In The Story of Serf Siman Vaso Gengo »Policaja« endures within him the turmoil of fighting his »Bosnian« instinct with his new »Austrian« identity. Before Vaso utters the crucial
»In the name of the law...,« he first asks Siman to come with him. Siman, naturally, resists and tries to come up with excuses on why he should stay behind. In order to convince him to follow, Vaso says: »Don’t try to squiggle your way out, but come with me when I tell you... You forgot that this is not Turkey [Ottoman Empire] – this is Austria, now going on for a fourth year. Austria, just think!«66 To this, Siman reacts quite violently: »Oh, come on, I know... Austria! Austria! As if you were Austria!«67 The accusation implied by Siman’s words that Vaso is, perhaps, not so convincing in his new role as an »Austrian« police officer, sets Vaso off and in a matter of seconds he loses what little »Austrian« habits he had and starts fighting with Siman. But then the narrator tells us: »And there, as if he remembered something, Vaso suddenly abandoned this tone of an everyday Bosnian squabble and took on some new and foreign, really
›Austrian‹ attitude, the kind Siman did not see in a man of our kind.«68
From this point on, Siman’s anger and disappointment with the Law and the judgment against him grow exponentionally because, as he says: »How could a man survive and where could he run and where could he hide, when just any passerby can become Austria?«69 In other words, Siman can perhaps accept the authority of Austria-Hungary over Bosnia-Hercegovina (an amazing recognition from a simple peasant!), but he cannot live with the idea
that a simple Bosnian fool like Vaso or even himself can
»take on airs« and think he could ever be »Austrian«. The successfulness of the scene as comic relief and as an introduction to the crucial scene of Siman’s arrest (discussed in full above), rests also on our recognition of Vaso’s inability to ever really be »Austrian« and the correctness of Siman’s disgust at the very thought of it.
(Upon entering Hörmann’s office, Siman thinks: »›Heaven on Earth, a gentleman’s life‹, thought Siman. ›This is Austria!‹ and with disgust quickly glanced at Vaso Gengo, who, clumsy and stiff, was standing at attention.« 70)
From this humorous, yet crucial moment in the story we can glean some sense of Andrić’s positing of difference between Bosnia and the West. For Andrić these are separate worlds coming together only in the colonial administration’s introduction of the modern order into Bosnian society. And unlike Kecmanović, Buturović, and Ćorić who present a national/nationalistic view of Hörmann, Andrić primarily sees him as a harbinger of modernity. In the story, Hörmann is a personification of the scientific and ordering tendencies of western administration.
Andrić is, in some sense, historically speaking, correct in associating Hörmann with modernity. Austro-Hungarian rule did, in the broadest sense, represent the assimilation, or at least the introduction of Bosnian society into modern, European socio-economic system of relationships. At the same time, Andrić himself belonged to the generation that continued these modernizing processes in all of former Yugoslavia, not least through the projects of the socialist period.
The crucial role of both men in the debates on Bosnian identity (then as well as now) lies in the modernity and modernizing influence of both men, and especially in Andrić’s crucial reading of Hörmann as such. That is to say, it is not that these men are somehow constructing or promoting Bosniak (in Hörmann’s case) or Serbian (in Andrić’s case) national identity, but rather, they signal a cru-cial moment in the formation of all national identities in the region – modernity itself. As Ivo Banac argues:
As far as [Serb, Croat, and Bosniak] separate national identities are concerned, they can only recall a common beginning in the 19th century. Instead of a common origin, we should direct
ourselves towards the common beginning in modernity. That simply means that the national integrations of 19th and 20th centuries have a common starting point. At no point should we confuse premodern national formations with modern nations. The difference between them is enorrmous.71
That is to say, we cannot speak of origins (or conversely inauthentic inventions) of national identities in reference to Serbian, Croatian, and Bosniak identities as Kecmanović, Buturović and Ćorić do in their assessments of Kosta Hörmann. Rather, if we are to examine these national identities, we can and must speak of their common origin in modernity.
In addition, both Hörmann and Andrić belonged to an intellectual elite, educated abroad, but returning to serve administrations at home. They both worked on cultural projects that came to define both the language and culture of their respective time periods, even though it is undeniable that Andrić is a far more significant cultural figure than Hörmann. But most importantly, Hörmann and Andrić also share a history of engagement with the West that produced a pattern of identity formation, national or not, but always informed and speaking to both »Bosnia« and »Austria«
within. (In Hörmann’s case, this internal division and dialogue between East and West is evident in the unsettled debate over his divided loyalties to the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the one hand and Bosnian culture on the other.
