Theatre
Јелисавета, кнегиња црногорска
Not translated into English
Đura Jakšić · 1868
Synopsis
At the court of Zeta, at the end of the fifteenth century, Prince Đurđe Crnojević has married a Venetian, Jelisaveta, whom the mountain chiefs regard as a foreigner and a schemer. His younger brother Staniša, betrothed to Mira, daughter of the old serdar Radoš Orlović, grows apart from him and seeks support from the Turks. Between the princess, the envoy of Venice and the Montenegrin clans, each believes he is serving the country by bringing down the other.
Context
The author wrote it in 1863 under the provisional title The Last of the Crnojevićs, and changed the title after consulting the historian Stojan Novaković, who also helped him have it printed, in 1868, at the state press in Belgrade. He follows history rather than legend: the wife who came from Venice is indeed Đurđe's, but he enlarges her role and invents her fate. The Serbian National Theatre staged it in Novi Sad on 18 November 1869, in the adaptation of Antonije Hadžić, performed it fourteen times and revived it in 1872.
Who it is for
Five acts in verse and some twenty characters. Best to know that the Zeta of that time lived between Venice and the sultan.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's most successful drama and as one of the great female roles of Serbian historical theatre; it is studied in secondary school.