What happened in Ljubljana the past weekend is shameful and unworthy of the Slovenian capital. On Sunday’s Europe Day, the centre of Ljubljana looked as if we were back in 1945. And none other than the mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković, took on the role of the main partisan. Of course, the president of The Union of the Associations for the Values of the National Liberation Movement of Slovenia (hereinafter referred to as the ZZB NOB), Marijan Križman, was also present. As expected, the two used their speeches at the Prešeren Square as an opportunity to attack the current government and also express their support for the Slovenian Press Agency.
In the capital of a European country, even the country that will hold the presidency of the European Union, in 2021, 70 years after the end of World War II., partisan gatherings took place on the Prešeren Square – in the midst of an epidemic, people were gathered there side by side, without any protective masks, without keeping a safe distance among each other, waving the flags with which the occupying Yugoslav People’s Army attacked Slovenia, and the main “partisan” Zoran Janković looked as if he had just arrived from the woods to tell everyone that Ljubljana has been liberated. In the background, there was also the former officer’s son from Vrhnika, who waved the Yugoslav flag with the totalitarian symbol on it.
According to Janković, no one can change the fact that the partisans were on the side of the allies, “on the side of those who defeated the greatest evil of the 20th century – fascism and Nazism.” He called the Home Guard “traitors of the nation” and reiterated that as long as he is part of the leadership of the city, there will be no monument to the Home Guard in Ljubljana. Janković often likes to mention fascism and Nazism together, but the greatest evils of humanity, as he likes to call them, should also include communism. However, when Janković finally realises this, he may already be replaced by someone who will bring Ljubljana from the current madness to a more normal time.
Once again, there was misleading regarding the historical facts
Regarding the liberation of Ljubljana, the mayor of the city, Zoran Janković, once again falsely stated that it should be clear that on May 9th, 1945, the city of Ljubljana was liberated by the partisan units which wore the red star. This is a lie that has been proven to be false by the renowned Slovenian historian Stane Granda, who has repeatedly said that the occupier certainly did not leave the territory because of the victorious partisan army, but because of what was happening on the eastern and western fronts. “The occupiers withdrew – is it called liberation if someone withdraws because of others? The fact is that there were serious fights, even on the outskirts of Ljubljana, there were a lot of casualties.”
In addition to Križman, Janković was full of accusations about attempts to falsify history. How much Janković really knows about the actual picture of history has been proven several times before. In the past, for example, he claimed that if the partisans had not liberated us, the people of Ljubljana would have been speaking Italian, German or Hungarian. “What Janković is saying does not correspond with any of the historical facts. First, the Italians left as early as 1943; the second fact is that the victory did not happen here; it was won on other fronts, but not here. And such an opinion goes against all of the basic facts. By claiming such things, he is actually denying the share of the Western and Eastern Allies in the matter and falsifying history. He is making fun of the Soviet and American victims,” Granda explained.
In his speech, Križman criticised the government for not inviting the ZZB NOB to a recent ceremony on Mala Gora. “Even if they do not like me, we have other people, too,” he said, according to the STA, and asked whose celebration it even was. Of course, the criticism is completely unjustified, as it is clear that the celebration took place at a location where the Revolutionary Organisation of the Julian March T. I. G. R., which was the first to start an armed resistance against fascism, was betrayed by the ancestors of the ZZB NOB. Their participation would only make sense if they apologised for the betrayal of T. I. G. R. And, as is known, Križman is very dissatisfied with the current government, so he, of course, had to repeat his well-known mantra about tweets and their “hostility” in his speech. “We have not heard or seen as many hateful words and hateful tweets as we have received lately in the last 40 or 50 years.” He believes it is high time to call a new election. Namely, he wants the left to return to power.
Sara Kovač/E-Maribor
