Good morning! Yesterday was spent in echoes of the events of the weekend; today in Niksic they are celebrating the alternative 13 July.
13 July
Happy Statehood Day, the date when Montenegro received confirmation of its statehood in 1878 gained through fight, and the day when in 1941 it refused statehood under the auspices of the fascist occupier and therefore received the award four years later by becoming an equal republic in federal Yugoslavia.
Today is 13 July, the holiday having the greatest consensus in Montenegrin society, because even Chetniks like Marko Kovacevic appropriate it, referring to the fact that at the time of the uprising, the future Chetnik soldiers were on the side of the uprising, which was led by Milovan Djilas on behalf of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
On 12 July 1941, the Petrovdan (St. Peter’s Day) Assembly was held in Cetinje, where the Declaration of Independent Montenegro was adopted under the auspices of fascist Italy, whose queen was a Montenegrin princess. This event only accelerated the preparations for the uprising, which had intensified after 22 June and the Wehrmacht’s attack on the Soviet Union.
Almost all of Montenegro was expressly liberated. From Bijelo Polje to the coast, six counties (then local self-government units) were liberated, while Podgorica and Cetinje were under siege. The uprising lasted until August, when it was partially extinguished.
The partisan units in Montenegro remained loyal to the resistance, while the officers of the former king’s army and a part of the federalists, who became nationalists under the leadership of Drljevic and Krsto Zrnov, became part of the occupation militia organized by the Italians.
What does 13 July mean to us and why is it important to remember it in the right way? How should we separate the celebration of anti-fascism from communism and communist ideology is the best question we can ask ourselves for better introspection? What is it within the People’s Liberation Struggle (NOB) that strengthens Montenegrin statehood, and where do the dangers of mythomania lie?
Today, it is difficult to explain to Europe and the world why Montenegrins celebrate people who wear similar uniforms to the Red Army soldiers that Putin uses in Ukraine today as part of the mythology of what they call the “Great Patriotic War”. There is no danger that one day Montenegro will achieve imperial ambitions like Russia, but we should know how to communicate why our uprising is important to us, and why partisans are important to us.
In contrast to the USSR, where the Red Army soldiers were the army of a villainous regime, the partisans were an army of workers, peasants and “honest intellectuals” who fought in the casemates of Karadjordjevic’s Yugoslavia and on the battlefields of the Spanish Republic.
In Montenegro, it was an army with authority, which made mistakes, but which made the greatest contribution to the liberation of not only Montenegro, but also the whole of Yugoslavia. Along with the Croats from Dalmatia, the Montenegrins, in proportion to their numbers, perhaps made the greatest contribution to that struggle, and for that they should be proud.
That is why today it is dangerous and miserable that on 13 July, people like Marko Kovacevic try to make excuses for those who, by their actions, betrayed everything that the uprising presented and presents.
On the other hand, not for the same reasons, of course, we should treat Krsto Popovic and his memory carefully, respecting his role in 1919.
If he had not committed any crime, as stated today by those who try to defend him, he is guilty because he worked for those who killed and burned placed in Montenegro. No matter how well-intentioned your motives are, you cannot remain silent on the shooting of Ljubo Cupic and the hanging of Gojko Kruska, work for the occupier while they were dying, and expect to be celebrated after the war.
Those who naively went to support the restoration of Montenegro’s independence on 12 July can be forgiven, but not at all after 13 July.
Montenegro has those to celebrate who did not make a mistake in neither 1919 nor 1941. Among the first is General Savo Celebic, the author of “Wreath on the Grave of Scepan Mijuskovic”, whom we have often quoted in the last two years. Savo was a Greenist (Greens – a group of loyalists of King Nikola of Montenegro), a federalist, but he was not part of the nationalist militia. He decided to be a partisan, and he made it to the general of the Yugoslav People’s Army.
To him be eternal glory and praise!
That’s it for today. See you again tomorrow at the same time, in the same place.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst
