Academician Hanifa Kapidžić-Osmanagić, University of Sarajevo Professor Emeritus Passed Away

Hanifa Kapidžić-Osmanagić, ANUBiH full member and University of Sarajevo Professor Emeritus passed away in Sarajevo on Friday, 20 September 2019.

Academician Hanifa Kapidžić-Osmanagić was born in Sarajevo on 30 November 1935.
She graduated from the French Language and Literature Department, University of Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy in 1958, when she was elected French Literature assistant. After consecutive elections to the ranks of Assistant Professor and Associate Professor, she was elected Contemporary French Literature Full Professor in 1975.
Time from 1960 to 1963, Academician Kapidžić-Osmanagić spent as a Serbo-Croatian foreign language instructor at the Faculté des Lettres , University of Dijon, France, where in June 1963 she defended (mention très honorable) her PhD thesis Le surréalisme serbe dans ses rapports avec le surréalisme français.

In her university career, academician Kapidžić-Osmanagić held offices of Head of the French Literature Department, Department of Romance Council President and the Faculty of Philosophy Dean (1973–75), and University of Sarajevo Vice-Rector (1985–88).

In 1992-1995 period, she continued with her university duties in Sarajevo. At the French invitation and with the French UNPROFOR forces assistance, she temporarily left besieged Sarajevo, in a series of lectures held in France, Switzerland and Spain she testified about the situation in the city. On the same occasion, she gave a series of lectures on surrealism (Le surréalisme contre le nationalisme) at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure rue d'Ulm in Paris, where she continued working as an associate professor for the next three years (1995, 1996, 1997).

At the University of Paris IV Sorbonne Slavic Department in 1997, she held a six-month teaching course from the former Yugoslavia literature as a professseur associé. She continued cooperating with that University and occasional visits in the following years.

Academician Hanifa Kapidžić-Osmanagić was engaged in studying the 20th and 21st centuries literature, primarily French and comparative literature of the BH peoples and from wider region, as well as the literary theory. She has continuously studied surrealism, existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism, women's writing in modernism and in postmodern literature.

Academician Hanifa Kapidžić-Osmanagić published significant books of studies and essays: Srpski nadrealizam i njegovi odnosi sa francuskim nadrealizmom (Sarajevo 1966); Le surréalisme serbe dans ses rapports avec le surréalisme français (Paris 1968); Hrestomatija srpskog nadrealizma. Poezija i tekstovi. (Sarajevo 1970); Hrestomatija srpskog nadrealizma. Teorija i kritika (Sarajevo 1970); Suočenja. Od nadrealizma do strukture (Literary Essays) (Sarajevo 1976); Suočenja II. Portreti i prigode (Sarajevo 1981); Suočenja III. Ristić, Begić, Davičo, Krleža...... (Sarajevo 1986); Pjesnici lirske apstrakcije. Poezija 1945–1980. (Sarajevo 1992. Edition Destroyed in the 1992-1995 War); Pjesnici lirske apstrakcije. Poezija 1945–1980. (Gračanica 1999); Sarajevo... Suočenja IV (Sarajevo 1998); U brzake vremena. Suočenja V. (Sarajevo 2003); Strukturalizam. Poststrukturalizam. Levi-Strauss. Barthes. Foucault. Derrida. J. Kristeva. Lacan. Deleuze. Guattari i drugi: tekstovi u knjizi Suvremena tumačenja književnosti (with Z. Lešić, M. Katnić-Bakaršić, T. Kulenović, Sarajevo 2006); Ogledi o Hélène Cixous. Ka poetici idiomatičke razlike. (Sarajevo 2011).

Academician Hanifa Kapidžić-Osmanagić prepared for publishing a book of poetry by Vasko Popa, two books by Marko Ristić, Midhat Begić’s Opus in six volumes, all with comprehensive background studies. A considerable number of her studies and essays published in literary periodicals have not yet been included in separate books.

She was the long-time editor-in-chief of the journal for literary and artistic criticism Novi Izraz and PEN BiH Center President from 1997 to 2001.
She has received numerous social and professional awards for her work. She received the City of Sarajevo 6th of April Award, the 27th of July Award of Bosnia and Herzegovina, university honors and plaques. The IPC Sarajevo Freedom Award is from 2007. She also received the Essay of the Year Award of the Svjetlost Publishing House for an essay published in the Journal Expression. In 1993, she received the USA Fund for Free Expression Award. In 2007, the President of the Republic of France honored Academician Hanifa Kapidžić-Osmanagić with the Order of Academic Palms (Chevalier des palmes académiques).

She was elected a Corresponding Member of the ANUBiH in 1995 and a full member in 2005.

The date and time of the commemorative session n and funeral will be subsequently announced.