Vladimir Prelog - Early Life

Early Life

Prelog was born in Sarajevo, Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at that time within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Bpsnian Croat parents who were working there. His father Milan was a history professor in gymnasium in Sarajevo and later at University of Zagreb. As an 8-year old boy, he stood near the place where the assassination of Franz Ferdinand occurred. Prelog attended elementary school in Sarajevo, but in 1915, as a child, Prelog moved to Zagreb (Croatia) with his parents. In Zagreb he graduated from elementary school. At first he attended gymnasium in Zagreb, but soon afterwords, his father got a job in Osijek, so he continued his education there. He spent two years in Osijek gymnasium, where he became interested in chemistry under the influence of his professor Ivan Kuria. In 1922, as a 16-year old boy, he described a new solution for an analytic instrument in chemical lab for the prominent German scientific magazine Chemiker Zeitung. His description was published, which was his first scientific work. Prelog completed his high school education in Zagreb in 1924. Following his father's wishes, he moved to Prague where he received his diploma in chemical engineering from the Czech Technical University in 1928 and gained a Sc.D in 1929. His teacher was Emil Votoček, while his assistant and mentor Rudolf Lukeš introduced him to the world of organic chemistry.

No academic positions were available because of the Great Depression so instead he started to work in the private plant laboratory of G.J. Dríza in Prague, in charge of the production of rare chemicals that were not available on the market at that time. He worked for Driza from 1929 until 1935. During the time, he got his first doctoral candidate, a company owner Driza. In 1933, he married Kamila Vitek. His pastime was spent in his own research, where he started investigating alkaloids from the cacao bark.