Bojan Kurajica

Bojan Kurajica (* November 15, 1947 in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia ) is a Croatian- Bosnian chess master.

Kurajica, who lived for many years in Split, won in 1965 in Barcelona, surprisingly, the Junior World Championships before favorites like Robert Hübner. In 1967 he was in Hastings third behind former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik and Wolfgang Uhlmann. In 1974 he was in Solingen together with former World Champion Boris Spassky third behind Lew Polugajewski and Lubomir Kavalek. Because of these successes, the FIDE Kurajica granted the title of Grand Master. Kurajica was in the 1970s one of the first foreign professional chess players in the German Team Championships, where he competed for the Solingen SG 1868.

Kurajica represented Yugoslavia at the Chess Olympiads in 1980 to Malta, where he won the bronze medal with his team, and in 1982 in Lucerne. He represented Bosnia and Herzegovina since the 1992 Olympics seven times to 2004. During the 1994 Olympics in Moscow, he was one of the pillars of the surprising silver medal win with a score of 9 out of 13 ( 6-1 = 6). Since 2006, he played for the Croatian, in 2009 he moved back to the Bosnian Chess Federation. Kurajica now lives in Spain. His current Elo rating is 2533 (as of April 2008).