Svetozar Ćorović is a Bosnia and Herzegovina novelist of Serbian descent In his books, he often wrote of life in Herzegovina region and Mostar. His brother is Vladimir Ćorović

Vladimir Corovic

Vladimir Ćorović was a 20th-century Serbian historian, member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts . He is best known for his many acclaimed works on the history of Serbs and Yugoslavia.-Early:...

, a distinguished Serbian historian who died in Greece in 1941.

History

Svetozar Ćorović was born on May 29,1875 in Mostar, where he completed elementary school and trade school. From 1887 he published various works in many newspapers and magazines such as Golub (The Pigeon), Neven, Bosanska Vila (Bosnian Fairy), Luca, Otadzbina (Fatherland) and Brankovo ​​Kolo. He was an active member of the Society of Mostar called "Gusle". He also participated in other literary and cultural activities. He was the editor of Neretljanin calendar (1894, 1895), the initiator and editor of the first three issues of Zora (Dawn) magazine (1896-1901), member of the editorial board and associate of the Narod (People) newspaper (1907).

During the annexation crisis of 1908 he fled to Italy but was elected as the delegate by The Bosnian Parliament in 1910. Upon the outbreak of war in 1914 Ćorović was arrested, taken as the hostage, then drafted as a soldier and sent to Hungary. Seriously ill he returned to Mostar in 1917. In "Serbia's Great War, 1914-1918" by Andrej Mitrović on page 77, we read: "Josip Smodllaka later recalled 'furious Hungarian soldiers wanted to massacre' him and his comrades in Budapest, and the prominent writer Svetozar Ćorović was forced by guards to run without food or water beside the railway transport carrying prisoners".

Svetozar Ćorović died in Mostar on April 17th, 1919. He died after sustaining brutal punishment and sucumbing to disease transmitted in internment camps, where he spent the first three years of World War I.

Works

He published a dozen collections of short stories and almost as many novels and several plays. Works that particularly stand out include a novel Majcina Sultanije (1906) with an unusual figure of provincial woman in the center of the story, Stojan Mutikasa (1907) which tells the history of man who transforms from the poor peasant boy into a great merchant and villain, and Jarani (Buddies)(1911), which portrays the Muslim population of Herzegovina in times of unrest ahead of the termination of the Turkish authorities.

His most famous works include Zenidba Pere Karantana (1905)(Pero Karantana Marriage), Majcina Sultanija (1906), Stojan Mutikasa (1907), U celijama(1908) (In The Cells), U Mraku (1909)(In the Dark), Jarani(1911 ), Zulumćar (1913), and Kao vihor(1918) (like a whirlwind).