Mehmed Spaho

Mehmed Spaho

Grave in Sarajevo

Mehmed Spaho (born March 13, 1883 in Sarajevo , Bosnia-Hercegovina , Austria-Hungary , † June 29, 1939 in Belgrade ) was a Yugoslav Muslim politician .

Life

Spaho grew up in Sarajevo and studied in Vienna law . His dissertation dealt with the agricultural question in Bosnia and Herzegovina . From 1908 he worked as an intern in a law firm in his hometown. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Bosnia and Herzegovina . He remained in this post until the end of Austrian rule in Bosnia in 1918.

Spaho had already been politically active in Vienna. Before the World War he belonged to the Muslimanska samostalna stranka ("Muslim Independent Party") in Sarajevo . In the first government of the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, he held the post of Minister for Forestry and Mining from December 1918 to February 1919. In 1921 he became president of the Jugoslovenska Muslimanska Organizacija (JMO, "Yugoslav Muslim Organization") founded in 1919 , which quickly developed into the strongest party of the Bosniaks. As a party leader, Spaho remained the almost undisputed political leader until his death. Spaho always refused to classify himself as a “Muslim Serb” or a “Muslim Croat”, as was customary at the time due to the lack of recognition of the Bosnian Muslims as a separate nationality. Until his sudden death in a Belgrade hotel in 1939, he was repeatedly involved in various Yugoslav governments as a Muslim representative, including from 1927 to 1929 as Minister of Trade and Industry.

Mehmed Spaho's tomb is located in the courtyard of the Gazi Husrev Beg Mosque in the old town of Sarajevo.

literature

• Smail Balić: Spaho, Mehmed . In: Mathias Bernath, Karl Nehring (Ed.), Gerda Bartl (Red.): Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 4. Oldenbourg, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-486-42421-1 , p. 157 f.

Web links

Commons : Mehmed Spaho  - collection of images, videos and audio files