Branislav Nušić
Branislav Nušić | |
---|---|
Born | Alkibijad Nuša 20 October [O.S. 8 October] 1864 Belgrade, Principality of Serbia |
Died | 19 January 1938 Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia | (aged 73)
Occupation | Playwright • satirist • essayist • novelist |
Language | Serbian |
Nationality | Serbia • Yugoslavia |
Signature | |
Branislav Nušić (
Life
Branislav Nušić was born Alkibijad Nuša (
Young Alkibijad completed his primary education in Smederevo, a port town along the Danube, before returning to Belgrade to complete his secondary education.[4] In 1882, at the age of 18, he legally changed his name to Branislav Nušić.[5] He subsequently enrolled in the Belgrade Higher School (later the University of Belgrade), graduating with a law degree in 1885.[4] That year, at the age of 21, he was conscripted into the Royal Serbian Army. Nušić's service coincided with the two-week-long Serbo-Bulgarian War of November 1885, which he witnessed first-hand as a Serbian corporal in western Bulgaria.[6]
Nušić was quick to criticize the conduct of the Serbian Supreme Command during the war, which ended in a Bulgarian victory.[7] He outlined his objections in the book Pripovetke jednog kaplara iz srpsko–bugarskog rata 1885 (The Stories of a Corporal from the Serbo–Bulgarian War of 1885), which was published in 1886.[8] He went on to spend one year's study at the University of Graz in Austria-Hungary.[4] In 1887, Nušić published a poem titled Dva raba ("Two Servants"), which ridiculed the Serbian King Milan for attending the funeral of an unpopular general's mother rather than that of Mihailo Katanić , an officer who died of wounds sustained while saving his regiment's flag. Nušić was subsequently arrested, convicted of lèse-majesté and sentenced to two year's imprisonment. He served his sentence at a prison in Požarevac but was released after only one year due to good behaviour.[8]
In 1889, shortly after his release from prison, Nušić entered the civil service as an official in Serbia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[8] Several years later, in 1893, he married Darinka Đorđević, the 17-year-old niece of the Serbian consul in Bitola, Dimitrije Bodi. The couple had three children, one of whom died in infancy. Between 1889 and 1900, Nušić worked as a clerk at the Serbian consulates to the Ottoman Empire in Bitola, Serres, Thessaloniki, Skopje, and Pristina.[9] Despite his earlier anti-war rhetoric, Nušić became an enthusiastic supporter of using military means to force the Ottoman Empire out from the Balkans.[7] In 1900, he received a post at the Ministry of Education. Shortly thereafter, he became the head dramaturgist of the National Theatre in Belgrade.[4] In 1904, he was appointed head of the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad. In 1905, he left his new post and moved to Belgrade to work as a journalist.[9] He also worked as an editor for various magazines and feuilletonist for Politika, writing under the pseudonym Ben Akiba.[10]
Following Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 1908, Nušić led a series of anti-Habsburg demonstrations in Belgrade. He climbed a balcony at the National Theatre, railed against the "plunder" of Serbian lands by Austria-Hungary, and demanded immediate military action.
Nušić returned to Serbia a broken man, devastated by the loss of his only son.
Social criticism
Nušić is more celebrated as a playwright than as a novelist. His incidental novels and journalistic feuilletons are not always moralistic or polished, but they are lively and amusing sketches of life. He is more prolific in historical drama and comedy. Of his plays, the most popular are comedies The Cabinet Minister's Wife (Госпођа министарка), A Suspicious Person (Сумњиво лице), A Member of the Parliament (Народни посланик), Bereaved Family (Ожалошћена породица), The Deceased (Покојник), and Doctor (Др).
