The drama "Member of Parliament," written in 1883 as the first comedy by the then young, nineteen-year-old Branislav Nušić, waited more than a decade for its premiere, traveling from the director of the National Theater to reviewers, and even to the police, and back, encountering disapproval due to the alleged "mockery of the fighters for parliamentarism." Although the reviewers spoke positively about the drama, the ruling politicians, as well as King Alexander Obrenović, had a series of remarks regarding Nušić's manuscript, so this authorial text underwent many changes before its final production on the stage of the National Theater in 1896, to the general delight of the audience. The printed edition appeared only in 1924, more than forty years after it was written.
As the years passed, political circumstances changed, but what has not changed and remains unchanged even to this day is the mentality of the "little man," which Nušić brilliantly portrays, making the work "Member of Parliament" an eternal depiction of provincial mentality and atmosphere during parliamentary elections.
Nušić masterfully shapes the plot around the ambition of the father, Jevrem Prokić, and his son-in-law, the lawyer Ivković, to run for Member of Parliament at the same time—one representing the ruling party and the other the opposition. Thus, the conflict is set within the family, providing serious dramatic potential for a hilarious comedy, especially when the petty ambitions of the extended family and the provincial town become intertwined in the story. "Member of Parliament" is a play that strongly criticizes human greed for personal gain, the fickle and immoral mentality of the province, political illiteracy, electoral corruption, false parliamentarism, hierarchical subordination, the dissoluteness of public officials, as well as the deepest abysses of the human psyche of an individual who has decided to come to power at any cost.
Nušić is a writer of the ordinary man and for the ordinary man. With his light comicality—seemingly harmlessly witty, and almost never cynical or satirical—his works, starting with his debut "Member of Parliament," have been making audiences laugh for more than a century, while with that same ease, they expose the "donkey ears" of each of us, in all sorts of social circumstances, especially during pre-election periods.
The timelessness of the characters and plots of Branislav Nušić makes him a timeless, immortal contemporary of all generations, never boring, and always a relevant finger pointed at the temple of the ordinary man.

Zagorka Pop-Antoska Andovska