Branislav NuiFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Branislav Nui,1894

Branislav Nui on a2010Serbian stampBranislav Nui (Serbian Cyrillic: , pronounced [brnislavnit];20October186419January1938) was a Serbian novelist, playwright, satirist, essayist and founder of modern rhetoric in Serbia. He also worked as a journalist and a civil servant.

Early life[edit]Alkibijad Nua ( , rendered as Greek: Alcibiades Nousias[1]) was born in Belgrade, Principality of Serbia to a well-off family in a house located in King Petar's Street that has since been demolished (where the National Bank of Serbia is standing). His father Georgije "ore" Nua was Greek-Aromanian, born in Macedonia, a cereal merchant and freight forwarder,[2] and his mother was Serb.[3] Around1870, 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 turning18years of age, he legally changed his name to Branislav Nui. In1884, he graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School. During his studies, he also spent a year in Graz, Austria-Hungary.

Writing career[edit]Twenty-one-year-old Nui fought in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of1885while serving in the Serbian Army. After the war, he published a controversial poem, "Two Servants" ( ), in Dnevni list for which he spent two years in prison. The poem ridiculed King Milan I of Serbia, namely his decision to attend the funeral of the Serbian general Dragutin Franasovi's mother instead of that of the war's hero Captain Mihailo Katani who died as a result of wounds sustained while saving the regimental flag from the hands of Bulgarians.

At first, Nui's sentence was only two months, but the King pressured the judges into extending it. Despite harsh prison conditions, Nui still managed to write the comedy Protection (). When he first asked the prison intendant, Ilija Vlah, for the permission to write, Vlah told him that it was the writing that got him into prison, and denied his request. Knowing that an intendant read all outgoing mail, Nui wrote a brief letter to the second husband of his aunt (he was related to her first husband), who served as a Minister of Justice. Nui addressed Gersi 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". One day later, Vlah allowed him to write literature.

In1889, Nui became a civil servant. As an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he took a clerk job at the newly opened Serbian consulate in Bitola, a town with a large Aromanian population in the Ottoman Empire's Manastir Vilayet. Several years later, in1893, Nui got married in Bitola. He spent a decade in southern Serbia and Macedonia. His last position in this region was Vice-consul in Pritina.[5]

In1900, Nui was appointed as a secretary of Ministry of Education, and shortly afterwards he became a head dramaturgist of the National Theatre in Belgrade. In1904, he was appointed a head of Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad. In1905, he left his new post and moved to Belgrade to work as a journalist.

In1912, Nui returned to Bitola as a civil servant. During Balkan Wars in February1913, Nui, 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] In1913, he founded a theater in Skopje, where he lived until1915. Due to World War I, Nui fled the country and lived in Italy, Switzerland and France for its duration.

After the war, Nui was appointed to be the first head of the Art Department of the Ministry of Education. He remained at this post until1923. Afterwards, he was appointed head of the National Theater in Sarajevo. In1927, he returned to Belgrade.

Social criticism[edit]Nui 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 ( ), A Suspect Individual ( ), The Parliamentarian ( ), Bereaved Family ( ), The Deceased (), and Doctor ().

Through his plays, Nui 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.[7]

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. Nui 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.[7]

Selected works[edit]Some of Nui's major works (with English translation of titles):

Comedies[edit] (The Parliamentarian) (1885) (The Cabinet Minister's Wife) (1929) (Bereaved Family) (The Deceased) (A Trip Around the World) (A Suspect Individual) (Doctor) (Mister Dollar) (1932) (Protection) (The World) (unfinished) (authority) (unfinished)Dramas[edit] (It Had to Be This Way) (Autumn Rain) (Behind God's Back) (Offing) (Rental Fee)Novels[edit] (County's Child), published in Sarajevo as (1902) (Hajduks) (915th) (Autobiography) (1924)Short stories[edit] (Political Rival) (Eulogy) (Class) (Tales Of A Corporal)Tragedies[edit] (Knez Ivo of Semberija)- (Foundling)Other[edit] (1898) (a discourse on rhetoric) (1934)Personal[edit]Nicknamed Aga by family and close friends, Nui married17-year-old Darinka orevi in May1893at the Lisolaj monastery near Bitola. A merchant's daughter, Darinka met Branislav, a clerk at the Serbian consulate in Bitola, during a fall1891visit 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 Banovi Strahinja poem, which Branislav Nui was very fond of), and another daughter Olivera who died in infancy.

Their son Strahinja "Ban" Nui died in World War I fighting the Austro-Hungarians in December1915during Battle of Kolubara as part of the Serbian Army's Skopje Student Battalion (Skopski aki bataljon).

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

References[edit]Jump up ^ Apostolos Euangelou Vakalopoulos (1973). History of Macedonia,1354-1833. Institute for Balkan Studies. p.490.Jump up ^ Narodni muzej Smederevo (1969). Posebno izdanje (6). Narodni muzej Smederevo. p.126.Jump up ^ Nui & uri1978, p.49.^ Jump up to: a b Velibor Gligori (1965). Srpski realisti. Prosveta. p.398.Jump up ^ Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren: Letters of Serbian Consuls from Kosovo and Metohija, XIX and XX centuryJump up ^ Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars, Washington, D.C.: The Endowment,1914, p.175^ Jump up to: a b Maksimovi, Goran (2005). Sabrane komedije / Branislav Nui. Jedan tom. p.623. ISBN86-17-12756-2.Sources[edit]Nui, Branislav; uri, Vojislav (1978). Dela Branislava Nuia: Autobiografija. Prosveta.Further reading[edit]Jovan Skerli, Istorija nove srpske knjievnosti / A History of Modern Serbian Literature (Belgrade,1921) pages424426External links[edit]Works by Branislav Nui at Project GutenbergWorks by or about Branislav Nui at Internet ArchiveExtracts from his autobiographyPrimary School "Branislav Nusic", Belgrade, Serbia

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Branislav Nui.Authority controlWorldCat VIAF:73889774LCCN: n82063427ISNI:0000 0003 6865 1849GND:118786598SUDOC:029837286BNF: cb121379999(data) NKC: jn19990009679Categories:1864births1938deaths20th-century Serbian peopleSerbian novelistsSerbian writersSerbian dramatists and playwrightsUniversity of Belgrade Faculty of Law alumniPeople of the Serbo-Bulgarian WarPeople from BelgradePeople from SmederevoSerbian people of Aromanian descentBurials at Belgrade's New CemeteryNavigation menuCreate accountLog inArticleTalkReadEditView history

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