Borislav Arapović is the founder of the Institute for Bible Translation, a renowned Slavist, poet, member of the Swedish Society of Slavists, the Swedish Writers' Union, the Union of Croatian Writers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Doctor of Philosophy, Honoris Causa and Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He founded IBT in 1973 with the conviction that every nation deserves to have a Bible in its own language. To this aim, Borislav Arapović initiated a large-scale effort to translate the Bible into the languages of the non-Slavic peoples of the USSR.