Safvet-beg Basagic (1870-1934) was outstanding Muslim-Croatian poet, orientalist, historian and lexicographer. He studied oriental languages and history in Vienna, where he defended his thesis in 1910. His most important work is “Znameniti Hrvati Bosnjaci i Hercegovci (The famous Croatian Bosniaks and Herzegovinians), published by Matica hrvatska (Matrix Croatica) in Zagreb in 1931. In this lexicon he presented nearly 700 biographies. He occupied the position of curator of the Zemaljski muzej in Sarajevo (1919-1927), and was also vice-president of the Sabor (Parliament) of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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