Young Alkibijad completed his primary education in Smederevo, a port town along the Danube, before returning to Belgrade to complete his secondary education. In 1882, at the age of 18, he legally changed his name to Branislav Nušić. He subsequently enrolled in the Belgrade Higher School (later the University of Belgrade), graduating with a law degree in 1885. That year, at the age of 21, he was conscripted into the Royal Serbian Army. Nušić's service coincided with the two-week-long Serbo-Bulgarian War of November 1885, which he witnessed first-hand as a Serbian corporal in western Bulgaria.