Through his plays, Nušić presented Serbian society and the mentality of the middle class in small towns and counties. He brought to the stage not only the retailers, canton captains, semi-educated officers, and current and former ministers' wives, but also formerly distinguished and overly ambitious householders, their decadent sons, failed students, distinguished daughters of marriageable age, and greedy upstarts.[23]
All-in-all he depicted the Serbian middle class and its morality, which managed to survive despite all the political and social reforms, newly formed educational system and cultural institutions. He also paid special attention to the social conditions of their origins, as they started out with unrealizable desires and insatiable appetites, the distorted family and marital relationships, misunderstandings and intolerance between fathers and sons, unfaithful husbands and wives, officers’ ignorance and corruption and unreal political ambitions. Nušić thus became not only a playwright, observer and interpreter of his time, but also an analyst of Serbian society and its mentality at a specific historical period.[23]
Selected works
Some of Nušić's major works (with English translation of titles):
Comedies
- Народни посланик (A Member of the Parliament) (1885)
- Сумњиво лице (A Suspicious Person) (1887)
- Протекција (Favoritism) (1889)
- Обичан човек (An Ordinary Man ) (1899)
- Свет (The Publicity) (1906)
- Пут око света (Travel Around the World) (1910)
- Госпођа министарка (The Cabinet Minister's Wife) (1929)
- Мистер Долар (Mister Dollar) (1932)
- Ујеж (SYEW - Society of Yugoslav Emancipated Women) (1933)
- Ожалошћена породица (Bereaved Family) (1934)
- Др (PhD) (1936)
- Покојник (The Deceased) (1937)
- Власт (unfinished) (Authority)
- Ђоле кермит (unfinished)
Dramas
- Тако је морало бити (It Had to Be This Way) (1902)
- Јесења киша (Autumn Rain)
- Иза Божјих леђа (Behind God's Back)
- Пучина (Offing) (1902)
- Кирија (Rental Fee)
Novels
- Општинско дете (County's Child), published in Sarajevo as Опћинско дијете (1902)
- Хајдуци (Hajduks) (1933)
- Деветстопетнаеста (915th)
- Аутобиографија (Autobiography) (1924)
Short stories
- Политички противник (Political Rival)
- Посмртно слово (Eulogy)
- Класа (Class)
- Приповетке једног каплара (The Corporal's Stories) (1886)
Tragedies
- Кнез Иво од Семберије (Prince Ivo of Semberia)
- Хаџи-Лоја
- Наход (Foundling)
Other
- Рамазанске вечери (Ramadan Nights) (1898)
- Реторика (a discourse on rhetoric) (1934)
In popular culture
- A Member of the Parliament, a film based on the comedie from 1885 of Branislav Nusic and directed by Stole Janković, was produced in 1964 by the Bosna Film.[24]
- A Member of the Parliament (remake), a television film based on the comedie of Branislav Nusic and directed by Slavenko Saletović, was produced in 1990 by the broadcasting service RTB.[25][26]
- A Suspicious Person, a film based on the comedie from 1887 of Branislav Nusic and directed by Soja Jovanović, was produced in 1954 by the Avala Film.[27]
- A Suspicious Person (remake), a television film based on the comedie of Branislav Nusic and directed by Arsa Milosevic, was produced in 1989 by the broadcasting service RTB.[28][29]
- The Cabinet Minister's Wife, a film based on the comedie from 1929 of Branislav Nusic and directed by Žorž Skrigin, was produced in 1958 by the UFUS.[30][31]
- The Cabinet Minister's Wife (remake), a television film based on the comedie of Branislav Nusic and directed by Zdravko Šotra, was produced in 1989 by the broadcasting service RTB.[32]
- Bereaved Family, a television film based on the comedie from 1935 was produced in 1960 by the broadcasting service RTB.[33]
- Bereaved Family (remake), a television film based on the comedie of Branislav Nusic and directed by Milan Karadzic, was produced in 1990 by the broadcasting service RTB.[34][35]
- Travel Around the World, a film based on the comedie from 1910 of Branislav Nusic and directed by Soja Jovanović, was produced in 1964 by the Avala Film.[36]
- In 2011 TV film Albatross, Branislav Nušić was portrayed by actor Milan Vranešević.[37][38]
- Nušićijada, annual comedy festival inaugurated in 1968, bears the name of Branislav Nušić
References
- ^ Vakalopoulos 1973, p. 490.
