Vera Šnajder was born on the 2nd of February 1904 in the town of Reljevo, near Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Reljevo was a home of an Orthodox Christian Seminary which was directed by Vera’s father. She died on the 14th of February 1976 in Sarajevo. Vera completed her elementary education, followed by high school (“Classical Gymnasium”) in Sarajevo, graduating in 1922, and then enrolled at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, division of theoretical and applied mathematics and experimental physics. Because of interruptions due to illness, she graduated in 1928. From then until 1929 she was a professor of Women’s Gymnasium in Sarajevo when, as one of the best students and young mathematicians of her generation, she earned a fellowship from the French government that enabled her to go to Paris for further study. High opinion of her as a student can be seen from the fact that she had recommendation letters from two greats of the Belgrade Mathematical School: Milutin Milanković and Anton Bilimović [5].

Vera spent the 1929/30 season doing research at the famous Institute Henri Poincaré in Paris. Having excelled at the Institute, she is offered a position of a research associate at the Laboratory for Hydrodynamics at the Sorbonne, which she accepts. She remains at La Sorbonne until her return to Sarajevo in 1932. While in Paris, Vera Šnajder had published her first scientific work in Comptes Rendus des Sciences de l’Acadèmie des Sciences [1]. Interestingly, this was also the first published work in mathematics by an author from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some of Vera’s experimental results were subsequently showcased at an exhibition in Paris. In addition, a document from that period survives indicating that Vera Šnajder was offered a position in the Ministry of Aeronautics (Ministère de l’Air), to work in the laboratory for fluid mechanics led by Dr. Riabushinsky.

On her return from Paris, near the end of 1932, Vera Šnajder becomes a professor at Women’s Gymnasium where she enjoys great respect of her students, their parents, and her colleagues. As progressive intellectuals she and her husband Marcel Šnajder, one of the first doctors of Philosophy in BH and himself a professor of philosophy and mathematics, both belonged to a close-knit group of left-leaning Sarajevan intellectuals. However Marcel Šnajder was targeted by the Fascists not only as a distinguished intellectual but also because he was Jewish and, tragically, he perished in the early days of World War II. Despite great efforts to find out, Vera Šnajder never learned the details of how and where he was killed.

Despite the tragic events culminating in the arrest and murder of her husband, nagging health problems, and having to provide for her infant daughter Milica (Milica Snajder Huterer), Vera Šnajder was an active participant in the war for freedom and a member of the People’s Front for Sarajevo, a revolutionary organization. In December 1943 she was notified about her transfer to Imotski, and in June 1944 to Mostar (both towns in Herzegovina). However because of her illness, and with the support of a noted Sarajevan medical doctor and humanist Bogdan Zimonjić, himself a progressive intellectual and member of the wartime resistance movement, she stayed in Sarajevo to undergo a medical treatment.

After the liberation (end of WWII), Vera Šnajder devotes her physical and intellectual powers to the rebuilding of her homeland. In June 1945 she is elected a director of the 2nd Women’s Gymnasium, and in March 1946 she becomes one of the first professors of the College of Pedagogy in Sarajevo. In November 1947 she is elected an advisor in the Ministry of Education, where she tirelessly works on the reconstruction of the school system in BH and solving severe teaching personnel problems present at the time. In June 1948 she returns to the College of Pedagogy.

In 1950 Vera Šnajder participates in the founding of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Sarajevo, in particular contributing to the creation of its Division of Mathematics. In March 1950 she becomes an associate professor, and in 1950/51 season, for the first time, the university-level study of mathematics is made available to students in BH. Professor Šnajder becomes a long-term head of the Division of Mathematics whose success and development are closely linked to her efforts, and which becomes the Department of Mathematics (as a part of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics) in 1960. She devotes most of her life to the Department, making scientific connections with domestic and international institutions, sending students for study abroad, and tirelessly and selflessly promoting and encouraging young scholars in their professional and personal development.

