For the ‛Authentic’ National and Aesthetic Values: The Challenges of Music Production and Performance in the Kingdom of Serbia (1882–1914)

Abstract

Apart from struggling for state autonomy throughout the 19th century, the Serbian political and intellectual elite strove to reform Serbian society in order to create a strong and respectable state that would represent a cultural and political centre of all Slavic peoples in Southeast Europe. In addition to creating a broad bureaucratic apparatus as well as educated and capable bureaucrats, it was particularly important to strengthen the country’s industrial potential and stimulate its technological advancement. These milestones became a priority especially after the Principality of Serbia (1815) was recognised as a sovereign state in 1878 after the Congress of Berlin, and several years later as the Kingdom of Serbia (1882). Owing to finally accomplishing the longstanding aim to constitute a national state and to liberate part of the Serbian population from the foreign Ottoman rule, the Serbian Obrenović dynasty together with influential political and economic circles could focus strongly on reshaping Serbian state and society according to examples of developed European countries.