President Milanović Meets with Representatives of Croatian Minority in Slovak Republic

After participating at the Forum on global security GLOBSEC 2021, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović visited Devinsko Novo Selo, a municipality near Bratislava. There he visited the Museum of Croatian Culture, and held a meeting with representatives of the Croatian minority in the Slovak Republic.

After viewing the exhibits in the Museum of Croatian Culture, President Milanović said: “This is an eternal song, a trace of our predecessors and their migrations, the places they came from”. The President added that he is fascinated with the language spoken by the Croatian minorities. “Those are fascinating old languages, Chakavian, Kajkavian, while others cannot be exactly identified. A lot of people here have learned to speak standard Croatian, but this is a language that has been passed on from generation to generation for centuries while surrounded by different languages”, President Milanović added.

It is estimated that there are several thousand Croats living in Slovakia for the most part in four municipalities near Bratislava: Devinsko Novo Selo, Hrvatski Grob, Čunovo and Jarovce (Hrvatski Jandrof), and are mostly assimilated. Furthermore, Croats in Slovakia enjoy the status of national minority, are exceptionally well integrated in Slovakian society, and also have good connections with the home country. They are organized in cultural societies and associations, and their umbrella organization is the Croatian Cultural Association in Slovakia, founded in 1990 with headquarters in Bratislava, whose goal is to coordinate the activities of Croatian cultural societies.

At the meeting with President Milanović the representatives of the Croatian minority emphasized that they get together in order to preserve their customs, traditions and language. They have dozens of associations in which they nurture music and folklore, and also have a theatre group.

At the meeting with the President of the Republic were the president of the Croatian Culture Association in the Slovak Republic Radoslav Janković, historian and president of the grant commission of the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic for the Croatian minority Jozef Klačka, the president of the Croatian Cultural Society in Devinsko Novo Selo Jozefina Daničova, the president of the Croatian Cultural Society in Čunovo Ján Maász, the president of the Croatian Cultural Society in Hrvatski Jandrof Rudolf Streck, lector of Croatian language and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University in Bratislava Željko Predojević, and Croatian language teacher Toni Milanović.

PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Marko Beljan