Zaplakala stara majka Džaferbegova: Drama u 3 čina

The plot follows a classic ballad story: Džafer-beg's old mother is dissatisfied with the daughter-in-law her son brought her – a beautiful but barren woman who, in her opinion, is too "white and rosy" instead of bearing children and running the household. The mother's constant nagging and pressure lead to a tragic denouement. Džafer-beg, torn between his mother and his wife, in a moment of anger swords kill the young woman on the veranda while she is praying. After the crime he has committed, he realizes the gravity of his act and in despair shifts the blame onto his mother with the words: "Here, mother, are your sins... more yours than mine."

Kušan expands the short folklore-ballad story into a realistic social-psychological drama in three acts. The central themes are patriarchal relations in the traditional Bosnian family, maternal domination, the fate of women in a patriarchal society, the clash of generations, and the tragic consequences of blind adherence to old customs. The play subtly criticizes the petty-bourgeois mentality and the destructive power of family pressures.

Stylistically, it is a realistic work with elements of tragedy, written in the lively, colloquial language of the Bosnian environment. Kušan, better known as a humorist and satirist, shows a more serious, dramatic register here. The play was performed before and during World War II (e.g. in Mostar and Osijek), and today it is considered a rare example of Croatian drama with Bosnian-Muslim motifs from that period.

The play is still a powerful portrait of a conservative society in which tradition can become a deadly force.