Comparing Ivo Andric's Short Story 'From Discovery To Invention'

While comparing Ivo Andric’s short story, “ A Letter From 1920”, Robert Kaplan’s travel excerpts from “Balkan Ghosts” and Maria Todorova’s scholarly essay “The Balkans From Discovery to Invention”, one shared theme emerges. They all attempt to describe the people living in the Balkans. These three sources, although through different means and ways, talk about how they see and understand people living in the Balkan region and most importantly, how they explain and view their behavior. Examining Ivo Andric’s, “A Latter from 1920”, at first, we get a rather grim view of people living in Bosnia. Even though, Andric describes Bosnia as a …”…wonderful country, fascinating, with nothing ordinary in the habitat or people …” (Andric,

Andric up to a point shares Kaplan view that people in the Balkan are prone to hatred, due to the ethnic and religious diversity of the people living in that region. But he only talks about Bosnia Kaplan sees the whole Balkan region as engulf in it. Andric, in my view, places himself between the analysis of Kaplan and Todorova with regards to human behaviors in the Balkans. He definitely emphasizes hatred between people but his accounts of people are more human comparing to an irrational description of people living the Balkans by Kaplan. In Andric opinion, the reason for this hatred is, not difference per se but rather, unaddressed grievances and disputes that cumulated other the years. These grievances continued to antagonized different ethnics groups and further bridge the wedge between them. Andric also complains how unaware of this hatred are Bosnia themselves. Here I think is were Andric shares his view with Todorova, who attempts to explain, using history as her tool, the reasons for that hatred and why it has not been properly addressed confronted and