Speech by the President of the Republic on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the formation of the Croatian National Guard at the football stadium on Kranjčević Street
Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, daughters and sons of fallen Croatian defenders, sons and daughters of the Croatian National Guard that was lined-up here thirty years ago today, ablaze with hope and desire, and fear – man’s constant companion – in the struggle for the Croatian state. To make something come true that had been dreamt of for centuries. That moment finally came, which I remember as an observer.
It never felt like a war atmosphere. Neither the words of the first President, nor the general feeling, the sights, the facial expressions and the prevailing atmosphere could lead us to think that some were already on the battlefield and couldn’t be here. That Josip Jović had already been killed, that our boys in Borovo Selo had been killed in an ambush. A big thank you and greetings to all those who were here exactly thirty years ago and to all those who couldn’t be here because they were in battle somewhere else, where the Croatian state was being built.
The Croatian state and the Croatian name are, as we have been taught, a matter of having the right to a state. People become nations and obtain a state through struggle, either on the principle of natural law or on the principle of state right. And the Croatian State Right that is mentioned in the Croatian Constitution – and you are the ones who protect it, along with Croatia’s borders – we had that state right. They were taking it from us, we were taking it back, it lived through song, through tradition, books, records, through the names and glorious paths of our greats who perished for their country, sometimes in a foreign land, and who died so that others could grow and prosper.
In the Ottoman wars, we fought for ourselves and for the whole of Europe. The saying that we were the bulwark of Christendom is often repeated – yes, we were also the bulwark of development and progress of that Western world to which we now finally belong after so many centuries of wandering and searching for ourselves and our own identity. We are finally where we belong, in the West. We are a Western country and for the most part a Western society. Our princes and nobles, the nobility of Trogir, the Berislavić and Babonić nobilities, the princes of Blagaj on the Sana – they are all people who laid down their lives in the 16th century, whose property was confiscated, and their lineage, their Croatian ancestry, so that people in Vienna could live in peace. Nikola Šubić Zrinski. So there would be no conquerors in Vienna.
All this is the price that the Croatian people – and its best sons – had to pay in order to finally one day even have the right to say that it has the right to its own state. Two hundred years after that, in various Napoleonic Wars, in the maritime battles near Vis, we actually only fought to choose the lesser of the two evils, between two masters. It was the same in World War I. Croatian bones are on the slopes of the Carpathians, in Galicia, on the Bug River, towards Lithuania, everywhere where there was no place for Croats. And in World War II.
In this state at last, we are masters of our own destiny and we understand each other better than ever. We have to start forgetting the misconceptions, errors and crimes of our grandfathers. We’re not responsible for them. This Croatian generation knows better and, thanks to people such as you, like those before you, it has done better. Others often don’t even understand us. Everyone thinks they are special. Every mother, every father wants to believe and say that their child is special. The truth is somewhat different. We’re all mostly kind of average and that’s okay.
However, as a nation, as people who follow their political path, a joint mission, some common goal, we are different. No other current member of the European Union has been on a path such as ours. That is our wealth, that is the burden that is sometimes difficult for us to carry, but after so many years we have to finally say that the Croats don’t have to and won’t be responsible anymore for the mistakes and misconceptions of our grandfathers. For me that’s the end of the story. We don’t have to apologize for their sins or their misconceptions.
The war was waged by ordinary people. Here in the beginning, as in any great endeavour, there were few good and few right people. By the end of 1991, it was only thousands of young men and a few young women from small towns. In the Zrinski Special Forces Battalion and later the 1st Guards Corps, of the seventy-five who died, seven or eight young men came from Duvno and Tomislavgrad. These are our brothers and sisters from Bosnia and Herzegovina, to whom we also owe a lot – a debt of heart and a debt of honour. They also built their youth, their well-being and their future into Croatia, just like the young people from the big cities, and relatively speaking they gave even more.
Happy Croatian Armed Forces Day! The Croatian Army, the Croatian National Guard has made it possible for the Croatian dream and the Croatian name to finally be realized in full independence. Not in our statehood because our statehood is our state right that is centuries old. It simply was not realized until the arrival of this generation of Croatian people, it didn’t materialize as independence. Croatia is finally independent and sovereign. Croats can finally stop saying, just like the Jews stopped saying ‘see you next year in Jerusalem’. We have finally found our Jerusalem. We have our state, we are happy and content in it.
Croatian soldiers, Croatian citizens, dear friends, dear guests – may Croatia live on forever! It can rest assured, the Croatian Army is protecting it.
All the best!