The Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic Bridge

Visegrad bridge, source: archnet.org original source: Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library.

Eighteen years ago in June 1992 Visegrad police inspector Milan Josipovic received a morbid complaint. Apparently, so many bodies were floating down the Drina from Visegrad that they clogged the dam of the Bajina Basta hydroelectric plant in Serbia, on the other side of the river, could something be done to slow the flow of bodies?

One of the men most directly responsible for many of the bodies clogging the dam is  Milan Lukic, convicted by the ICTY trial chamber in 2009 of extermination, murder, persecution, cruel treatment and inhumane acts against his Bosniak neighbors.  Eighteen years ago, the local spa became Lukic’s headquarters and a rape camp. Houses, village fields and factories became the site of abductions and massacres. So too did the town’s best known icon, the Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic Bridge. Here, large numbers of men, women and children were shot and stabbed and thrown into the Drina.

I first heard of the Visegrad and its bridge because of Milan Lukic. Undoubtedly though, most people are familiar with Visegrad through Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric’s classic (and for some controversial) novel, “Bridge on the Drina.”

 The history of the bridge can be traced to the 16th century and to perhaps the most illustrious man to come from the Drina valley-Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic. Born Bajica to an Orthodox family near Visegrad, and taken through the devshirme system-Sokolovic rose to become the Grand Vizier under arguably the greatest Sultan of all-Suleyman II. World history remembers Sokolovic for his “idea to dig the Suez canal.” Bosnians and Serbs remember Sokolovic for restoring the Serbian Orthodox Church in Pec and of course, the bridge in Visegrad.

The boys taken as part of the devshirme (at least those who became known to history) did not lose all contact with their families or their original religious communities. When he revived the Patriarchy in Pec, Mehmed Pasha appointed his brother, Makarije Sokolovic, Patriarch- giving him authority over the Orthodox in Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The next two Patriarchs-Antonije and Gerasim,were also Sokolovic relations (nepotism does have its benefits).

About two decades later, Sokolovic ordered Sinan, perhaps the greatest Ottoman architect of all times, to build an eleven arch bridge in Visegrad. With stone quarried from Banja , the workers completed the 179 meter bridge. Gracing the center,  the “sofa” where for centuries the men of Visegrad would gather to discuss the issues of the day. Until 1886 the bridge included a wooden tower equiped with small canyons. The bridge overlooks and connects land divided by the turquoise waters of the Drina. Today, the Drina forms a natural border between Bosnia and Serbia, but the history of the Drina as a border can be traced back to the Roman Empire, when it divided the empire into “eastern” and “western” halves. History has not always been kind to the bridge’s physical infanstructure, three arches were destroyed during World War I, five during World War II. In 1951, when the destroyed arches were restored-electric cables were installed underneath the stone paving of the bridge.

In 1959, William Tribe who taught for years in Sarajevo,  described his visit to the bridge:

Below the village I crossed the famous ‘bridge on the Drina’—handsomely restored after the destruction in 1914 which Ivo Andrić describes—into Višegrad. I paused in the centre of the bridge to observe the great tablet which I knew recorded, in Turkish carved in convolutions of Arabic lettering, its construction four centuries before by Mehmed Paša Sokolović; and looked down at the heavy boat-shaped piers cleaving the wide green onward thrust of water out of narrows of shadowing cliffs.”

 Today, Milan Josipovic has been dead for five years-shot under very mysterious circumstances.  The legacy of war in Bosnia -of the genocide, crimes against humanity, political corruption and rise of a new “elite”,  is still visible in Visegrad. Today, only a few Bosniaks have returned to their pre-war homes. For those who do, they are often greeted by a wall of silence and denial about the crimes committed against them and their family members.

I would like to end this piece by going back to the bridge itself, the bridge which has been a part of Visegrad history for over 400 years, the bridge that eighteen years ago became the site of mass murder. On one of the plaques is enscribed this message: “May God bless this wondrously great and most beautiful bridge.”

Sources:

Preliminary Technical Assessment of Architectual and Archaelogical Heritage in Southeast Europe.

Visegrad Genocide Memories

The warlord of Visegrad

“Safe Area Gorazde”-Joe Sacco

“Blood and Vengeance”-Chuck Sudetic