Branislav Nušić

Branislav Nušić

Nušić in a 1904 photo taken by his godfather and photographer Milan Jovanović.
Born Branislav Nušić
(1864-09-20)20 September 1864
Belgrade, Principality of Serbia
Died 19 January 1938(1938-01-19) (aged 73)
Belgrade, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Occupation Playwright, satirist, essayist, novelist
Language Serbian
Nationality Serbia/Yugoslavia
Ethnicity Serb-Greek-Aromanian
Signature

Branislav Nušić (Serbian Cyrillic: Бранислав Нушић, pronounced [brǎnislav̞ nûʃit͡ɕ]; 20 October 1864 – 19 January 1938) was a Serbian playwright, satirist, essayist, novelist and founder of modern rhetoric in Serbia. He also worked as a journalist and a civil servant. He was often referred to as the Serbian and Balkan Gogol.

Early life

Alkibijad Nuša (Алкибијад Нуша, rendered as Greek: Alcibiades Nousias[1]) was born in Belgrade, Principality of Serbia to a well-off family. His father Georgije "Đorđe" Nuša was Greek-Aromanian, born in Rumelia Eyalet, Ottoman Empire, a cereal merchant and freight forwarder,[2] and his mother was Serb.[3] Around 1870, when his father was bankrupt, the family moved to Smederevo, where he was brought up and finished elementary school.[4] He signed his first works, poems in his school years, with his real name.[4]

During his teens, he moved back to Belgrade where he graduated from boarding school. Upon turning 18 years of age, he legally changed his name to Branislav Nušić. In 1884, he graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School. During his studies, he also spent a year in Graz, Austria-Hungary.

Writing career

Nušić on a 1965 Yugoslavia postage stamp.

The 21-year-old Nušić was mobilized for the two-week-long Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885 but did not see any combat.[5] Afterwards, he published a controversial poem, "Two Servants" (Два раба), in Dnevni list for which he spent two years in prison. The poem ridiculed King Milan, namely his decision to attend the funeral of the Serbian general Dragutin Franasović's mother instead of that of war hero Mihailo Katanić who died from wounds sustained while saving his regiment's flag. Nušić had initially been sentenced to only two months, but the king pressured the judges into extending his sentence. Despite the harsh prison conditions, Nušić still managed to write the comedy Favoritism (Протекција). When he first asked the prison intendant, Ilija Vlah, for permission to write, Vlah told him that it was the writing that got him into prison, and denied his request. Knowing that the intendant read all outgoing mail, Nušić wrote a brief letter to his aunt's second husband (he was related to her first husband), who served as the Minister of Justice. Nušić addressed Gersić as "uncle" and told him how it would be much easier for him to serve two years if he could write. He noted that he had no interest in writing political texts, and signed the letter "...your nephew". The following day, Vlah allowed him to write.

In 1889, Nušić started his career in civil service as an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He spent nearly ten years as a clerk of Serbian consulates in Ottoman Empire (Bitola, Serres, Thesaloniki, Skopje, Priština). Several years later, in 1893, Nušić got married in Bitola.

In 1900, Nušić was appointed as a secretary of Ministry of Education, and shortly afterwards he became a head dramaturgist of the National Theatre in Belgrade. In 1904, he was appointed a head of Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad. In 1905, he left his new post and moved to Belgrade to work as a journalist. He also worked as an editor for various magazines and feuilletonist for Politika, under the pseudonym of Ben Akiba.

In 1912, Nušić returned to Bitola as a civil servant. During the Balkan Wars in February 1913, Nušić, who was the prefect, was regarded as too moderate, and replaced by someone more sympathetic with the views of the military party and of the Black Hand.[6] In 1913, he founded a theater in Skopje, where he lived until 1915. Due to World War I, Nušić fled the country and lived in Italy, Switzerland and France for its duration.

After the war, Nušić was appointed to be the first head of the Art Department of the Ministry of Education.[7] He remained at this post until 1923. Afterwards, he was appointed head of the Sarajevo National Theatre.[8] In Sarajevo, Nušić writes Ramadan Nights and uses the pseudonym Halil Delibašić. In 1927, he returned to Belgrade. In Vienna, he acts in a film Paramunt Review in 1930. Nušić becomes a member of Serbian Royal Academy in 1933. Upon the premiere of Bereaved Family in Sofia, he gets a Bulgarian medal of Citizen’s Accomplishment, in 1935. Branislav Nušić died in Belgrade on 1938.

Social criticism

Nušić (far left) visiting Bulgaria in 1935.
Nušić Monument in Belgrade.

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.[9]

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.[9]

Selected works

Some of Nušić's major works (with English translation of titles):

Comedies

Dramas

Novels

Short stories

Tragedies

Other

Personal

Nicknamed Aga by family and close friends, Nušić married 17-year-old Darinka Đorđević in May 1893 at the Lisolaj monastery near Bitola. A merchant's daughter, Darinka met Branislav, a clerk at the Serbian consulate in Bitola, during a fall 1891 visit to her maternal uncle Dimitrije Bodi who was the Serbian consul. The couple had three children — daughter Margita nicknamed Gita, son Strahinja nicknamed Ban (named after the Banović Strahinja poem, which Branislav Nušić was very fond of), and another daughter Olivera who died in infancy.

Their son Strahinja "Ban" Nušić died in World War I fighting the Austro-Hungarians in December 1915 during Battle of Kolubara as part of the Serbian Army's Skopje Student Battalion (Skopski đački bataljon).

Nušić's daughter Gita later married novelist and journalist Milivoje "Mima" Predić. She ran her father's endowment after his death.

References

  1. ↑ Apostolos Euangelou Vakalopoulos (1973). History of Macedonia, 1354-1833. Institute for Balkan Studies. p. 490.
  2. ↑ Narodni muzej Smederevo (1969). Posebno izdanje. Narodni muzej Smederevo. p. 126.
  3. ↑ Nušić & Đurić 1978, p. 49.
  4. 1 2 Velibor Gligorić (1965). Srpski realisti. Prosveta. p. 398.
  5. ↑ Editors: Branko Mikasinovich and Dejan Stojanovic (2016). Selected Serbian Plays. New Avenue Books. ISBN 978-0692730553.
  6. ↑ Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars, Washington, D.C.: The Endowment, 1914, p. 175
  7. ↑ Editors: Branko Mikasinovich and Dejan Stojanovic (2016). Selected Serbian Plays. New Avenue Books. ISBN 978-0692730553.
  8. ↑ Sarajevo National Theatre
  9. 1 2 Maksimović, Goran (2005). Sabrane komedije / Branislav Nušić. Jedan tom. p. 623. ISBN 86-17-12756-2.
  10. ↑ A Member of the Parliament on IMDB
  11. ↑ A Member of the Parliament on IMDB
  12. ↑ A Member of the Parliament on YouTube TV Film
  13. ↑ A Suspicious Person on IMDB
  14. ↑ A Suspicious Person on IMDB
  15. ↑ A Suspicious Person on YouTube TV Film
  16. ↑ The Cabinet Minister's Wife on IMDB
  17. ↑ The Cabinet Minister's Wife on YouTube Film
  18. ↑ The Cabinet Minister's Wife on IMDB
  19. ↑ Bereaved Family on IMDB
  20. ↑ Bereaved Family on IMDB
  21. ↑ Bereaved Family on YouTube TV Film
  22. ↑ Travel Around the World on IMDB
  23. ↑ Albatross on IMDB
  24. ↑ Albatross on YouTube TV Film

Sources

Further reading

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