Editing Ivo Andrić (section)

==World War II==
{{Quote box|width=25%|align=right|quote=Composed&nbsp;... of priceless elements from unknown worlds, a man is born&nbsp;... to become a piece of nameless soot, and as such, to vanish. And we do not know for whose glory he is born, nor for whose amusement he is destroyed.|source=—&thinsp;An excerpt from Andrić's only journal entry of 1940.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=25}}}}

Andrić was appointed Yugoslavia's ambassador to [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] in late March or early April 1939.{{efn|Hawkesworth writes that Andrić was appointed on 1 April.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=20}} Vucinich gives the date as 28 March.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}}}} This appointment, Hawkesworth writes, shows that he was highly regarded by his country's leadership.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=20}} Yugoslavia's King [[Alexander I of Yugoslavia|Alexander]] had been assassinated in [[Marseille]] in 1934. He was succeeded by his ten-year-old son [[Peter II of Yugoslavia|Peter]], and a regency council led by Peter's uncle [[Prince Paul of Yugoslavia|Paul]] was established to rule in his place until he turned 18. Paul's government established closer economic and political ties with Germany. In March 1941, Yugoslavia signed the [[Tripartite Pact]], pledging support for Germany and Italy.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=26}} Though the negotiations had occurred behind Andrić's back, in his capacity as ambassador he was obliged to attend the document's signing in Berlin.{{sfn|Bazdulj|2009|p=225}} Andrić had previously been instructed to delay agreeing to the Axis powers' demands for as long as possible.{{sfn|Lampe|2000|pp=199–200}} He was highly critical of the move, and on 17 March, wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking to be relieved of his duties. Ten days later, a group of pro-Western [[Royal Yugoslav Air Force]] officers [[Yugoslav coup d'état|overthrew]] the regency and proclaimed Peter of age. This led to a breakdown in relations with Germany and prompted [[Adolf Hitler]] to order Yugoslavia's [[Invasion of Yugoslavia|invasion]].{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=26}} Given these circumstances, Andrić's position was an extremely difficult one.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=25}} Nevertheless, he used the little influence he had and attempted unsuccessfully to assist Polish prisoners following the German [[invasion of Poland]] in September 1939.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=26}}

Prior to their invasion of his country, the Germans had offered Andrić the opportunity to evacuate to neutral Switzerland. He declined on the basis that his staff would not be allowed to go with him.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}} On 6 April 1941, the Germans and their allies invaded Yugoslavia. The country capitulated on 17 April and was subsequently partitioned between the Axis powers.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=26}} In early June, Andrić and his staff were taken back to German-occupied Belgrade, where some were jailed.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}} Andrić was retired from the diplomatic service, but refused to receive his pension or cooperate in any way with the puppet government that the Germans had installed in Serbia.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=27}}{{sfn|Popović|1989|p=54}} He was spared jail, but the Germans kept him under close surveillance throughout the occupation.{{sfn|Vucinich|1995|p=34}} Because of his Croat heritage, they had offered him the chance to settle in Zagreb, then the capital of the [[fascist]] [[puppet state]] known as the [[Independent State of Croatia]], but he declined.{{sfn|Pavlowitch|2008|p=97}} Andrić spent the following three years in a friend's Belgrade apartment in conditions that some biographers liken to [[house arrest]].{{sfn|Juričić|1986|p=55}} In August 1941, the puppet authorities in German-occupied Serbia issued the [[Appeal to the Serbian Nation]], calling upon the country's inhabitants to abstain from the [[communism|communist]]-led rebellion against the Germans; Andrić refused to sign.{{sfn|Popović|1989|p=54}}{{sfn|Prusin|2017|p=48}} He directed most of his energies towards writing, and during this time completed two of his best known novels, ''[[The Bridge on the Drina|Na Drini ćuprija]]'' (''The Bridge on the Drina'') and ''Travnička hronika''.{{sfn|Wachtel|1998|p=156}}

In mid-1942, Andrić sent a message of sympathy to [[Draža Mihailović]], the leader of the royalist [[Chetniks]], one of two resistance movements vying for power in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia, the other being [[Josip Broz Tito]]'s communist [[Yugoslav Partisans|Partisans]].{{sfn|Pavlowitch|2008|p=97}}{{efn|In early 1944, there were rumours that Andrić and several other prominent writers from Serbia were planning to join the Chetniks. This may have been Chetnik propaganda to counteract the news that a number of intellectuals were swearing allegiance to the Partisans.{{sfn|Tomasevich|1975|loc=p. 193, note 55}}}} In 1944, Andrić was forced to leave his friend's apartment during the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] [[Allied bombing of Yugoslavia in World War II|bombing]] of Belgrade and evacuate the city. As he joined a column of refugees, he became ashamed that he was fleeing by himself, in contrast to the masses of people accompanied by their children, spouses and infirm parents. "I looked myself up and down," he wrote, "and saw I was saving only myself and my overcoat." In the ensuing months, Andrić refused to leave the apartment, even during the heaviest bombing. That October, the [[Red Army]] and the Partisans drove the Germans out of Belgrade, and Tito proclaimed himself Yugoslavia's ruler.{{sfn|Hawkesworth|1984|p=27}}