National Figures

Ivo Andrić

Ivo Andrić (10 October 1892 – 13 March 1975) was a Yugoslav novelist, poet and short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. His writings dealt mainly with life in his native Bosnia under Ottoman rule.

Safvet-beg Bašagić

Dr. Safvet-beg Bašagić (6 May 1870 – 9 April 1934), also known as Mirza Safvet, was a Bosnian writer who is often described by Bosniak historians as the “father of Bosnian Renaissance”, and one of most renowned poets of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the turn of the 20th century. Bašagić co-founded the political journal Behar and was a founder of the cultural society and magazine Gajret, and was elected President of the Bosnian council in 1910. He is also well known for his lexicon that exceeded seven hundred biographies that he compiled over decades.

Branko Ćopić

Branko Ćopić (1 January 1915 – 26 March 1984) was a Yugoslav writer. He is today remembered as a favorite writer of the children stories from the school books, but also as a dissident and “heretic” who had to explain himself to the party bureaucracy because of his criticism of the revolution and post-war life, corrupted by the materialism of the “comrades”, blossomed bureaucracy and sycophancy, which he despised. Ćopić was one of the rare novelists who lived solely from his writings as, due to his popularity, his books were sold in millions of copies, both in Yugoslavia and abroad.

Isak Samokovlija

Isak Samokovlija (3 September 1889 – 15 January 1955) was a prominent Bosnian Jewish writer. By profession he was a physician. His stories describe the life of the Bosnian Sephardic Jews.

Meša Selimović

Mehmed “Meša” Selimović (26 April 1910 – 11 July 1982) was a Yugoslav writer, whose novel Death and the Dervish is one of the most important literary works in post-Second World War Yugoslavia. Some of the main themes in his works are the relations between individuality and authority, life and death, and other existential problems.

Aleksa Šantić

Aleksa Šantić (27 May 1868 – 2 February 1924) was a Yugoslav poet. A Herzegovinian Serb, Šantić embraced the form and the sentiment of the traditional Bosnian love ballad sevdalinka, his poetry reflecting both the urban culture of the region and the growing national awareness. The most common themes of his poems are social injustice, nostalgic love, suffering of the Serb people, and the unity of the South Slavs. He was the editor-in-chief of the magazine Zora (1896–1901). Šantić was one of the leading persons of Serbian literary and national movement in Mostar.

Mak Dizdar

Mehmedalija Mak Dizdar is one of the greatest Bosnian poets. His poetry combines influences from the Bosnian Christian culture, Islamic mysticism and cultural remains of medieval Bosnia, and especially its stone tombstones – stećak tombstones. His works Kameni spavač and Modra rijeka are probably the most important Bosnian poetical achievements of the 20th century. They are also the peak of Dizdar’s creativity and one of the most significant events in the entire Bosnian and Herzegovinian art and spiritual history. His portrait is displayed on a 10- convertible note banknote.

Jovan Dučić

Jovan Dučić (17 February 1871 – 7 April 1943) was a Bosnian Serb poet, writer and diplomat.

Vladimir Prelog

Vladimir Prelog (23 July 1906 – 7 January 1998) was a Croatian-Swiss organic chemist who received the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions. Prelog was born and grew up in Sarajevo. He lived and worked in Prague, Zagreb and Zürich during his lifetime.

Mirza Delibašić

Mirza Delibašić (January 9, 1954 – December 8, 2001) was a Bosnian professional basketball player. He was born in Tuzla, located in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, then part of former Yugoslavia. Delibašić is widely considered as one of the best shooters in the history of European basketball. Delibašić was named one of FIBA’s 50 Greatest Players in 1991. He was enshrined into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2008, he was named one of the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors.

Asim Ferhatović

Asim “Hase” Ferhatović (24 January 1933 – 25 January 1987) was a Bosnian footballer. He started his football career in 1948 with FK Sarajevo, for whom he made his first-team debut in 1952. Ferhatović remained with the club until his retirement in 1967, although he represented Fenerbahçe in the 1962–63 Turkish league season. He won a solitary cap for the Yugoslavia national football team in 1961.

Edin Džeko

Edin Džeko (born 17 March 1986) is a Bosnian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Serie A club Roma and the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team, for which he is captain.