SLAVKO LEOVAC - PROFESSOR, WRITER, SENATOR

BIJELJINA, SEPTEMBER 4 /SRNA/ - President of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Republika Srpska, Slavko Leovac, died on September 5, 2000.

Slavko Leovac was a writer, literary critic, academician, and a member of the Senate of Republika Srpska. Leovac was born in Mostar, studied in Sarajevo, and earned his doctorate in Belgrade. He was a full professor in the Department of General and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Sarajevo, and worked as an editor at the publishing houses Svjetlost and Veselin Masleša, as well as at the journal Izraz. Leovac lived in Sarajevo until 1992, when, following harassment and torture by the Muslim authorities, he left for Belgrade. He worked as a professor in the Department of Serbian Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, as well as a visiting professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Banja Luka and in what was then known as Srpsko Sarajevo. Leovac was a member of the editorial board of the Commission for the Compilation of the Serbian Retrospective Bibliography from 1989 to 1994. Slavko Leovac was a senator of Republika Srpska in the first composition of the Senate, established in 1996.