The Motif of Coldness in the Narrative Worlds of Ivo Andrić and Branko Ćopić

Abstract

The paper analyzed the novel The Deaf Gunpowder (1957) and the story Winter (1940) by Branko Ćopić, and the novel The Bridge on the Drina (1945) and the story Vejavica (1968) by Ivo Andrić. The presence of real coldness within Andrić and Ćopić’s cryopoetics was comparatively researched similarities and differences in the authors’ narrative techniques were observed, with the reference to the presence of real winter at the places of narrative importance or in strong text positions (titles, beginnings and endings). Also, the presence of imaginary coldness was analyzed in the processes of characterization,the characters’ emotions, their attitudes, gestures and somatic coldness, with special reference to psychological coldness and its manifestations. The places of narrative importance in The Deaf Gunpowder are consistently tied to coldness, or to its decrease, while in The Bridge on the Drina, all key episodes (and the most artistic ones) are cryopoetically marked. When it comes to the stories, it is noted that in Ćopić’s story through the lyricism of the landscape, one girl’s emotions are projected into the natural environment, while in the story by Ivo Andrić, the historical-political situation of Dubrovnik’s relationship with Bosnia is told through a complex metaphorization.