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Ivo Andrić was born on October 9, 1892 in the village of Dolac near Travnik in Zenjak Street no. 13, as the legal son of Katarina (nee Pejić) and janitor Antun Andrić (according to data from the Register of Births of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Travnik).
However, in all of Andrić’s personal documents, October 10 is recorded as the date of birth. He spent his childhood in Bosnia, which belonged to the then Austro-Hungarian Empire, and studied philosophy in Zagreb, Vienna and Krakow. At the beginning of the First World War, he was arrested due to anti-Austrian tendencies, and then he interrupted his studies for a short time. In 1923, he received his doctorate in literature from the University of Graz, and then began his diplomatic service in Yugoslavia. He ended his career as a diplomat as the Yugoslav ambassador in Berlin. When Yugoslavia came under German occupation in 1941, Andrić returned to Belgrade and lived there during and after World War II. He spoke as many as six languages.
He began his literary career as a poet. He was one of the contributors to the magazine “Hrvatska mlada lirika” during 1914. At the end of the war, he published two collections of verse in prose, “Ex Ponto” and “Unrest”. His first novel, “The Way of Alija Đerzelez”, was published in 1920. In the period between the two wars, Andrić published three collections of short stories entitled “Short Stories”, in 1924, 1931 and 1936. During the Second World War, in the free time imposed by the circumstances, Andrić wrote his three great novels published in the same year (1945): “On the Drina Bridge”, “Travnik Chronicle” and “Miss”.
In 1969, he was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in 1972, the University of Belgrade awarded him an honorary doctorate. He last appeared in public on October 13, 1974, at a literary matinee in Belgrade. Two months later, he suffered a stroke. He lost the ability to speak and was mostly unconscious. He died on March 13, 1975, after a three-month coma in Belgrade, where he was buried.
He married only in the seventh decade
At the age of 66, Andrić married Milica Babić, a theater costume designer 17 years younger. The woman Andrić had been waiting for for twenty years. She is Milica, a woman who does not exist, she broke down stereotypes about the woman of that time, she was educated, successful and created a life outside of marriage. Unfortunately, their happiness lasted only ten years. Milica died at their house in Herceg-Novi. After her death, he rewrote the house to her sister Danka and never returned.
He repeated the class because of mathematics
Due to insufficient grades in mathematics, Ivo Andrić repeated the seventh grade. After finishing primary school in Višegrad, he enrolled in the Great Sarajevo Gymnasium in 1903 and lived with his mother in a rented room in Bistrik. Despite many absences, Croatian language professor Tugomir Alaupović recognizes his talent and fondness for literature. They developed lifelong mentoring and friendship.
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