Petar Kočić

Author, poet, activist and politician. Kočić was born in a village near Banja Luka, but studied in Sarajevo and Belgrade. He attended university in Vienna, where he studied philosophy. He worked briefly as a teacher and for Prosvjeta in Sarajevo. He was elected as a member of the Bosnian parliament, passionately fighting for agrarian reforms and the remnants of the feudal system. He was a poet of the Bosnian mountains and the strong life of his region and he was delighted with the simplicity of the folk language and folk life and became a poet of Krajina landscapes and Krajina life. Kocic wrote three collections of short stories entitled "From the Mountain and Under the Mountain". His work influenced many writers after his time, including Nobel prize winner, Ivo Andrić.