Andric painted Bosnia as a country of compulsive hatred, whose people espouse the ideas of destruction and self-destruction, but he also always said that the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Bosnia was an occupier more civilised than Ottoman Empire, which had ruled Bosnia for several centuries.
Andrić je opisao Bosnu kao zemlju punu iskonske mržnje, čiji narodi gaje nagone uništenja i samouništenja, ali je i uvek govorio da je Austrougarsko carstvo u Bosni bilo civilizovaniji okupator od Otomanskog carstva, koje je vladalo Bosnom više vekova.