Commemoration of the WWI execution of Slovak and Czech soldiers
Every year in June the City of Kragujevac commemorates the rebellion of Slovak and Czech soldiers against Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, followed by the killing of 44 rebel leaders. At the ceremony organized by the Government of the Republic of Serbia wreaths were laid by Slovak Ambassador to Serbia HE Igor Furdik, Mayor of Kragujevac Veroljub Stevanovic with their associates, defense envoys accredited to Belgrade from Austria, Japan, Germany and Czech Republic, as well as representatives of the Serbian ministries.
“This event that occurred at the end of the World War I made a deep impact on Slovak history therefore it has got a special place in it. The spot that we visit every year along with our Kragujevac friends is dedicated to the Slovak soldiers who demonstrated courage, decisiveness and human protest against the WWI. What we have left is the remembrance and we are entrusted with the memory, so we are not to repeat the same mistakes”, said Ambassador Furdik.
“The monument was built in 1924, and it symbolizes brotherly relations between Serbian and Slovak people, our joint ambition for freedom, both national and human. Serbian people showed their respect for the greatness of sacrifice of Slovak soldiers by constructing this monument before building the one for its own heroes and victims of WWI”, Mayor Stevanovic remarked on the occasion of 92nd anniversary.
Esteem for the greatness of their sacrifice is best reflected by the inscription carved into the monument since it hasn’t lost anything of its authentic emotions: “By the last look full of hope directed towards the Sky of Justice, to us their brothers and to faraway tortured homeland of theirs, they died and were buried here, on this sacred place, faraway from their beautiful fatherland, yet in the environment of ours, which knows to appreciate righteous their great ideas and enormous love for us, for whom they lost their lives.”
