Vojislav Kecmanović

Vojislav Kecmanović a.k.a. Santa Claus (1881–1961) was a doctor who participated in the Balkan Wars and the National Liberation Struggle and became the first President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Kecmanović was born in Citluk near Prijedor in 1881. He attended high school in Sarajevo, Reljevu and Karlowitz. He studied medicine from 1905 to 1911 in Prague where he graduated. As a doctor working in Tuzla, where he was during the Balkan war, crossed into Serbia and participated in it as a volunteer.

After the war he returned to Tuzla, and then lived in Sarajevo. In Banja Luka high-treason process was sentenced to five years in prison, he was serving in Banja Luka and Zenica. From 1918 he was a doctor in Bijeljina. He was president of the cultural-educational societies and reading rooms "Filip Visnjic" and distinguished cultural worker.

Including in the national liberation struggle, switched only in June 1943, the liberated territory. That same year he was elected a member of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia and the President ZAVNOBiH war the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

From 26 April 1945 to November 1946 he was chairman of the Presidium of the National Assembly of the People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Kecmanović died on 25 March 1961 in Sarajevo.

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