Visegrad – magic upon the foggy bridge.

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“Here, where the Drina flows with the whole force of its green and foaming waters from the apparently closed mass of the dark steep mountains, stands a great clean-cut stone bridge with eleven wide sweeping arches. From this bridge spreads fanlike the whole rolling vaUey with the little oriental town of Visegrad and all its surroundings, with hamlets nestling in the folds of the hills, covered with meadows, pastures and plum orchards, and crisscrossed with walls and fences and dotted with shaws and occasional clumps of evergreens” Ivo Andric “The Bridge over the Drina” 

Visegrad is a small, beautiful town with around 6000 inhabitants, located on the Drina river, just where Rzav river is flowing into Drina. Drina has always been a border river. During Roman times it was the border between the Eastern and Western part of the empire. Later it separated Serbia from the Ottoman empire and then Serbia with the Austro-Hungarian empire. Nowadays is flows near the border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. And Visegrad has always been a borderline town. Visegrad used to be a small settlement before the 16th century, when the bridge was built. The man behind the idea of the bridge was the Grand Vezier Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic who was born in a Serbian family in Herzegovina. Construction of the bridge took place between 1571 and 1577. Since then it is the link between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Once it was on the main road from Sarajevo to Istanbul.






The bridge of Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic is an amazing example of the Ottoman architecture. Beautiful and almost eternal, it was erected between 1571 and 1577. It was a dramatic construction time when corvée was imposed not only on the men from Visegrad and the neighbouring villages. The bridge is 180 m long and 6 m wide, featuring 11 arches above the river. There are two terraces in the middle, known as kapia. This is the place where any Visegrad citizen could sit for a rest or a coffee, have a chat with the other passers-by or just enjoy the view. On one of the terraces there is also a pillar with a verse saying who and when built the bridge. During WW1 it was bombed by the Serbians and the Austrian troops. It lost three of its pillars. After being repaired, it received no mercy during WW2 when 5 of its beautiful arches were damaged. The bridge witnessed many terrible events. During the Bosnian war hundreds of Bosnians were killed here.


Its stunning architecture is everlasting symbol of beauty one can only find in Visegrad – Bosnia and Herzegovina.


Bibliography:

  1. “The Bridge over the drina”- Ivo Andric
  2. „Bosnia: A Short History” - Noel Malcolm
  3. “Bosnia : A Cultural History” - Ivan Lovrenović

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