Ognjen Prica

Who was Ognjen Prica?

Ognjen Prica was a Yugoslav left-wing politician.

A native of Ilidža, Prica became interested in politics while studying mathematics and physics at University of Zagreb. In 1921 he became the member of Communist Party of Yugoslavia and one of the founders of SKOJ - Communist Youth League of Yugoslavia. From 1921 and 1923 he was in Vienna where he finished his studies and worked in Bureau of Communist Balkan Federation. Upon return to Yugoslavia he worked as a teacher in Sarajevo, but he was also active in Communist politics.

Because of that he was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. In the prison and afterwards he translated classic Marxist books to Serbo-Croatian. After his release, in 1937 he became one of the leading members of the newly formed Croatian Communist Party. In March 1941, a few days before the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia he was arrested together with a large number of Croatian left-wing intellectuals and sent to Kerestinec prison, where he was handed over to Ustasha authorities few weeks later. He was shot as a retaliation for Partisan activity together with Zvonimir Richtmann, Božidar Adžija and Otokar Keršovani.