aunt, and uncle for much longer. He asked Alaupović more often for help finding a government job. In September 1919, Alaupović offered him a secretarial position at the Ministry of Religion, which Andrić accepted.
In late October, Andrić went to Belgrade. He joined the city’s literary groups and became one of Belgrade’s most well-known young writers. Though newspapers in Belgrade wrote about him positively, Andrić disliked being in the public eye and preferred to stay away from other writers. At the same time, he was unhappy with his government job and asked Alaupović to transfer him to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 20 February, his request was approved, and he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry’s mission at the Vatican.
Andrić left Belgrade soon after and arrived in the Vatican in late February. At this time, he published his first short story, Put Alije Đerzeleza (The Journey of Alija Đerzelez). He complained that the consulate had too few workers and that he did not have enough time to write. He did not enjoy the formal and ceremonial aspects of his diplomatic work, but he handled it with dignity. Around this time, he began writing in the Ekavian dialect used in Serbia instead of the Ijekavian dialect used in his native Bosnia. Andrić soon asked for another assignment and was transferred to Bucharest in November. His health worsened there, but he found his duties required little effort, so he focused on writing, contributed articles to a Romanian journal, and even visited his family in Bosnia. In 1922, he requested another transfer and was sent to the consulate in Trieste, arriving on 9 December. The damp climate in Trieste made his health worse, and on his doctor’s advice, he moved to Graz in January 1923. He arrived in Graz on 23 January and was appointed vice-consul. Andrić enrolled at the University of Graz, continued his education, and began working on his doctoral dissertation in Slavic studies.
In August 1923, Andrić faced a career problem. A new law required all government workers to have a doctoral degree. Since Andrić had not finished his dissertation, he was told he would lose his job. His friends, who had connections in the government, asked the Foreign Minister, Momčilo Ninčić, to keep Andrić employed because of his skills in diplomacy and languages. In February 1924, the Foreign Ministry allowed Andrić to continue working as a day worker with the salary of a vice-consul. This gave him time to complete his Ph.D. Three months later, on 24 May, Andrić submitted his dissertation to the University of Graz. The examiners approved it, allowing him to take the tests needed to earn his Ph.D. He passed both exams and received his degree on 13 July. The examiners recommended that his dissertation be published. Andrić chose the title Die Entwicklung des geistigen Lebens in Bosnien unter der Einwirkung der türkischen Herrschaft (The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia Under the Influence of Turkish Rule). In it, he described the Ottoman occupation as a heavy burden that still affected Bosnia. "The effect of Turkish rule was absolutely negative," he wrote. "The Turks could not bring any cultural value or higher purpose, even to those South Slavs who accepted Islam."
Several days after earning his Ph.D., Andrić wrote to the Foreign Minister, asking to return to work and sent a copy of his dissertation, university documents, and a medical report stating he was healthy. In September, the Foreign Ministry agreed to his request. Andrić stayed in Graz until 31 October, when he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry’s Belgrade headquarters. During the two years he was in Belgrade, he spent much time writing. His first collection of short stories was published in 1924, and he received a prize from the Serbian Royal Academy (he became a full member in February 1926). In October 1926, he was transferred to the consulate in Marseille and again became vice-consul. On 9 December 1926, he was assigned to the Yugoslav embassy in Paris. His time in France was marked by loneliness and isolation. His uncle had died in 1924, his mother the following year, and when he arrived in France, he learned his aunt had also died. "Apart from official contacts," he wrote to Alaupović, "I have no company whatever." Andrić spent much time in the Paris archives studying reports from the French consulate in Travnik between 1809 and
World War II
Andrić was named Yugoslavia's ambassador to Germany in late March or early April 1939. This appointment showed that Yugoslavia's leaders respected him highly. In 1934, Yugoslavia's King Alexander was killed in Marseille. His ten-year-old son, Peter, became king, and a regency council led by Peter's uncle, Paul, ruled until Peter turned 18. Paul's government strengthened ties with Germany. In March 1941, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact, agreeing to support Germany and Italy. Though the agreement was made without Andrić's knowledge, he attended its signing in Berlin as ambassador. Andrić had been told to delay agreeing to Axis demands as long as possible. He strongly opposed the pact and wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 17, asking to leave his post. Ten days later, pro-Western officers in the Royal Yugoslav Air Force overthrew the regency and declared Peter of age. This caused tensions with Germany and led Adolf Hitler to order Yugoslavia's invasion. Andrić faced a difficult position but tried, though unsuccessfully, to help Polish prisoners after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.
