[3] Begović was born in Vrlika, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1876, the son of Ivan, a smallholder and shopkeeper, and Filomena "File" (née Bressan).

In 1900, he graduated from the Velika realka [hr] in Split and married his first wife, pianist Paula (née Goršetić), whom he had met in Zagreb during his studies.

[4] During these years, Begović travelled throughout Europe alone, which he considered necessary for personal development, but, in 1909, he was invited to Hamburg at the behest of Baron Alfred von Berger [de], director of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus.

In 1913, Begović was hired by the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad as a contract playwright and chief director, but it was shortly lived.

[6] In 1918, his third child — a son, Bruno — was born from an affair he had with Anna Marie Spitzer, his later-wife twenty years his junior, whom he had met in Vienna.

[4] From 1921 until 1922, he was an editor and publisher with Ljubo Wiesner at Kritika magazine and a member of the editorial staff for the daily paper Novosti [hr].

With the establishment of communist Yugoslavia in 1945, the Croatian Writers' Association judged that Begović had collaborated with the war-time Independent State of Croatia.