Bosnia and Herzegovina is a small country, but a country rich with famous people. In it two Nobel Laureates were born, writer Ivo Andric and chemist Vladimir Prelog. Matrix Croatica from Mostar, in cooperation with Croatian Cultural Association “Napredak”, to honor them, placed the memorial in Nobel Laureates Park in Mostar in 2012.
Ivo Andric was born in Dolac near Travnik on October 9, 1892. After finished high school in Sarajevo, he studied in Zagreb, Vienna and Krakow. Having received a scholarship of Napredak in 1912, Andric begins his studies in Zagreb, continues in Vienna and Krakow, and in 1924 he finished in Graz his PhD on “The spiritual life of Bosnia under the Turks”. Between the two wars, he is in the diplomatic service. With the beginning of the World War II he is returning to Belgrade, lives a reclusive life and doesn’t participate in public life. At that time he writes his most important work, the novel “The Bridge on the Drina”. In 1961 he was awarded with the Nobel Prize for literature for his entire life’s work. He died in Belgrade on March 13, 1975.
Vladimir Prelog, also scholar of Napredak, was born on July 23, 1906 in Sarajevo. In 1915 he moved to Zagreb and than to Osijek where he continued high school education. Under the influence of prof. Ivan Kuria he becomes interested in chemistry. After his graduation in Zagreb in 1924, he went to Prague to study chemistry where he earned a university degree in 1928 and a year later a doctorate. In 1934 he returned to Zagreb and teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, and in 1941 he goes to Switzerland, in Zurich to teach at the Technical high school. Prelog has achieved excellent results in the field of organic synthetic chemistry, clarified the structure of the antibiotic rifamycin and boromycin, he worked on steroids, synthesized the formycin....He has published over 350 scientific papers till 1975 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He died on January 7, 1998 in Zurich.
