Hamm was born in the village of
Gat (near
Belišće and
Valpovo). In 1924 he finished the classical
gymnasium in
Osijek, and in 1929 he graduated in Slavic and Germanic studies at the
University of Zagreb. He worked as a lecturer at the gymnasiums in
Pristina,
Karlovac and
Zagreb. In 1931 he became a part-time
lector for
Polish at the
Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. In 1934 he received his Ph.D. with the thesis
Matija Petar Katančić, njegova djela i njegov dijalekt ('
Matija Petar Katančić, his works and dialect'). In 1946 he became permanent lector for Polish. In 1948 he received a position of
docent for Slavic philology, with special care for Old Church Slavonic. He became an associate professor in 1954, and a tenured professor in 1958. In 1960, he accepted the position of a regular professor of Slavic philology at the Department for Slavic studies of the
University of Vienna, as well as the position of the head of the Institute for Slavic philology in Vienna. He also served as the head of the Linguistic department of Balkan commission (founded by
Vatroslav Jagić in 1897) of the
Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was a regular member of the Austrian as well as the
Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. In 1952, together with
Svetozar Rittig and
Vjekoslav Štefanić, he founded the
Old Church Slavonic Institute in Zagreb, under whose patronage the journal
Slovo was published. Hamm died in
Vienna at the age of 81, and was buried in Zagreb. ==See also==