Andrić’s preoccupation with East and West, their chasms as well as their »bridges« is well known.) Sharing this crucial in – betweenness, Hörmann and Andrić belong to a continuum of what, following Anderson, we can call the bilingual intelligentsia. And as Anderson convincingly ar-gues, it was precisely the bilingual intelligentsia who played a central role in national identity formation in the peripheries.72
Their bilingualism and their modernizing influence, or in Anderson’s words, their membership in the bilingual intelligentsia of the 19th and 20th centuries, are the reasons why Hörmann and Andrić find themselves at the heart of the debates on Bosnian identity. This thread that connects Kosta Hörmann’s history to Ivo Andrić’s work in a continuum of Bosnian thought on modernity and the West is also what, I believe, represents the most fruitful way of considering
Kosta Hörmann’s lasting influence and legacy in the South Slavic region.
Notes
1 I will be using the adjective ›Bosnian‹ to designate an inhabitant of Bosnia and Hercegovina and the adjective ›Bosniak‹ to designate a person who identifies him/herself as what used to be called Bosnian
»Muslim by ethnicity«.
2 Kecmanović, Ilija: O jednoj neobičnoj književnoj karijeri u Sarajevu od 1878. do 1919. godine. Prilozi za proučavanje istorije Sarajeva. God. 1 knj. 1 (1963); Buturović, Đenana: Studija o Hörmannovoj zbirci muslimanskih narodnih pjesama. Sarajevo: Svjetlost 1976; Ćorić, Boris: Nada. Književnoistorijska monografija 1895-1903. Sarajevo:
Svjetlost 1978.
3 Džaja, Srećko M: Tri kulturno-političke sastavnice Bosne i Hercegovine i moderna historiografija. In: Forum Bosnae 18 (2002), pp. 48–59, cit. p. 50 (»Nacionalni/nacionalistički pristup povijesti gleda naciju kao primordijalnu i kvazi vječnu kategoriju. Nacija kao primordijalna kategorija izvire iz mitskih daljina prošlosti i kreće se kroz povijesni kontinuum kao čvrst i zatvoren sustav.« [All translations of Serbocroatian sources provided by the author of this article, MA.])-This idea is clearly not articulated here for the first time. Any student of nationalism will have encountered it in Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm and many others.
4 Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso 1983, p. 116.
5 I am refering hereto the well-known upheaval in both Bosnian and Yugoslav League of Communists over the increasing pressure to acknowledge and affirm the national particularity and identity of Bosnian Muslims that culminated in their »official« recognition in 1970.
6 Kecmanović 1963, p. 191.
7 Ibid, p. 185 (»Lik Koste Hermana kao carskog čoveka i službenika, sa nadarenošću svoje vrste, osvetljen je u poznatoj Andrićevoj pripovesti o kmetu Simanu. [...]Karakterističan je za toga čoveka, Kostu Hermana, koji je ›služio‹ Austriji u Bosni od dana njenog ›ulaska‹ u Bosnu pa do njenog odlaska iz nje nikad ne zaboravljajući šta hoće, jedan njegov nesporazum sa pesnikom Tugomirom Alaupovićem... Sve ove postupke, kako one s kmetom Simanom tako i one sa Tugomirom Alaupovićem, pa i mnoge druge ovima slične, Herman je nosio u sebi očevidno kao plod uslova u kojima se nalazio i razvijao i sredine iz
koje je potekao.«) [emphasis MA]. All translations of Serbo-Croatian sources and emphases by MA.
8 Nada, as Kecmanović himself acknowledges, was the first Bosnian literary magazine comparable to contemporary European literary journals. It began publication in 1895 and ended in 1903.
9 Cf. Kecmanović 1963, p. 191.
10 Ibid., p. 188 (»Po liniji Kalajeve politike u oblasti kulture u Bosni i Hercegovini, Herman je dobio zadatak da u Nadi, kao njen odgovorni urednik, čini sve što bi doprinelo denacionalizaciji Bosne i Hercegovine, odnosno stvaranju jedne nove, ma i veštačke, bosanske nacije na slavenskom jugu.«).