- ^ Lampe 2000, p. 148.
- ^ Binder 2013, p. 60.
- ^ a b c d e Mihailovich 1995, p. 177.
- ^ Lešić 1982, p. 122.
- ^ Glenny 2001, p. 176.
- ^ a b Glenny 2001, p. 221.
- ^ a b c Mihailovich 1995, p. 178.
- ^ a b c Mihailovich 1995, p. 179.
- ^ Mihailovich 1995, p. 176.
- ^ a b Glenny 2001, pp. 290–291.
- ^ Clark 2013, p. 18.
- ^ Glenny 2001, p. 234.
- ^ a b Newman 2015, p. 86.
- ^ Vlatković 1968, p. 458.
- ^ Mitrović 2007, p. 148.
- ^ Norris 2008, p. 108.
- ^ Šašić 1998, p. 55.
- ^ Sarajevo National Theatre
- ^ Norris 2008, p. 109.
- ^ Acović, Dragomir (2012). Slava i čast: Odlikovanja među Srbima, Srbi među odlikovanjima. Belgrade: Službeni Glasnik. p. 78.
- ^ Mihailovich 1995, p. 181.
- ^ ISBN 86-17-12756-2.
- ^ A Member of the Parliament on IMDB
- ^ A Member of the Parliament on IMDB
- YouTubeTV Film
- ^ A Suspicious Person on IMDB
- ^ A Suspicious Person on IMDB
- YouTubeTV Film
- ^ The Cabinet Minister's Wife on IMDB
- YouTubeFilm
- ^ The Cabinet Minister's Wife on IMDB
- ^ Bereaved Family on IMDB
- ^ Bereaved Family on IMDB
- YouTubeTV Film
- ^ Travel Around the World on IMDB
- ^ Albatross on IMDB
- YouTubeTV Film
References
- ISBN 978-615-5225-74-1.
- ISBN 978-0-06219-922-5.
- ISBN 978-0-14-023377-3.
- Klaić, Dragan (2007). "Theater Under Socialism: Introduction". In Cornis-Pope, Marcel; Neubauer, John (eds.). The Making and Remaking of Literary Institutions. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Vol. 3. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 217–220. ISBN 978-90-27234-52-0.
- ISBN 978-0-521-77401-7.
- Lešić, Josip (1982). Sumnjivo lice Branislava Nušića (in Serbian). Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva.
- Mihailovich, Vasa D. (1984). "Yugoslav Drama". In Hochman, Stanley (ed.). McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama. Vol. 1. New York City: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07079-169-5.
- Mihailovich, Vasa D. (1995). "Branislav Nušić". In Mihailovich, Vasa D. (ed.). South Slavic Writers Before World War II. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale Research. pp. 176–181. ISBN 978-0-81035-708-2.
- ISBN 978-1-55753-477-4.
- Newman, John Paul (2015). Yugoslavia in the Shadow of War: Veterans and the Limits of State Building, 1903–1945. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-10707-076-9.
- Norris, David A. (2008). Belgrade: A Cultural History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-970452-1.
- Šašić, Branko (1998). "Станислав Винавер". Знаменити Шапчани и Подринци [Notable Residents of Šabac and the Podrinje] (in Serbian). Šabac, Serbia: Štampa "Dragan Srnić". pp. 53–58.
- Vakalopoulos, Apostolos Euangelou (1973). History of Macedonia, 1354–1833. Thessaloniki, Greece: Institute for Balkan Studies. OCLC 254706470.
- Vlatković, Dragoljub (1968). Srpskohrvatski jezik: Pregled jugoslovenske književnosti s čitankom. Belgrade, Yugoslavia: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika Socijalističke Republike Srbije. OCLC 16761459.
Further reading
- OCLC 490386304.
External links
- The Legacy of Branislav Nušić
- Works by or about Branislav Nušić at Internet Archive
- Extracts from his autobiography
- "Undisputable power of suspicious persons". Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
- The Deceased
- The Cabinet Minister's Wife