SKENDER KULENOVIĆ - POET AND ACADEMICIAN

BIJELJINA, SEPTEMBER 1 /SRNA/ - Writer Skender Kulenović, a Serbian academic and author of the poem "Stojanka, Mother of Knežopolje," which he wrote as a participant in the National Liberation War at the height of the fiercest fighting, was born on September 2, 1910.

His most famous poem bears witness to the horrors and massacres perpetrated against Serbian civilians on Kozara by the Ustashas, with the assistance of their German allies.

Skender Kulenović was born in Bosanski Petrovac, where he completed elementary school. After his family suddenly fell into poverty as a result of agrarian reform, he moved to his mother’s hometown of Travnik, where he attended and graduated from the Jesuit Gymnasium.

While still in his third year of secondary school, he made his literary debut with his first work, a collection of sonnets titled "Ocvale primule" /"Faded Primroses"/. He studied law at the University of Zagreb.

In 1941, Kulenović joined the first Partisan detachment in Bosanska Krajina.

Due to his significant literary contribution, he was elected a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and in 1974 he became a full member.

He died in 1978.

Like many other figures who separated religion from national identity and identified as Serbs despite having a Muslim religious background, or who had close ties to Serbian institutions, Kulenović also became a target of vandals and extremists following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

A bust of Kulenović was demolished in federal Sarajevo. It had stood in a square named after Alija Izetbegović, the leader of the SDA.