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  • von Milan Ristovic

    Critique of bureaucratic careerism of senior and junior civil servants was among the frequent topics in comedies of character written by the most famous Serbian writer Branislav Nušic (1864–1938). In their effort to “earn the rank” they stopped at nothing to get a promotion, like some of his characters whose greatest desire, regardless of abilities and education, was to succeed in getting into civil service. Throughout the nineteenth century, from the gradual expansion of the autonomy of the Principality of Serbia, as an Ottoman vassal, to an independent Principality (1878) and the Kingdom of Serbia (since 1882), the Serbian society, predominantly rural, was slowly changing its structure, experiencing all “birth pangs” of modernisation. Rudimentary administration of the autonomous Principality of Serbia rested on a few literate domestic clerks as well as educated Serbs and other immigrants from the Habsburg Monarchy. [...]