About Vreme zla (Time of Evil)
Vreme zla (Time of Evil) is a Serbian period drama adapted from the novel cycle of the same name by Dobrica Cosic, drawing on the volumes known in English as The Sinner, The Outcast, and The Believer. The series first reached audiences in 2021 and was later broadcast on RTS 1, the flagship channel of Radio-Television of Serbia, where it ran across fifteen episodes. Set against the social and political upheaval of the years surrounding the Second World War, the production follows the prominent Katic family of Belgrade as ideology, ambition, and personal loyalty pull its members in opposing directions.
The narrative centers on the return of Bogdan Dragovic, an emigre who comes home and attempts, for the sake of his son Vladimir, to re-establish ties with a Communist Party that once expelled him. Around him the series gathers a wide ensemble: the elder statesman Vukasin Katic, whose long public career embodies an older liberal order; his son Ivan Katic; and Milena Dragovic, whose private life is bound up with the choices the men around her make. Their interlocking stories trace how grand historical forces register as intimate family ruptures.
Faithful to Cosic's reputation as a chronicler of twentieth-century Serbian history, the adaptation treats its period setting as a canvas for examining conviction, doubt, and the cost of political belief. The series is presented here strictly as a television and literary artifact: a dramatization of a celebrated novel sequence, valued for its performances, production design, and its place within Serbia's tradition of literary screen adaptations rather than as a statement on any contemporary issue.
