The Transitional Legend of Winners

Abstract

During 2006 a number of stories that featured the motive of great gain under dramatic circumstances were repeatedly told in betting-houses in Kragujevac, a town in Serbia. The main character of these legends is an empoverished victim of transition who, thanks to luck and help of friends, wins a great sum of money betting. Besides de­scribing the preceding transitional «fall» of the winner (getting fired, failing in private enterprise), the legends describe his economical and social prosperity initiated by capital gained through betting (starting succesfull enterprises, buying good shares). Diachronically following other «sudden wealth» legends this transitional legend speaks about the establishing of a new system of values that, in the categories of so­cial promotion, makes up for the old principles that marked the period of socialism.