11 Ibid., p. 191 (»Sve ove funkcije koje je Herman obavljao u oblasti kulture bile su očevidno potčinjene i služile su prvenstveno njegovim političkim dužnostima i zadacima. I kao direktor Zemaljskog muzeja i kao urednik njegovog Glasnika, i kao urednik Nade i, napose, kao or-ganizator izložbi po inostranstvu propagandnog karaktera, on je imao pred očima isključivo kulturno-političke interese Austro-Ugarske Monarhije u okupiranim zemljama.«).
12 Ibid. (»austroslavizma u jugoslovenskim okvirima koja je imala pristalica među nekim Slovencima i Hrvatima, pa i među nekim Srbima, a kojoj je, navodno, služio i Štrosmajer, nastojeći da – kako to tvrdi istoričar Ćiro Truhelka – ›privede pravoslavlje u krilo katoličke crkve, u jednu veliku slavensku crkvenu zajednicu‹.«)
13 Buturović, Đenana: Studija o Hörmannovoj zbirci muslimanskih narodnih pjesama. Sarajevo: Svjetlost 1976, p. 14 [»Hörmann [je] tek u Bosni među muslimanskim svijetom došao na ideju o izdavanju ove zbirke, tj. [...]osnova ove ideje [je] bila u Hörmannovoj vezi sa onim muslimanskim krugovima koji su mu omogućili da upozna ovu vanrednu kulturno-istorijsku i literarnu pojavu, da predoči svijetu u punoj širini njen značaj i novinu.«].
14 Ibid., p. 16 (»Zato Kállay insistira da se u predgovoru istakne da je većina pjesama bosanskohercegovačkih hrišćana bila već objavljena u drugim poznatim zbirkama i preporučuje onaj drugi naslov - Narodne pjesme Muhamedovaca u Bosni i Hercegovini – čime upravo pokazuje da Muslimane, kao i Hörmann, tretira kao zasebnu grupu stanovništva Bosne i Hercegovine. Time ovi dokumenti pokazuju i to da je pogrešno nastanak ove zbirke svoditi na smišljenu akciju austrougarske kulturne politike i dovoditi je u vezu sa idejom bošnjaštva, kao jednom od njenih manifestacija.«).
15 See citation of Srećko Džaja above and note 3 for elaboration on this problem.
16 Džaja 2002, p. 52 (»Glavna sličnost [nacionalnih historiografija] jest u anakronističnom traženju potvrda u prošlosti za ono što se smatra relevantnim za političku sadašnjost, te ignorirajućem i ignorantskom pristupu drukčijim interpretacijama, koje se ne baziraju na nacional-nim mitovima, nega na kritičkom pristupu svim poznatim, odnosno pristupačnim povijesnim izvorima.«).
17 Ćorić, Boris: Nada. Književnoistorijska monografija 1895-1903.
Sarajevo: Svjetlost 1978, p. 8 (»Većina suvremenih istraživača perioda austrijske uprave u Bosni, ocjenjujući njene akcije na političkom, gospodarskom, prosvjetnom i kulturnom polju, ima na umu uvijek austrijsku politiku u cjelini u odnosu na Bosnu. Ta politika imala je svoje zakonitosti nametnute interesima dvojne monarhije i sva ispitivanja i proučavanja, odnosila se na bilo koji od vidova društvenog života, pokazat će da se preko tih uzusa nije išlo, a i kad se išlo, išlo se iz viših, dakle dalekosežnijih i dugoročnijih interesa Austro-Ugarske monarhije. Jedno od tih pravila je da ni jedan projekat ostvarivan u Bosni nije smio ići na štetu Austro-Ugarske, niti na bilo kakav način krnjiti njene interese, bilo austrijske, bilo madžarske.« [emphasis MA])
18 Williams, Raymond: Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Univ. Pr. 1977, p. 113.
19 Buturović 1976, p. 11.
20 As Raymond Williams says: »cultural tradition and practice are [...]much more than superstructural expressions – reflections, mediations, or typifications – of a formed social and economic structure. On the contrary, they are among the basic proces-ses of the formation itself and, further, related to a much wider area of reality than the abstraction of ›social‹ and ›economic‹ experience«. Williams 1977, p. 111.
21 Kecmanović 1963, p. 185 (»Sve ove postupke, kako one s kmetom Simanom tako i one sa Tugomirom Alaupovićem, pa i mnoge druge ovima slične, Herman je nosio u sebi očevidno kao plod uslova u kojima se nalazio i razvijao i sredine iz koje je potekao.«[emphasis MA]).