Thanks to Prof Šnajder’s commitment to education, Mahmut Bajraktarević went to the famous Sorbonne in Paris, where he received his doctorate in 1953, Veselin Perić to Göttingen, to the school of commutative algebra, founded by the famous Emmy Noether, who will, later, be the first to bring modern algebra to the former Yugoslavia, and Fikret Vajzović to the world-famous Moscow State University. Lomonosov. The three mentioned mathematicians will later become not only the backbone of the Department of Mathematics and Mathematics in BiH, but also members of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of BiH. Professor Vera Šnajder took equal care of her students, tried to provide scholarships to those who needed them, advised them on which math books to read, and sometimes brought her own. “She once took me to the library to look for, in her opinion, the two most esteemed books by Zuberbühler and Van der Waerden in modern algebra” says Prof. Mirjana Vuković, one of Vera’s former students.

At the Division (and later Department) of Mathematics, Vera Šnajder taught Differential Geometry, Classical Mechanics, and occasionally and especially early on, Linear Algebra and Introduction to Algebra. Šnajder’s research was focused on the study of the Riemann and Finsler geometry in classical mechanics, and giving geometrical interpretation to the integral principles of classical mechanics. She laid out important results in two publications ([2] and [3]) which have been influential and highly regarded in the mathematics community. She also wrote a book [4] for the Classical Mechanics course that she taught for many years.  

Since the founding of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in 1960, Vera Šnajder served at the University Senate for many years, and also served on the Educational Board of BH, was president of the Committee of the Board of National Library, member of the Committee for Election of Scientific Associates, and president of the Committee for Professorial Exams. She was also a long-term president of the Yugoslav-French Society. Vera Šnajder was particularly active as a president of the Society of Mathematicians, Physicists and Astronomers of Yugoslavia, and a principal organizer of the Fourth Congress of the Mathematicians, Physicists and Astronomers of Yugoslavia held in Sarajevo in 1965. 

The activities of Vera Šnajder were not limited to the Department of Mathematics. In the 1951/52 and 1958/59 seasons, she served as the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, and in 1952/53, 1957/58 and 1959/60 she was the Vice-Dean. Her election to the position of Dean was of historic significance, as she was the first woman elected to this position not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in all of Yugoslavia.

Without emphasizing Vera Šnajder’s qualities as a humanist and pedagogue, the picture of her would be incomplete. She was an excellent teacher, organizer, and a distinguished intellectual. She was known as a very strict and righteous teacher, equally demanding to herself as to others, and an exemplary leader of young talent and mentor of future professors. Behind her strict professorial demeanor was a soul of a woman with warm love and care for all members of the Department and all of her students. Students as well as colleagues would address her with a certain sense of fear or, more to the point, veneration. With time, each of her students would find that their professor’s attention to detail, e.g. pointing out the errors sometimes apparently not even related to the subject they are studying, is done with a far-sighted intention of bringing their overall knowledge and skills to perfection. This way the young generation would be best positioned to serve the homeland as well as enjoy personal and professional success, all of which were Vera’s first priority and ahead of her personal interests.

Vera Šnajder’s altruistic and selfless life, as well as her rigor and creative energy, have all made her very highly respected by her students and peers. She had devoted her life to the development to the Division of Mathematics (and later the Department of Mathematics), nurturing its students and advising the professional staff. She has made major contributions in making mathematics become a fundamental area of study, and a known and respected program at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Sarajevo.

We can freely, with pride, say that Vera Šnajder was our Marie Curie, who, unlike Marie (who stayed in Paris), returned to her Bosnia & Herzegovina and made a huge contribution to the development of education, especially higher education.

It should certainly be noted that all this was happening at a time when few women in the world had very little education, as they were often forbidden to study. Let us remember two great mathematicians: Sofia Kovaljevska (1850-1891) and Emmy Nöther (1882-1938). Kovavljevska had a good fortune of being mentored by the great mathematician Karl Weierstrass, who agreed to privately teach a young, talented Russian who later produced important results in mathematics. Emmy Nother, considered perhaps the best woman mathematician of all time, was able to attend lectures at the University of Erlangen only thanks to her father who was professor of mathematics there; she was one of only two females among a thousand students. She produced extremely important results in mathematics and physics at University of Göttingen, a world-renowned center of mathematical research which was then a world’s leading place for mathematics. When Nazis came to power in Germany, she took refuge, teaching as a visiting professor at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she died unfortunately at a relatively young age.

