Shakespeare’s Three Shades of Serbian — Did He Write About Us?

Abstract

Two most often adjectives attributed to Shakespeare’s name are “universal” and “timeless”. Centuries before the internet and social media, Shakespeare was embraced and appropriated as a global brand. In the English speaking world, he will always be an iconic figure. But why did we play Henry VI for the 2012 Globe Olympics and believed it was a play about us? Whether we can recognise our own past, present, and, probably, future in his plays because every other nation can, or be it that there are stories “more Serbian” than somebody else’s – we infallibly identify certain historical characters and events in his oeuvre as our own and feel that “mirror held up to nature” flashing at us. Julius Caesar, Henry VI and Romeo and Juliet , three plays based on different epochs and cultures, equally found their way home through Serbian appropriations. The universal topics of love, power, war, manipulation, prejudice, communication and judgment, resonate with our collective memory and present-day reality as if written for us and about us. The answer is simple – they are about us. Shakespeare knew us before we knew him, to paraphrase Father Nikolaj Velimirović (Milanović 1995:90) 12 . Who is here so rude that would not be a Shakespearean 23 ? More Shakespeare in a society means less intolerance, violence, crime – all that Shakespeare’s works abound in.