Skender Kulenović

Skender Kulenović was born on September 2, 1910, in Bosanski Petrovac into a beg family. After studying law at the University of Zagreb, Kulenović joined the anti-fascist Partisan liberation movement in 1941, surviving the horrific Kozara Offensive where thousands of Bosnian civilians and children were massacred.

In the autumn of 1942, Kulenović wrote his masterpiece, Stojanka majka Knežopoljka, an overwhelming rhythmic poetic lament of a mother searching for her slaughtered sons on Mount Kozara, calling not for revenge, but for the sacred victory of freedom. His postwar sonnets and novel Ponornica (The Underground River) explored the psychological erosion of Bosnian traditional culture.