The story of a young woman, in imperfect health, who goes on her own to the then-distant Belgrade and then to Paris to gain knowledge, learn from the best, and return and invest this knowledge to the country where she came from, is truly inspiring. Vera Šnajder was well ahead of her her time, a trailblazer and a role model.

Vera Šnajder’s family inherited her love for education. Her daughter, Prof. Milica Šnajder-Huterer became a well renown pianist who studied in Sarajevo as well as Paris. She has performed hundreds of solo and chamber recitals and concerts with orchestras, which were held in all major cities of the former Yugoslavia, Europe and the Soviet Union. Milica won the Sixth April Award of the City of Sarajevo (1983) and the Republic Award of the Association of Music Artists of BiH (1971). She is a honorary member of the Association of Music Educators of Yugoslavia (1986). She was briefly the dean of the Music Academy in Sarajevo prior to the war. Since 1993 she has lived in Slovenia. The younger grandson of Vera Šnajder, Andrej Huterer, became a violinist and violin pedagogue. He completed his violin studies at the Belarussian Music Academy in Minsk, Belarus. Since 1999 he has been working as a teacher in music schools in Slovenia. He is dedicated to the musical development of children. The older grandson of Vera Šnajder, Dragan Huterer, completed his bachelor studies at the world famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 and his PhD in Physics from the University of Chicago (2001). Today he is a Professor at University of Michigan, USA. Professor Huterer's principal interest is in understanding the nature and origin of "dark energy," a mysterious component that dominates the dynamics of the universe and causes its accelerated expansion., and has already made a name for himself in the world of science. Click here to read more about Prof. Dragan Huterer and his work.

It is very sad to note that no members of the distinguished Popović-Šnajder family any longer live in Sarajevo.

Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation would like to thank the following individuals and organisations for the contributions to this tribute page:

Prof. Mirjana Vukovic, Prof. Milica Šnajder-Huterer, Prof. Dragan Huterer, Dr. Eddie Custovic, Dr. Damir Mitric.

[1]  V. Šnajder, Hydrodinamic experimentale – Sur l'extension de la méthode de Hele Shaw aux mouvements cycliques, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris, T. 192  (1931), pp. 1703-1706.

[2]  V. Šnajder,  Hamiltonov princip u Racionalnoj mehanici i njegova geometrijska interpretacija, Beograd, 1957.

[3]   V. Šnajder, Quelques remarques sur le principe de Hamilton dans la Mécanique classique, Publication de l'Institut mathématique de l'Académie Serbe des Sciences et des Arts, Beograd, T. XIV (1960), 67-82.

[4]  V. Šnajder, Predavanja iz racionalne mehanike s uvodom u tenzorski račun, Univerzitet u Sarajevu, Sarajevo,1963, 287 str.

[5] Empfehlungsschreiben – Preporuka dvojice čuvenih Beogradskih profesora Milutina Milankovića i Antona Bilimovića Veri Šnajder za rad na doktorskoj diseraciji u Njemačkoj, Beograd, april 1929.

[6]   Poziv Ministrstva vazduhoplomstva Francuske upućen Veri  Popović Šnajder da radi za njih radi kao istraživač u Laboratoriju mehanike fluida, Pariz, Februar 1931.

[7]  Vere Šnajder – fotografije s kolegama snimljene ispred instituta „Henry Poincaré” i u Laboratoriju tog Instituta, Pariz, 1931.

[8]  Harald Gropp, Mathematics in the Austro-Ungarian Empire: Mathematics in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Proceedings of a Symposium held in Budapest on August 1, 2009 during the XXIII ICHST (English), Praha Matfyzpress, 2010. pp. 75-80.