Veselin Masleša

Veselin Masleša (Serbian Cyrillic: "Веселин Маслеша") (April 20, 1906 - June 14, 1943) was a Bosnian Serb writer, activist and war hero.

Veselin Masleša was born in Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he finished grade school and gymnasium. He then studied law at the University of Zagreb, economics in Frankfurt and then political economy and sociology in Paris.

His first published work was in the magazine "Nova literatura" in 1928, and he also published in the magazines "Književnik", "Stožer", "Danas" and "Naša stvarnost". He wrote two large studies called "Mlada Bosna" and "Svetozar Marković" which were published later in 1945.

In 1927 he was arrested for the first time due to his Communist ideas. Between 1928 and 1939 he was arrested and released on several occasions, eventually causing him to go underground. When World War II started in Yugoslavia in 1941, he was in Montenegro where he joined the Partisans. Masleša died during the attempted break through the enemy lines in the Sutjeska offensive in the summer of 1943.

On December 20, 1951 he was posthumously awarded the title of People's Hero of Yugoslavia. There is a Sarajevo-based publishing house named after him, and the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina's scientific achievement award was also named after him.

There is also a School in Belgrade named in his honor.