Safvet-beg Bašagić was one of the most prominent Bosniak intellectuals

He was certainly one of the most prominent figures of modern Bosnian and Bosniak literature, the founder of the Bosniak national revival at the beginning of the 20th century.

Safvet-beg Bašagić, founder of many newspapers, magazines, and national societies, known as a prominent poet, translator, historian, and politician, was born on May 6, 1870, in Nevesinje, and died on April 9, 1934, in Sarajevo.

He attended elementary school in Mostar and Konjic, moved to Sarajevo in 1882, where he graduated from high school in 1895. From 1895 to 1899, he studied Oriental languages, Arabic, and Persian at the University of Vienna.

For a time, he worked as a professor at the Great Gymnasium in Sarajevo (First Gymnasium), and in 1903, he founded the societies Gajret, El-Kamer, and the Muslim Club. In 1907, he launched the newspaper Ogledalo, and a year later, he went to Vienna where he prepared his doctorate in Oriental languages and the history of Islam. In the same year, he was elected a representative to the Bosnian Parliament and, immediately after the death of Ali-hodža Beg Firdus, was appointed President of the Parliament.

He was still in that position when the Monarchy collapsed. After the war, from 1919, he worked as a curator at the National Museum in Sarajevo until 1927, when he retired.

Bašagić began writing poetry as a student at the Sarajevo gymnasium, and during his studies in Vienna, he prepared his first collection of poems for publication (Trofanda iz hercegovačke dubrave), and at that time, he also wrote his first scientific works and collected material for the history of Bosnia. On May 1, 1900, together with Edhem Mulabdić and Osman Nuri Hadžić, he launched the newspaper Behar.

Safvet-beg Bašagić was buried in the courtyard of the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque in Sarajevo.