Branko Ćopić (January 1, 1915 - March 26, 1984) was a Serbian and a Yugoslavian writer, born in Hašani, Bosanska Krajina. He completed his primary school in his home town, high school in Bihać and teachers’ college in Karlovac. He graduated from the Philological Faculty in Belgrade in 1940. He published his first story in 1928. His work has been translated into English, German, French and Russian. He was a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During the April War, him and a group of friends from Students’ Batallion in Maribor showed resistance against the enemy nearby Mrkonjić Grad. After the Army’ capitulation, he returned to his home town. At the beginning of the uprising, he joined the Partisans together with his close friend and best man, writer Skender Kulenović, from whom he was inseparable. He worked as a war correspondent throughout the war.
After World War II, he spent the rest of his work life and days in Belgrade. He was an editor of children’s papers and one of the greatest writers for children on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. His work largely focused on the everyday lives of the people from Bosanska Krajina and during the NOR (National Liberation War). He won several awards for literature, including one given by AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia) and the Njegoš Award (both in 1972).
Ćopić created a diverse body of literary work: a collection of short stories - The Adventures of Nikoletina Bursać, The Marshmallow Color Garden; novels - The Break-out, Silent Gunpowder, Bronze Guards, Don’t Mourn, The Eight Offensive; a collection of poems - Homeland Birth in Flame, Poems, Spring of Warrior, comedies - The Adventures of Vuk Bubalo, The Extinction of Bears.
His most famous works for children are as follows: In the World of Bears and Butterflies, The Partisan Tales, The Pioneer Poems, Hedgehog’s Home, The Stories Beneath a Dragon’s Wing, Rooster and Cat, Experiences of Toscha the Cat, Eagles Start Flying Early, The Tough Teens, Glorious Combat, Head in the Col, Legs on the Horse and others.
