Ivo Andrić (1892–1975), the only writer of the South-Slavic languages to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote a famously measured, classical, transparent prose — long calm sentences that advance with the steadiness of a chronicle, full of the aorist tense and the compact verbal adverbs that give his narration its forward drive. Andrić's work remains in copyright, so the passage below is an original composition written in his measured, classical narrative manner, not a quotation. It teaches the grammar exactly as a genuine excerpt would: the aorist as the engine of storytelling, the past (-vši) and present (-ći) verbal adverbs that fold subordinate actions into a single sentence, the handling of reported speech, and the ijekavian forms that mark the literary standard. This page reads the passage sentence by sentence, then unpacks each device.
The text
Andrić's work remains in copyright, so the passage below is an original composition in his measured, classical narrative manner, not a quotation.
Kad pade prvi snijeg, starac iziđe pred kuću, pogleda dugo niz bijeli put i, ne rekavši nikome ništa, vrati se u toplu sobu.
When the first snow fell, the old man went out in front of the house, looked for a long time down the white road and, saying nothing to anyone, returned to the warm room.
Sjedeći uz peć i grijući promrzle ruke, mislio je na davna vremena, na ljude koji su odavno otišli i na most koji je, prelazeći preko rijeke, vidio kako se mijenja iz naraštaja u naraštaj.
Sitting by the stove and warming his frozen hands, he thought of long-ago times, of people who had departed long since, and of the bridge which, crossing over the river, he had watched change from generation to generation.
Žena ga upita je li gladan, a on samo odmahnu rukom i reče da mu ništa ne treba osim mira.
The woman asked him whether he was hungry, and he merely waved his hand and said that he needed nothing but peace.
The aorist: the engine of narration
Andrić's storytelling runs on the aorist, the simple past that reports single, completed, punctual acts. Where modern speech would use the compound perfekt (pao je, izišao je), narrative literature uses the leaner aorist to push events forward in a clean sequence. The opening sentence chains four aorists: pade ("fell," from pasti), iziđe ("went out," from izići), pogleda ("looked," from pogledati), vrati se ("returned," from vratiti se). Each is one finished action, and laid end to end they read like the beats of a chronicle — snow fell, he went out, he looked, he returned. The aorist is what gives Andrić's prose its calm, inevitable momentum: things simply happen, one after another, and the tense reports them without the weight of the auxiliary biti.
Starac iziđe, pogleda niz put i vrati se u sobu.
The old man went out, looked down the road, and returned to the room. (three aorists in a clean narrative sequence)
Starac je izišao, pogledao niz put i vratio se u sobu.
The old man went out, looked down the road, and returned to the room. (the same events in the spoken perfekt — heavier, with je … -o)
The past verbal adverb (-vši): folding a prior action into the sentence
The phrase ne rekavši nikome ništa ("having said nothing to anyone / saying nothing to anyone") is a past verbal adverb (glagolski prilog prošli). It is formed from a perfective verb's infinitive stem plus -vši (or -avši): reći → rekavši, doći → došavši, ući → ušavši. It denotes an action completed before the main verb, and it lets Andrić compress what would otherwise be a whole clause ("and he said nothing, and then he returned") into a single tight participial phrase attached to the main aorist vrati se. The subject of the verbal adverb is always the same as the subject of the main clause — here, the old man does both the not-saying and the returning. This clause-reduction is a signature of literary Croatian narration.
Ne rekavši nikome ništa, vrati se u sobu.
Saying nothing to anyone, he returned to the room. (rekavši = past verbal adverb, an action completed before vrati se)
Došavši kući, odmah je legao.
Having come home, he lay down at once. (došavši, the irregular past verbal adverb of doći)
The present verbal adverb (-ći): simultaneous action
The second sentence opens with two present verbal adverbs (glagolski prilog sadašnji): sjedeći ("sitting," from sjediti) and grijući ("warming," from grijati), and uses a third, prelazeći ("crossing"), inside the relative clause. These are formed from an imperfective verb's 3rd-person plural present plus -ći: sjede → sjedeći, griju → grijući, gledaju → gledajući. They denote an action happening at the same time as the main verb. So Sjedeći uz peć i grijući ruke, mislio je… means "while sitting by the stove and warming his hands, he was thinking…" — two simultaneous backgrounds folded into one sentence. Like the past verbal adverb, the present one shares the subject of the main clause. Together the two forms let Andrić build long, calm, layered sentences without a single extra finite verb.
Sjedeći uz peć i grijući promrzle ruke, mislio je na davna vremena.
Sitting by the stove and warming his frozen hands, he thought of long-ago times. (two present verbal adverbs = simultaneous background actions)
Gledajući kroz prozor, čekala je da prestane kiša.
Looking through the window, she waited for the rain to stop. (gledajući, present verbal adverb of gledati)
Reported speech: indirect questions and statements
The third sentence shows Andrić's restrained handling of speech — not a dramatic quotation but calm indirect report. Žena ga upita je li gladan is an indirect question: the main verb upita ("asked," aorist) introduces a clause headed by the question particle je li ("whether") — Croatian uses the same li-question it would use in a direct yes/no question, simply embedded. And reče da mu ništa ne treba is an indirect statement: reče ("said," aorist) introduces a content clause with da ("that"). Crucially, Croatian does not shift the tense the way English does: the present je ("is") and treba ("is needed") stay in the present even though the framing verb is past — there is no "backshift" to was/was needed. The embedded verb keeps the tense the original speaker actually used.
