President Milanović: The liberation of Zadar was the most important moment in the liberation of Dalmatia from fascism
“Today is the day of liberation of Zadar, the embracing of Zadar with the Croatian motherland, with the national country, with the culture to which it belonged and from which it could never be separated”, the President of the Republic Zoran Milanović stated today in Zadar at a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the City of Zadar from fascism and Nazism and its reintegration into the motherland Croatia.
In his address, President Milanović said that in the various celebrations and commemorations on the liberation of Dalmatia he decided only to come to Zadar. “Everything before that was glorious and great, but this was the expulsion of the Wehrmacht and the Germans from Dalmatia. This was the liberation of Dalmatia, because in 1941 Zadar was not part of the then country where almost all Croats lived, and in 1945, it became part of it”, the President remarked and noted that the liberation of Zadar is the final and most important moment in the liberation of Dalmatia from fascism and Nazism. “Zadar, not Split, not Dubrovnik, Zadar became part of Croatia. The city here remains on the hard rock, a witness to history and the presence of a people and culture, for more than a thousand years“, he added.
“This is our country, we love it and pay tribute and give thanks to our ancestors who fought for it with arms. They were a heroic, armed people”, President Milanović stressed, and said that we must not forget this, we must not allow our memory and recollections to be killed.
“To remember these things. Not that out of arrogance we would transfer these things and shove them in someone’s face, but to be aware and self-aware of who we are, so that today and tomorrow in this strange world we would be stronger, so that when the great ones fight, we would not be under the table but next to the table, look after our interests, preserve humanity, humaneness, loyalty and friendship with those with whom we committed ourselves. But, not be a toy or a puppet in someone else’s hands,” said President Milanović, pointing out that he will advocate for this in the future, as he has in the past five years.
In this sense, he said that today we talk about freedom, which is not a state that exists at a certain time, but one that is taken and fought for. “When the big fight and the small fight for their interests, their existence, their justice and rights, because hadn’t they worked and thought like that, none of this would have happened. Zadar belonged to Italy in a fraudulent way after the First World War. In fact, Zadar was never supposed to belong to Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century and under no circumstances whatsoever. It was plunder, a trick and the right of the stronger after the end of the war in which they calculated cleverly”, he said and emphasized that “Croatian, Slavic Zadar with its surroundings is the city of our identity”.
Furthermore, in his speech, President Milanović said that nothing was given to us in any war and that “we were nobody’s pets and nobody’s wards”. “Our ancestors and our contemporaries fought alone, not solitary, alone with what they had and what they could gather at that moment. At that time, these people were the force of Croatian weapons, the armed force, and a nation without that is a weak nation,” he said and emphasized that the Dalmatian partisans – as well as the heroic and armed people – are responsible for the greatest battles and most glorious moments of the new Croatian history. “No to fascism, freedom to the human being,” President Milanović concluded.
The ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the City of Zadar from fascism and Nazism was held under the auspices of the President of the Republic, and it was organized by the Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of the City of Zadar in cooperation with the Alliance of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of Zadar County, and with the support of the City of Zadar and Zadar County. Also speaking at the ceremony apart from President Milanović were the president of the Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of the City of Zadar Miljenko Letinić and the president of Zadar City Council and professor at the University of Zadar Marko Vučetić.
Alongside President Milanović was the Adviser to the President for Human Rights and Civil Society Melita Mulić.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Marko Beljan