22 Serf Siman is a reference to the title character of Ivo Andrić story The Story of Serf Siman (as Kecmanović readily acknowledges), while Tugomir Alaupović is an actual historical figure whose encounter with Hörmann is cited in Kecmanović’s essay from archive sources.
23 Cf. also Žanić, Ivan: Pisac na osami: upotreba Andrićeve književnosti u ratu u BiH. In: Erasmus 18 (1996), pp. 48-57.
24 Kazaz 2001, p. 122 (»Poseban paradoks je u tome da se nacionalni identitet, izvođen iz jedne od mnoštva mogućih interpretacija povijesti, pozivao na povijesne argumente, što znači da Andrićev opus i nije čitan kao književni, već historiografijski tekst koji se, na jednoj strani, prima u formi bezuslovne istine/znastvene tačnosti, a na drugoj, u formi bezuslovne laži/mržnje za koju nema argumenta u povijesnom toku.« [emphasis in original]).
25 Ibid., p. 134 (»Interpretativne zajednice (srpska, hrvatska, bošnjačka) uspostavljene na toj osnovi, zapravo, i ne čitaju Andrića, nego utemeljuju identitet vlastite povijesne memorije kao neku vrstu metapripovijesti, koja hoće biti nadređena svemu drugom, hoće usisati sve kontekste, biti verifikatorom svim drugim pripovijestima, i u konačnici se nametnuti kao apovijsni, holistički nacionalni identitet.«
[emphasis MA])
26 Cf. Bavčić, Uzeir ed.: Andrić i Bošnjaci: zbornik radova, bibliografija.
Tuzla: Preporod, 2000; Kazaz, Enver: Egzistencijalnost/povijesnost Bosne – Interpretacija u zamci ideologije. In: Novi izraz (Winter/Spring 2001); and Maglajlić, Munib: Žrtva dirljive odanosti.
In: Novi izraz (Summer 2001).
27 It would be very interesting to analyze further Aleksa as Andrić’s image of himself, especially in comparison to other such authorial self-representations in Andrić’s œuvre. Some interesting parallels and inversions of the national/linguistic link would emerge, i.e., how are his national (re)identifications results of his writing/language/translation, etc.
28 Andrić, Ivo: Priča o kmetu Simanu. Znakovi. Sarajevo: Svjetlost 1976 (Sabrana djela Ive Andrića), p. 127 (»Sa pucnjavom kakvu dotad nije čulo bosansko uho, ušle su austrijske trupe 19. avgusta 1878. godine u Sarajevo.«).
29 Ibid., p. 128-29 (»Tako su kmet i aga živeli bez većih trzavica – ćutljivi, ali nepomirljivi, neprijatelji, vezani, kao lancem, zemljom koja ih je, svakog na svoj način, hranila i privlačila.«) Andrić has used this trope of silence as representative of Bosnia’s Ottoman era in other places as well, most notably in The Bosnian Chronicle..
30 Ibid., p. 127 (»Od toga se u mnogom čoveku mnogo šta potreslo i prevrnulo, i mnogo toga počelo da se menja među ljudima.«).
31 Ibid., p. 130 (»Gleda Ibraga toga drskog čoveka koji mimo svakog reda i običaja leži i ne diže se pred njim, ne veruje rođenim očima i ne može da se načudi koliki je kmet kad nije zgrčen ni ponizan, nego kad se opusti i raširi u svojoj punoj snazi i veličini.« [emphasis MA]).
32 Ibid., p. 131 (»Odmahuje Siman rukom široko, preko jesenskog predela i neba nad njim, guši se od jakih reči, i na sve agine na silu blage i naoko razložne primedbe i opomene odgovora oštrim i kratkim: ne! u kom ono e puca i žeže kao plameni bič.«[emphasis MA])
33 Ibid., p. 134 (»Još je nekoliko puta projahao Siman ispred Ibragina dućana, sa srećnim osmehom na licu i poigravajući sitno na vran-čiću.«).
