Svetozar Ćorović was a prominent Serb writer from the city of Mostar in Herzegovina, born in 1875, before the Congress of Berlin and the Austro-Hungarian occupation of the region.

Well-respected for his literary work, he was elected to the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1910. This, however, did not protect him from being taken as a hostage by the Austro-Hungarian authorities before the start of the Great War in the summer of 1914, guaranteeing with his life the safety of the Austro-Hungarian railways in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the general obeisance of the Serbs in that land.

Ćorović spent 3 years as a hostage in conditions best described in his own words, catching tuberculosis, being released from prison and then being drafted by the military in 1917, before being discharged for poor health and returning to die in his native Mostar in 1919, the same year this work was published.

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His brother is the famed Serbian historian Vladimir Ćorović, whose Black Book briefly mentions some of Svetozar’s tribulations as a hostage and which you can also find in our catalogue.