In the 19th century, Belgrade developed from an Ottoman-influenced provincial town to the capital of a nation-state. In this cultural history of the Belgrade theater landscape of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Marija Đokić shows that Serbian and European theater practices entered into a productive exchange and contributed to the formation of a national identity, the Europeanization of the Western Balkans and the emergence of the Yugoslav idea. The innovative study is based on a broad concept of theater, which not only focuses on the Serbian national theater, but also on music theater, variety shows or the circus. Đokić also explores the transnational interdependencies of the Belgrade theater world and the importance of the microcosm of theater for the cultural history of the young Balkan state. In this way, she manages to paint a fundamentally new picture of the Belgrade theater landscape and Serbian society between 1841 and 1914.