The 15th anniversary of the death of the first democratically elected President of the Presidency of the Republic of BiH Alija Izetbegovic will be marked by laying flowers, reciting Fatiha and paying tribute at the martyr’s graveyard Kovaci in Sarajevo.
The flowers on Izetbegovic’s grave and the central memorial at the martyr’s graveyard will be laid by delegations from the state, federal and lower levels of government in BiH, representatives of the diplomatic corps, the wartime associations, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and many others.
Representatives of several countries with embassies in BiH will join the ceremony and pay the tribute as well.
Alija Izetbegovic is one of the most significant politicians in the modern history of B&H. He participated in key political decisions for B&H during the 1990s. In one of his last interviews, Izetbegovic joked how sometimes it seems to him that his life lasts too long. Nevertheless, he had a life full of turbulence and dynamics.
Alija Izetbegovic was born on August 8th 1925 in Bosanski Samac, in a family of farmers who moved from Belgrade to that town in 1868. His family moved to Sarajevo in 1928. An interesting fact is that around the age of fifteen, under the influence of atheistic and communistic literature, Izetbegovic started wavering about religion. Prior to the beginning of the Second World War Yugoslavia had a strong communistic propaganda, which was partly a reaction to fascism that was in its darkest period at that time.