Before the invasion, Germany offered Andrić a chance to leave for neutral Switzerland. He refused because his staff could not go with him. On April 6, 1941, Germany and its allies invaded Yugoslavia. The country surrendered on April 17 and was divided among Axis powers. In early June, Andrić and his staff were taken back to German-occupied Belgrade, where some were jailed. Andrić was removed from his diplomatic role but refused to accept his pension or work with the puppet government Germany installed in Serbia. Though not jailed, he was closely watched by the Germans. Because of his Croat heritage, they offered him a chance to live in Zagreb, then the capital of the fascist puppet state called the Independent State of Croatia. He declined. For three years, Andrić lived in a friend's apartment in Belgrade, a situation some biographers describe as house arrest. In August 1941, the puppet government in German-occupied Serbia issued the Appeal to the Serbian Nation, urging people to avoid joining the communist-led rebellion. Andrić refused to sign. He focused on writing and completed two of his most famous novels, Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge on the Drina) and Travnička hronika during this time.
In mid-1942, Andrić sent a message of support to Draža Mihailović, leader of the royalist Chetniks, one of two resistance groups fighting in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The other group was Josip Broz Tito's communist Partisans. In 1944, Andrić had to leave his friend's apartment during Allied bombing of Belgrade and evacuate the city. He felt ashamed to flee alone, without his family. "I looked myself up and down," he wrote, "and saw I was saving only myself and my overcoat." In the following months, he refused to leave his apartment, even during heavy bombing. That October, the Red Army and the Partisans drove the Germans out of Belgrade, and Tito declared himself Yugoslavia's ruler.
Later life
Ivo Andrić had a difficult relationship with the communists early in his life because he had once worked for the royalist government. He returned to public life only after the Germans were driven out of Belgrade. Na Drini ćuprija was published in March 1945. It was followed by Travnička hronika in September of the same year and Gospođica in November. Na Drini ćuprija became Andrić's most famous work and was called a classic of Yugoslav literature by the communists. The book describes the history of the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge and the town of Višegrad from the bridge's construction in the 16th century until the start of World War I. Travnička hronika follows a French diplomat in Bosnia during the Napoleonic Wars. Gospođica focuses on the life of a woman from Sarajevo. After the war, Andrić also wrote short story collections, travel memoirs, and essays about writers such as Vuk Karadžić, Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, and Petar Kočić.
In November 1946, Andrić was chosen as vice-president of the Society for Cultural Cooperation between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. That same month, he became president of the Yugoslav Writers' Union. The next year, he joined the People's Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1948, Andrić published a collection of short stories he had written during the war. His work influenced writers like Branko Ćopić, Vladan Desnica, Mihailo Lalić, and Meša Selimović. In April 1950, Andrić became a member of the National Assembly of Yugoslavia. He was honored by the Presidium of the National Assembly in 1952 for his contributions to the Yugoslav people. In 1953, his career as a parliamentary deputy ended. The following year, he published the novella Prokleta avlija (The Damned Yard), which describes life in an Ottoman prison in Istanbul. That December, he joined the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the country's ruling party. Some believe he joined the party to serve his country as fully as possible, rather than for strong political beliefs.
On 27 September 1958, the 66-year-old Andrić married Milica Babić, a costume designer at the National Theatre of Serbia who was nearly twenty years younger than him. Earlier, he had said it was "probably better" for a writer to remain unmarried. A close friend noted that Andrić seemed to have been born with a fear that made him avoid marriage for many years.
By the late 1950s, Andrić's works were translated into many languages. In 1958, the Association of Writers of Yugoslavia nominated him as its first candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. On 26 October 1961, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature. Documents later revealed that the Nobel Committee chose Andrić over writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, and E.M. Forster. The Committee praised his "powerful storytelling" about themes and human lives from his country's history. After the award was announced, reporters filled his apartment in Belgrade, and he publicly thanked the Nobel Committee for selecting him. Andrić donated all his prize money, about 30 million dinars, to buy library books in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Nobel Prize brought global recognition to Andrić. In March 1962, he fell ill during a trip to Cairo and returned to Belgrade for surgery. He had to cancel events in Europe and North America but his books continued to be reprinted and translated. Letters from this time suggest he felt overwhelmed by the attention but tried to hide it. After winning the Nobel Prize, he received many more awards, including the Order of the Republic in 1962, the 27 July Award of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the AVNOJ Award in 1967, and the Order of the Hero of Socialist Labour in 1972. He also became a member of the Yugoslav and Serbian academies of sciences and arts, a correspondent for Bosnian and Slovenian academies, and received honorary doctorates from universities in Belgrade, Sarajevo, and Kraków.
Andrić's wife died on 16 March 1968. His health worsened over time, and he traveled less in his later years. He kept writing until 1974, when his health declined further. In December 1974, he was admitted to a hospital in Belgrade. He soon fell into a coma and died at 1:15 a.m. on 13 March 1975, at the age of 82. His body was cremated, and his ashes were buried on 24 April at the Alley of Distinguished Citizens in Belgrade's New Cemetery. Around 10,000 people from Belgrade attended the ceremony.
