Petar Kočić
| Petar Kočić | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
29 June 1877 Stričići, Bosnia Vilayet, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 27 August 1916 (aged 39) Belgrade, Kingdom of Serbia |
| Resting place | New Cemetery, Belgrade |
| Occupation | Writer • playwright • poet • politician |
| Ethnicity | Serb |
| Alma mater | University of Vienna |
| Years active | 1899–1916 |
| Spouse | Milka (née Vukmanović) |
| Children | 2 |
Petar Kočić (Serbian Cyrillic: Петар Кочић; 29 June 1877 – 27 August 1916) was a Bosnian Serb writer, playwright, poet and politician. Born in rural northwestern Bosnia in the final days of Ottoman rule, Kočić began writing around the turn of the century, first poetry and then prose. While a student at the University of Vienna, he became politically active and began agitating for agrarian reforms within Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had been occupied by Austria-Hungary following the Ottomans' withdrawal in 1878. Other reforms that Kočić demanded were freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, which had been denied to the province's inhabitants by Austria-Hungary.
In 1905, Kočić relocated to Skopje with his family, but was forced to return to Vienna after falling out with the local Serbian archimandrite. The following year, he and his family moved to Sarajevo, where Kočić became the general secretary of Prosveta (Enlightenment), a Serb cultural society. In 1906 and 1907, he led several demonstrations, including a general strike and a protest targeting a Croatian newspaper. The latter incident prompted the authorities to issue Kočić with an ultimatum, constraining him to leave Sarajevo or face arrest. He was arrested by the Austro-Hungarians in 1907 for publishing an anti-Habsburg tract in the newspaper Otadžbina (Fatherland), and sentenced to seven months' imprisonment. Further criticisms of the Austro-Hungarian administration in the newspaper resulted in his arrest and imprisonment on two subsequent occasions. He spent the majority of his imprisonment in solitary confinement, which caused him to slip into a deep depression.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was officially annexed by Austria-Hungary during Kočić's imprisonment. His sentence was commuted in early 1909, as part of a general amnesty. In 1910, Kočić successfully ran for a seat in the Bosnian Parliament (Sabor), whose creation had been approved by the Austro-Hungarians earlier that year. Kočić became the leader of what one historian describes as "the most uncompromising anti-Austrian Serb nationalists in Bosnia-Herzegovina". He lobbied for increased concessions to Bosnian Serb peasants and farmers, and advocated for various structural reforms, agitating against at the Austro-Hungarians, as well as the Bosnian Muslim landowning class, which had emerged from the Ottoman withdrawal largely unscathed. He left the Sabor in 1913, citing mental exhaustion. In January 1914, Kočić was admitted into a Belgrade mental hospital, where he died two years later, amid the destruction of World War I and the city's occupation by Austria-Hungary.
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