delirium clemens

In his recent Book of My Lives (p. 97-101), the Bosnian American author Aleksandar Hemon (see post above) digs out one of the best-hidden skeletons in the closets of the University of Sarajevo: Professor Nikola Nikola Koljević (1936-97), a Professor of English and internationally renowned Shakespeare expert. He had taught Hemon poetry & creative writing before he turned into a genocidally nationalist Serbian politician himself, deputy to the war criminal Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadžić. The latter is now standing trial at the ICTY in The Hague;  Koljević eventually killed himself: “In 1997 he blew his Shakespeare-laden brains out. He had to shoot twice, his long piano-player finger apparently having trembled on the unwieldy trigger.” (op. cit., p. 101) >Hemon’s text (partly online)

In the picture (FLTR): Karadžić (awaiting verdict), Biljana Plavšić (sentenced to 11 years in prison) and Koljević – at least two of them well-trained & highly accomplished academics. Photo: palelive.com, 2012

This entry was posted on 26 March 2013 at 20:00 and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Aleksandar Hemon, Biljana Plavšić, Bosnian War, Literature, Nikola Koljević, Radovan Karadžić, Sarajevo, Sarajevo University. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.