President Milanović Attends 100th Anniversary Labin Republic Celebration
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Labin Republic, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović, patron of the celebration, laid a wreath and lit a candle on Krvova placa at Vinež and took part in the formal session of the Lubin Municipal Council.
“I’m not the grandson of a miner although my late grandfather Ante Milanović worked in the mines for a while. There was a coal mine in Sinj which, in comparison with this mine, would daily merely extract 30 tonnes. Local young men and my grandfather, farmer, father of three children worked there”, President MIlanović said in his address at the formal session.
He added that in 1921 after World War I Europe was shaking and hasn’t stopped. “Those earthquakes and unrests last longer than the earthquakes we have experienced in the last year. This was, in a certain way, the first uprising against fascism and, in relation to other uprisings and revolutions, big and small of that time, had a relatively civilized outcome. After that war, two extremisms clashed, one was extremism of hatred i.e. fascism and subsequently Nazism. The second was communism as extremism of hope, not hatred”, President Milanović stated. He added that in a situation when man must choose, and perhaps doesn’t wish to, will choose extremism of hope.
“After a few of those revolutions from which Europe was shaking, here in Labin a large group of people joined forces to fight in a class struggle against injustice, exploitation, to fight for human dignity. It lasted a month, they were defeated by military means, by force. Their organization wasn’t strictly an organized hierarchy like the organization of other revolutions developing across Europe those days. They had a red flag, a sickle and hammer, they had ideals, it was simply a battle of ordinary people for a better today and for an ever better tomorrow”, President Milanović noted.
After the formal session of the Labin Municipal Council, President Milanović ceremonially launched the lasting illumination of the “Šohta” iron mining tower in memory of the Labin miners thus concluding the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Labin Republic held to commemorate the historical event of 2 March 1921 when the Labin miners rebelled against the Italian administration in Istria.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Marko Beljan