President Milanović: Participants of Croatian Spring Did not Encourage Hate or National Intolerance, They Tried to Do Better

11. May 2021.
18:22

The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović attended the presentation of the conference proceedings entitled “Sinj i Hrvatsko proljeće” (Sinj and the Croatian Spring) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Croatian Spring.

“That Croatian Spring of 1971 was on one side the Sinj aristocracy in the noble sense of the word, and on the other children and sons of mainly farmers from Sinj and Glavice, children who attended school since their ancestors could not, who completed secondary school, and subsequently the University of Zagreb, and who started to live life to the fullest and wholeheartedly”, President Milanović said in his address.

President Milanović described the life of the Croatian people in the former state as difficult and complex, and the former state, Yugoslavia, as a bridge to the realization of the ultimate goal, namely Croatian independence. “1971 was a Croatian cry, an attempt to put more order in that state. All protagonists were mostly moderate individuals. None of them encouraged hate or national intolerance. Those people tried to do better, first of all Miko Tripalo, but others as well. Some of them paid a heavy price, like Marko Veselica, an unimaginable price, the man spent more than a decade in prison. As for the others, their lives changed, but practically all of them lived to see Croatia as an independent, young, yet also an old state in a certain way. A state of identity and pride, a state of awareness of where it belongs, how small yet at the same time how big it is”, President Milanović remarked.

Regarding membership in the European Union and NATO, President Milanović considers it  just a further step on Croatia’s path. “Something we should honestly get the most benefit for ourselves. We’re a small people, a small state and a small nation. Four million people live in Croatia and wonders can be made with these people in this area, which is small, scarcely populated, yet has extraordinary resources. These areas are insignificant if tough, intelligent and ambitious people don’t settle in them. Citizens of Sinj never lacked such ambitions”, President Milanović concluded.

Attending the presentation of the conference proceedings entitled “Sinj and the Croatian Spring” alongside President Milanović was the Adviser for Human Rights and Civil Society Melita Mulić.                                    

PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Dario Andrišek