Influences, style and themes
Ivo Andrić loved reading when he was young. He was interested in many types of books, including ancient Greek and Latin works, as well as writings by famous authors from different countries. He read books by German and Austrian writers like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Thomas Mann. He also read works by French writers such as Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, and Guy de Maupassant, and by British writers like Thomas Carlyle, Walter Scott, and Joseph Conrad. Andrić also studied the works of Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, Russian writer Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen, American writers Walt Whitman and Henry James, and Czechoslovak philosopher Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. He especially liked Polish literature and later said it had a strong influence on him. He respected several Serbian writers, including Karadžić, Njegoš, Kočić, and Aleksa Šantić. He also admired Slovene poets Fran Levstik, Josip Murn, and Oton Župančič, and translated some of their works. The writing style of Franz Kafka seemed to influence Andrić’s own writing, and his ideas were shaped by the work of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. At one time, Andrić even studied books from China and Japan.
Many of Andrić’s stories were inspired by the traditions and daily lives of people in Bosnia. His books explore the differences and shared experiences of the Muslim, Serb, and Croat communities in the region. His most famous novels, Na Drini ćuprija and Travnička hronika, compare the Eastern traditions of Ottoman-controlled Bosnia with the Western influences brought by the French and later the Austro-Hungarians. His books include many Turkish, Arabic, or Persian words that were used by South Slavic languages during the Ottoman Empire’s rule. According to Vucinich, Andrić used these words to describe the unique Eastern feelings and ideas that are hard to express in his own language.
Literary historian Nicholas Moravcevich said Andrić’s work often shows his sadness about the suffering and loss that come with time passing. Na Drini ćuprija is his most well-known novel and has been studied more than any of his other works. Most scholars believe the bridge in the novel represents Yugoslavia, which was a connection between East and West during the Cold War. In his Nobel Prize speech, Andrić described Yugoslavia as a country trying hard to recover from a difficult past. He believed that understanding history could help people from different groups in Yugoslavia get along better. He thought this would help future generations avoid past mistakes and was in line with his belief that time repeats itself in cycles. Andrić hoped that differences between groups could be resolved and that people could better understand their shared history.
Legacy
Shortly before his death, Andrić said he wanted all his belongings to be kept in a donation fund for "general cultural and humanitarian purposes." In March 1976, a group of officials decided the fund would support the study of Andrić's work and promote art and literature. The Ivo Andrić Foundation has held international conferences, given money to scholars studying his work, and helped pay for books about him. The foundation also publishes an annual yearbook called Sveske Zadužbine Ive Andrića (The Journals of the Ivo Andrić Foundation). Andrić's will required an award to be given each year to the author of the best short story collection, which led to the creation of the Andrić Prize in 1975. A street near Belgrade's New Palace, now the home of Serbia's president, was named Andrićev venac (Andrić's Crescent) in his honor. It has a life-sized statue of him. The apartment where Andrić lived his final years has been turned into a museum. Opened more than a year after his death, it displays books, manuscripts, documents, photographs, and personal items.
Andrić is the only writer from the former Yugoslavia to win the Nobel Prize. Because he used the Ekavian dialect and wrote most of his works in Belgrade, his writing is often linked to Serbian literature. A professor named Bojan Aleksov called Andrić one of the two most important figures in Serbian literature, the other being Petar II Petrović-Njegoš. A writer named Moravcevich said Andrić's storytelling, understanding of people's emotions, and use of symbols are unmatched in Serbian literature. Because Andrić identified as a Serb, some Bosniak and Croat writers have avoided connecting him to their cultures. In Croatia, he was not usually considered part of Croatian literature even during Yugoslavia, though this changed in the 1990s. After Yugoslavia broke apart in the early 1990s, some Croatian groups removed his books from libraries and schools. A writer named Dubravka Ugrešić criticized Croatia's president, Franjo Tuđman, for favoring other writers over Andrić. A historian named Ivo Banac said Andrić "missed the Chetnik train by a very small margin." Though some in Croatia still disagree about him, his work has been accepted again by Croatian writers.
Bosniak scholars have criticized how Andrić portrayed Muslim characters in his books. In the 1950s, some Bosniak critics accused him of copying others' work, being homosexual, and supporting Serbian nationalism. Some even called for his Nobel Prize to be taken away. Most of this criticism happened before and after the Bosnian War. In 1992, a Bosniak nationalist in Višegrad destroyed a statue of Andrić with a hammer. In 2009, an imam in Sarajevo called Andrić a "Chetnik ideologue" during a speech. In 2012, filmmaker Emir Kusturica and Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik unveiled a new statue of Andrić in Višegrad as part of a town called Andrićgrad, built with support from Kusturica and the government of Republika Srpska. Andrićgrad officially opened in June 2014, marking the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
Starting in the early 1990s, Andrić's image appeared on Yugoslav currency. His face is also on 1 KM banknotes from Republika Srpska and 200 KM banknotes from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbia also made 20 dinar coins in 2011 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his Nobel Prize in Literature.