34 The obvious reference to that other archduke whose visit did not end as amicably for Austria-Hungary is here underlined several times, including one of the narrators interjections where he describes Siman’s failed attempt to destroy evidence against him by throwing it into Miljacka, much like Gavrilo Princip was supposed to have tried to kill himself by doing the same: »U tom trenutku su upravo prelazili preko Latinske ćuprije. Stade da popravlja tobože pojas na sebi, i kada je bio već pri kraju mosta, prisloni se sasvim uz ogradu kao da hoće da prepaše, i brzo ali nevešto izbaci hartiju preko ograde u vodu. (Ta seljačka nespretnost je jedna od velikih slabosti u njihovoj stalnoj, čas otvorenoj, čas prikrivenoj borbi sa gradom i građanima)« (148). [»In that moment they were walking right across the Latin bridge. He stopped to allegedly fix his belt and when he was already at the end of the bridge, he came up all the way to the fence, as if he was to cross over it, and quickly but clumsily threw the paper across the fence into
the water. (That peasant clumsiness is one of the great weaknesses in their constant, at times open, at times hidden, struggle against the city and the city dwellers.)«].
35 Ibid., p. 141 (»Potamneo je i podbuo u licu, a smršao u telu, kašlje i pljuje kao bolesnik, ali čim popije, govori o zemlji i o svom pravu živo i vatreno, kao što je govorio onog jesenjeg dana Ibragi u šljiviku.«).
36 Ibid., p. 140 (»To su ti zakoni i naredbe! Ti se smeješ, a oni te pogađaju pre ili posle, sigurno i neumoljivo.«).
37 Ibid., p. 141 (»Turski je zakon otprije toliko godina, a – postove mu ćaćine! – kao da je jutros pravljen za mene.«).
38 Ibid. (»I on je sa strahom mislio o mreži strašnih i svemoćnih zakona koja je isprepletena svuda i sputava sve i svakog; pobeći iz nje ne možeš, razmrsiti je ne umeš, jedino što možeš: da je u rakiji za trenutak zaboraviš.«).
39 Ibid., p. 142-44 (»A Simanova mašta je, kroz rakiju, već videla »božji prst« u dolasku carevog amidže. [...] Ništa nije prostije nego izneti pred tog čoveka, koji sedi caru uz koleno i koji sve može, svoju pravednu stvar i doći do svoje »prave«; i ništa nije prirodnije nego da se carev amidža odmah zauzme za Simanovu stvar i naredi da se ona pravedno reši. Zato ovakvi carski ljudi i hodaju zemljom. [...] Glavno je da će carev amidža saznati sve što ovi sigurno od njega kriju, a što on zna – to ne može car da ne zna. Neka znaju carevi za Simana i njegovu pravdu!« [emphasis MA]).
40 Ibid., p. 145 (»Ni Siman nije bio čovek koje ne ume da se brani i prepire, ali dok je on pokušavao da se objasni i da dobije objašnjenje – i sam je sa čuđenjem video da već ide sa policajcem ukorak, i da reči u ovom slučaju nikako ne pomažu. A kako idu, tako se i njihov među-sobni odnos brzo menja i biva sve određeniji. Stvara se između njih nešto treće i novo, nešto što nije ni Siman ni Vaso Gengo, nego propis i zakon, kao neka krivica i kazna, i to u obliku u kom za turskog vremena nije ni postojalo.« [emphasis MA])
41 Ibid., p. 147 (»I ta dva čoveka idu uporedo prikovani lancem zakona, svaki sa svojim mislima i osećanjima, i motre jedan na drugog, ispod oka, novim pogledom.« [emphasis MA]).
42 Ibid. (»Preobrazi se čovek tu na mestu, i iz tog novog lika izgovori glasno i odsečnosvega četiri reči, ali kao sveštenu formulu na tuđem jeziku:
U ime zakona, naprijed!
I Siman krenu bez pogovora.
Sad drugačije koračaju, vezani zakonom.
Stvara se između njih dotle neslućena zavisnost. Kao da je svaki od njih naglo odbacio nevinu i bezbrižnu masku svakidašnjice i pokazao neko novo lice, tako novo da se u prvim trenucima ni jedan ni drugi ne mogu pravo da osveste ni dobro da snađu u novim ulogama. Vaso nije onaj Vaso Policaja što prolazi ulicama kao deo gradskog inventara, nego drugi nepoznati čovek koji je postao strog i opasan, krut i neumoljiv mehanizam čiji svaki pokret ima snagu i neizbežnost prirodnih pojava pred kojima čovek nagonski i uzaludno nastoji da se ukloni. A Siman nije onaj svakom dobro poznati, suviše govorljivi i