Žena ga upita je li gladan.
The woman asked him whether he was hungry. (indirect yes/no question with je li; note Croatian keeps the present je, no backshift)
On reče da mu ništa ne treba osim mira.
He said that he needed nothing but peace. (indirect statement with da; present treba kept, not shifted to a past)
Ijekavian forms: the literary standard
Andrić's prose is ijekavian — the variety of the standard in which the old Slavic vowel jat is reflected as ije (in long syllables) or je (in short ones), as against the ekavian e common in Serbia. The passage is full of it: snijeg ("snow," not ekavian sneg), bijeli ("white," not beli), rijeka ("river," not reka), vrijeme/vremena ("time(s)"), prelaziti preko rijeke ("to cross over the river"). Standard Croatian is ijekavian, so these are simply the correct standard forms — but a learner who has seen ekavian Serbian text should recognise the systematic ije/je ↔ e correspondence. Watch the alternation within a single root: long snijeg but, in the diminutive where the syllable shortens, snježni ("snowy") with je, not ije.
Kad pade prvi snijeg, sve utihnu pod bijelim pokrivačem.
When the first snow fell, everything fell silent under the white blanket. (ijekavian snijeg, bijelim — the Croatian standard)
Most preko rijeke stajao je tu već stoljećima.
The bridge over the river had stood there for centuries already. (ijekavian rijeke; cf. ekavian reke)
Vocabulary gloss
| Word | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pade | 3sg aorist of pasti (pf.) | fell |
| iziđe | 3sg aorist of izići (pf.) | went out |
| rekavši | past verbal adverb of reći | having said / saying |
| vrati se | 3sg aorist of vratiti se (pf.) | returned |
| sjedeći | present verbal adverb of sjediti | (while) sitting |
| grijući | present verbal adverb of grijati | (while) warming |
| upita | 3sg aorist of upitati (pf.) | asked |
| odmahnu | 3sg aorist of odmahnuti (pf.) | waved (dismissively) |
| reče | 3sg aorist of reći (pf.) | said |
| snijeg / rijeka | nouns, ijekavian | snow / river |
Register note: the entire grammatical apparatus on display here — the aorists (pade, iziđe, reče), the verbal adverbs (rekavši, sjedeći, grijući) — is (literary). It is the prose of chronicles, novels and elevated narration. In everyday speech a Croatian uses the perfekt and full finite clauses (pao je, dok je sjedio), reserving Andrić's devices for the page.
How the grammar serves the passage
Andrić's calm, monumental tone is a direct product of these grammatical choices. The aorist reports each event as a single finished fact, so the narrative advances like a chronicle, without drama or hesitation. The verbal adverbs — past -vši for what was already done, present -ći for what happens alongside — let him layer subordinate actions into long, balanced sentences without breaking the flow into choppy clauses. The unshifted reported speech keeps the old man's words plain and present, refusing rhetorical embroidery. And the ijekavian forms ground the whole scene in the literary Croatian standard, in a world of snow, river and bridge. Read the grammar and you understand the voice: patient, ceremonial, watching the generations cross the bridge one by one.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ne rekavši nikome ništa, žena ga upita.
Subject error — the verbal adverb must share the main clause's subject. Here rekavši (the old man's silence) cannot attach to a sentence whose subject is žena (the woman).
✅ Ne rekavši nikome ništa, starac se vrati u sobu.
Saying nothing to anyone, the old man returned to the room. (verbal adverb and main verb share the subject 'starac')
❌ Sjedevši uz peć, gledao je vatru.
Aspect/form error — for a simultaneous, ongoing action use the present verbal adverb sjedeći; the -vši form would wrongly imply the sitting finished before the watching.
✅ Sjedeći uz peć, gledao je vatru.
Sitting by the stove, he watched the fire. (present verbal adverb for the simultaneous action)
❌ Rekao je da je bio gladan (meaning: he said 'I am hungry').
Backshift error — Croatian does not shift the tense in reported speech. To report 'I am hungry' keep the present: da je gladan.
✅ Rekao je da je gladan.
He said that he was hungry. (literally 'that he is hungry' — present kept, no backshift)
❌ Kad pade prvi sneg, starac izađe pred kuću.
Dialect error — sneg is ekavian; standard Croatian is ijekavian: snijeg. (And the literary aorist of izići is iziđe.)
✅ Kad pade prvi snijeg, starac iziđe pred kuću.
When the first snow fell, the old man went out in front of the house. (ijekavian snijeg)
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Start learning Croatian→Related Topics
- Stylistics of the Aorist and ImperfectC1 — When and why modern Croatian reaches for the synthetic past tenses instead of the everyday perfekt.
- Past Verbal Adverb (glagolski prilog prošli)C1 — The -vši form meaning 'having done' — a markedly literary 'after' clause with a shared subject.
- Present Verbal Adverb (glagolski prilog sadašnji)B2 — The -ći form meaning 'while doing' — a compact 'while/as' clause with a shared subject.
- Reported (Indirect) SpeechB1 — Turning statements, questions and commands into indirect speech — with the crucial rule that Croatian does NOT backshift tenses.
- Literary Excerpt: KrležaC2 — A grammatical close-reading of a passage in Miroslav Krleža's characteristic dense modernist manner — original composition, since Krleža remains in copyright — used to show how long periodic sentences, heavy nominalisation, the literary aorist and imperfect, deeply embedded clauses, and Kajkavian lexical colour work together in elevated Croatian prose.