Ibrahim Ustavdić


Ibrahim ef. Ustavdić was a Bosnian educator, the first teacher from Gračanica, school superintendent and principal of the first National Elementary School in Gračanica. He was the father of Muhamed Ustavdić and was a great-great-grandfather of Edvin Kanka Ćudić.

Biography

Ibrahim Ustavdić was born in Gračanica in 1878. In hometown he graduated National elementary school in 1897. After that he graduated in School of education. He got the title of effendi, a scholar of Islam, which is visible from the Latin inscription on his grave.
Ustavdić was appointed as a temporary teacher in Bosanska Otoka in 1902. From Bosanska Otoka he was moved to Kozarac in 1903, and from there to Prijedor in 1904. At the beginning of 1905 he was moved as a teacher to National elementary school in Gračanica, where he worked until 1935. From 1912 to 1935, Ustavdić was the school principal of the National Elementary School in Gračanica. In 1935 he was appointed school superintendent in Gračanica. He held that position until 1938, when he retired. He worked as a teacher in Gračanica for more than thirty years.
Also, as a teacher and principal of the National elementary school, Ustavdić participated in educational reform of the Gračanica's Osman-kapetan Madrasa in 1930. In 1903 when was founded the local board of the Gajret in Gračanica, he was among its first leaders, as a second-rate member. He was one of the financial donors for the monument on the grave of the Croatian poet Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević in Sarajevo. When the monument to king Alexander I of Yugoslavia was unveiled in Gračanica in October 1936, Ibrahim Ustavdić was among the political officials. He laid two wreaths on behalf of the local schools.
After retirement, Ustavdić moved to Sarajevo, where he died in spring of 1974. According to his wishes, he was buried in Gračanica, at the Režići Cemetery. The funeral of Ibrahim Ustavdić was attended by a large number of people in Gračanica, all students and teachers of the Hasan Kikić Elementary School in Gračanica, as well as delegations of students and teachers from other schools.