Civil society organisations and civic activists are warning the public about the danger of historical revisionism through emotional and symbolic manipulation, the latest example of which is the memorial service held for the fighters of the Chetnik movement in Krnovo. Citizens are being misled through manipulative techniques of distorting facts, omitting historical context, and exploiting religious and national symbols. The goal is to mythologise the Chetnik forces as “innocent victims of crimes,” contrary to the historical facts that this was an armed battle and that the fighters who died were fighting on the side of the fascist and Nazi occupiers. We particularly condemn the institutional support for this process of historical denial through the presence of state officials.
In Krnovo, on Sunday, 12 October, at the site of Lobanja Glava, in the organisation of the the “Kosovo Peony”, the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC), held a memorial service for the Chetniks. The ceremony was attended by Andrija Mandić, the President of the Parliament of Montenegro, which is unacceptable given that he represents the state of Montenegro and should not lend legitimacy to gatherings where the country’s history is distorted and the victims of fascist terror are insulted. Based on the speeches delivered, it could be concluded that unarmed young men were executed at that site, while it was completely omitted that Krnovo was, in fact, the location of an armed conflict between the partisans (fighters of the People’s Liberation Movement) and the armed Chetniks of Pavle Đurišić, who were part of the occupying forces under German command.
By holding the memorial service, and through the attendance and address of a high-ranking state official, blatant attempts continue to manipulate public opinion into accepting the rehabilitation of the Chetnik movement, which is responsible for the most brutal crimes against civilians and for collaboration with foreign fascist and Nazi occupiers.
During the ceremony, deliberately manipulative rhetorical techniques were used, primarily the use of strongly emotionally charged language. Expressions such as “bare-faced young men”, “innocent victims”, “unarmed young men”, “executed without trial”, “dog cemeteries”, and “graves unknown” were used to create the impression that they were innocent victims. Emotional instrumentalisation serves to bypass the complexity of historical facts and to influence citizens through emotions rather than through analytical understanding of the facts.
Omitting historical context serves to relativize the historical role and responsibility of the Chetniks who committed mass atrocities. Unfortunately, despite thoroughly documented historiographical evidence of these crimes, supporters of this destructive ideology from the authorities and the SOC continue today to support the defeated Chetnik project and to deny the facts. The Chetniks also committed crimes against Serbs who joined the partisans or refused to cooperate with them – which refutes the claim that they “defended the Serbian people”. This dimension of intra-ethnic violence is important evidence of the political rather than national motivation of the Chetnik movement. However, through the fabrication of sentimental myths, well-known facts are being denied.
The use of scenography also serves manipulative purposes. Displaying Serbian flags and religious symbols (such as the cross), seeks to equate the Serbian people with the Chetniks, which is unacceptable and harmful to the Serbian people, who are unjustly being identified with the war crimes committed by the Chetniks.
Through the presence of a high-ranking Montenegrin state official at a revisionist gathering, an attempt is being made to justify in public the unacceptable – the rewriting of the shameful history of the Chetnik movement.At the same time, the Church and religion are being misused as moral authorities to win over the population for this project.
As stated in the annoucement by the Antifascists of Cetinje : the Chetniks of Pavle Đurišić and the Eighth “Iron Regiment” fought side by side with the notorious SS Division “Prinz Eugen”, the same one that, only about ten days earlier, had carried out the massacre in Velika, and a year before that had devastated Piva. At Krnovo, those same Chetniks helped the Nazis in once again get to Piva. These facts are documented in both partisan, Chetnik, and German documents and sources, and are available in archives and collections of documents.
Although the Parliament of Montenegro adopted the Resolution on the Genocide in Piva and Velica three years ago, condemning that crime, today the President of the Parliament is calling for a memorial, a “temple”, to be built in honor of some of its perpetrators. Efforts to violently reshape public memory in this way are possible only thanks to the fact that all coalition partners who constitute the Government (including PES, the Democrats, the Bosniak Party, and the Albanian parties) remain silent about the already erected revisionist memorials, as well as about the demands to erect new ones.
We reiterate the strongest opposition to the attempts to erect monuments, 80 years after the Second World War, to the lost Chetnik battles and the defeated ideas of ethnically pure territories. The Chetnik movement never, not even according to the biased interpretations of its supporters, had as its goal the freedom and equality of all citizens of Yugoslavia, but the domination of one ethnic group over all others. For that reason, the public glorification of their leaders is absolutely unacceptable. Anti-fascism is a universalist concept, free from ethnic exclusivity, while the Chetnik ideology promoted notorious ethnic cleansing, which is recorded even in the official programmatic documents of the Chetniks (for example, “Homogeneous Serbia” by Stevan Moljević).
Chetnik crimes were not isolated incidents but part of a deliberate policy, documented in Chetnik directives that call for the extermination of the “non-Orthodox” populations. In addition, the Chetniks, on several occasions, cooperated with the occupiers – the Nazis and the fascists – against the partisan forces, thereby betraying the idea of resistance and freedom, and for this reason, it is necessary to clearly and decisively reject all attempts at their public glorification.
Dina Bajramspahić, civic activist
Paula Petričević, civic activist
Filip Kuzman, Antifascists of Cetinje
Miloš Vukanović, Association of History Teachers of Montenegro – HIPMONT
Tea Gorjanc Prelević, Human Rights Action (HRA)
Daliborka Uljarević, Centre for Civic Education (CCE)
Ervina Dabižinović, Centre for Women’s and Peace Education ANIMA
Milena Popović Samardžić, NGO Ipso Facto
Maja Raičević, Women’s Rights Center
Velija Murić, Montenegrin Committee of Lawyers for the Protection of Human Rights
Jovana Marović, civic activist
Demir Ličina, Association “Štrpci – Against Oblivion”
Milica Kovačević, Centre for Democratic Transition (CDT)
Nevenka Vuksanović, Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM)
Milka Tadić Mijović Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG)
Zlatko Vujović, Centre for Monitoring and Research (CeMI)
Olivera Nikolić, Montenegrin Media Institute
Zorana Marković, Centre for Development of Non-Governmental Organisations (CRNVO)
Ivana Vojvodić, Juventas
Aida Perović, NGO PRIMA
Jovan Ulićević, Association Spektra
Staša Baštrica, Queer Montenegro
Ana Dedivanović, Stana
Slavica Striković, Women’s Action
Milica Kankaraš Berber, artist and activist
Dušan Pajović, civic activist
Nikoleta Đukanović, civic activist
Milena Bešić, civic activist
Aleksandar Saša Zeković, civic activist
Sabina Talović, civic activist
Almedina Dodić, Eduko Plus