24.01.2017.

Ceremony marking the Day of Media Centre Odbrana

The Media Centre Odbrana has marked today in the Grand Hall of the Central Military Club the day, when in 1879 in Serbia the first issue of the military newspaper "Warrior" was published, whose tradition magazine "Odbrana" continues, as well as 138 years of the military press in Serbia.

Свечаност поводом Дана Медија центра Одбрана

The ceremony was attended by the Defence Minister Zoran Djordjevic and the Serbian Armed Forces Chief of General Staff General Ljubisa Dikovic with the members of the Collegium, as well as numerous guests, associates and friends of the editorial office of the magazine “Odbrana” and the Media Centre “Odbrana”.
On that occasion, traditionally, the journalist prize “Ivan Markovic” for reporting on the activities of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces and awards to the best athlete and sports team of the Serbian Armed Forces in 2016 were presented.

The journalist prize “Ivan Markovic” in 2016 has been awarded to Olivera Kovacevic, Entertainment Editor at Radio Television of Serbia for the show “Yes Maybe No” on the topic “Heroes of Kosare Battle in Kosovo and Metohija during 1998-1999” aired on 2nd June 2016 on RTS1.

The best athlete of the Serbian Armed Forces in 2016 is Lance Corporal Natasa Culafic whereas the title of the most successful sports team was given to Women Athlete Representation of the Serbian Armed Forces.

Congratulating the members of the Media Centre Odbrana on their holiday, Minister Djordjevic told them that they would have the support of the defence system management in the following period, as well.

Reminding the present ones of the rich tradition of military journalism and the Central Military Club, the Head of the Public Relations Department Navy Captain Petar Boskovic emphasized that the Central Military Club was once again the central place of cultural and artistic life of Belgrade, which preserves the memory of the brave Serbian warriors, heroes and fighters in liberation wars at the same time, and it also cherishes the most precious things created under the Army auspices.

“The experience has shown, and we firmly stand behind such belief, that by integration of functions and organizational solutions which strongly connect related activities, we can achieve even better results. Thus we work persistently and with arguments on integration of communication and culture functions in order to create cultural events in a more efficient way and to cover them professionally”, Navy Captain Boskovic stressed.

According to the Director of the Media Centre Odbrana Colonel Stevica Karapandzin, the collective of the Media Centre Odbrana consists of top professionals and people dedicated to their jobs, who year by year prove themselves by profiling place and role of the institution and performing very important mission of presenting the defence system to the public and establishing the significant relation of the armed forces and nation. In support of this argument there is data that the members of the Media Centre Odbrana have covered five events daily, have travelled thousands of kilometres to perform everyday tasks, a book has been published every three days on average, and the number of events in the Central Military Club is greater for 49 than the total number of working days last year.

“The Media Centre Odbrana has lethal arsenal of weapons at its disposal, but intended exclusively for peacemaking within soldiers’ beings. That peace, if it is built on true values, comes out and spreads outside the individual domain, which is the pith of our military tradition. The Serbian soldiers went into defensive wars throughout history with such peace”, Colonel Karapandzin emphasized.

Media Centre Odbrana has established successful cooperation with numerous state and cultural institutions, as well as distinguished individuals in 2016. During the ceremony today, as a sign of gratitude, certificates of appreciation have been presented to Milos Strugar, the author of analytical texts in the field of geopolitics and international security, Colonel Slavisa Golubovic, the author of the book “The Fall of the Night Hawk”, the best selling edition of the Media Centre Odbrana at the moment and Bojana Boric-Breskovic, MA, the Director of the National Museum in Belgrade.

During 2016, in cooperation with the General Secretariat of the President of the Republic of Serbia and the National Museum of Cacak, the Media Centre Odbrana has organized a very important exhibition of decorations, uniform and sabre - “Field Marshal Petar Bojovic – a symbol of glory and honour”. In that name, the Plaque of the Ministry of Defence for the best associate of the Media Centre Odbrana in 2016 has been awarded to the General Secretariat of the President of the Republic of Serbia presented at the ceremony today to Nedeljko Tenjovic, Secretary General of the Serbian President.