President Attends Pazin Decision 80th Anniversary Ceremony: This is one of the most important dates in Croatian history
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović attended a special session of the Pazin Town Council, which was held at the Unification and Freedom Memorial Home in Pazin on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Pazin Decision on the unification of Istria, Rijeka, Zadar and the islands with the Croatian homeland.
“This is one of the most important dates in the 20th century history of Croatia. It is symbolic. It is also an important step in the fulfilment of the desire of one people, our people, the Croatian people, to live together in the same state community with their brethren, the Croats, and to achieve this at the moment when the opportunity arises. The opportunity to form a common state does not come often, for some it never comes,” President Milanović, who was the patron of the 80th anniversary Pazin Decision event, said in his address at the ceremony.
President Milanović spoke about the history of Istria and said that in Istria, the Croats lived with Italians and other Slavs for centuries, without ethnic violence, and everything was spoiled when the Italians came to power after the First World War. “They spoiled everything, but also made it possible for Istria to be part of Croatia today,” he added. He also mentioned Field Marshal Svetozar Borojević, the Austrian Imperial Field Marshal of Croatian origin and Orthodox faith, without whom, as he put it, the Italians would have taken not only Istria but the entire east side of the Adriatic in the First World War. “Croats would remain scattered in several countries and the question is when and how and in what arrangement they would unite and if they would ever unite,” said the President.
“On this day 80 years ago, the Pazin Decision was made, written and formulated exclusively by communists, the people of Istria. It was adopted within the frame of the Istrian communist party and in fact has the character of an armed rebellion. They did it before the decisions of the State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH)”, said the President, reminding that not a single word in the proclamation mentioned Yugoslavia, but the Croatian brethren and the homeland.
As for the uprising in Istria, President Milanović said that it had the character of an armed rebellion that was good, justified and noble, but that the Italian community had to pay a huge price for our wishes to become reality. “Two years later comes the final chapter, it is something that should always be repeated because these are the facts. This area was liberated by Croatian weapons and Croatian brothers and sisters. Those Croatian, Dalmatian weapons, the Dalmatian brigades made up of the most hardened fighters of the army that went through the most difficult battlefields of the Second World War and represented a very serious armed force in terms of skill and equipment. These are the Croatian brothers and daughters of Croatian Dalmatia. They reached Trieste. These are the people whom we should thank that Istria finally ended up in Croatia,” he said.
“The Paris Peace Conference is the ‘grand finale’, it is a big event where we could say aesthetically and status-wise … and argumentatively that this is an area where the Slavs, the Croats, lived in an ethnically conscious way and that they were in the majority, and that things ended as they ended and there was no going back,” President Milanović said at the ceremony, concluding that the 80th anniversary of the Pazin Decision marks Croatia’s collective journey.
Speaking at the ceremony apart from President Milanović were the President of the Pazin Town Council Enna Peroš, President of the Pazin Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists Milan Antolović, President of the Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of the Republic of Croatia Franjo Habulin, Mayor of Pazin Suzana Jašić, Istria County Prefect Boris Miletić, and Minister of Culture and Media and delegate of the Croatian Prime Minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek.
After the ceremony and in the company of the Director of the Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria – Museo storico e navale dell’Istria Gracijano Kešac, President Milanović viewed the exhibition “Sloboda narodu” [Freedom to the People], which was set up in the hall of the Unification and Freedom Memorial Home.
President Milanović was accompanied in Pazin by the Adviser to the President of the Republic for Human Rights and Civil Society Melita Mulić.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Dario Andrišek