CRNI GRUJA IDE U BEOGRAD: DEOSMANIZACIJA SRBIJE U TV-SITKOMU
Crni Gruja goes to Belgrade: Deosmanization of Serbia in a TV-sitcom

Summary/Abstract: This paper adopts a slightly different perspective on the imperial legacies of the Ottomans in Belgrade from the dominant one. It focuses upon collective memory and oblivion of many processes which shaped the modern history of this city. This is a retrospective view on the processes of nation-building in a late-Ottoman periphery from the perspective of media and popular culture studies. I have analyzed the comedy series Crni Gruja in order to grasp its particular language of representation and communication of the Serbian national, late-Ottoman, history. Although at first Crni Gruja appears as an attempt at re-writing the Serbian national history in the popular post-socialist, and more, importantly post-Yugoslav, imaginary, I argue that it communicates in a fresh and interesting way the contemporary readings of the effects of the nation-building process in the late Ottoman empire, the position of Belgrade in that process and some overlooked segments of the urban history of this city.

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