27.02.2018.
Century Long Memory of the Iron Regiment
- This is a year when the world bids farewell to the memories of the First World War in an organised, serious and loud way. In the previous four years Serbia once again relived its history, its Golgotha, victory and resurrection, and during that time, the great and mighty once again tried to change the history – said Minister Vulin this evening in the Russian House at official ceremony titled “In honour of the Iron Regiment” to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.
- They tried to present historical fact in a different way, to use their greatness and strength, and power as the sole justification, to rewrite and remake the history of the First World War, to blame the victims, and portray the potentates as innocent. Like in the First World War, exactly 100 years ago, the force did not win – the minister of defence said and added that the strength and pride of our ancestors were alive in each of us, in the children that were learning to walk, and they proved that this nation could not be obliterated from historical stage by force and lies.
- In these four years desperate and great efforts were made to portray this small and weak country, our Serbia and its people, as the cause for the beginning of the First World War, as the essential cause for the death of tens of million people. Do not forget, every time they tell you to forget, the ones telling you that make sure that they remembered. The great and mighty have never spoken about their history as the cause of evil, but they have always asked from us who are small in numbers and poor to forget our history and accept somebody else’s, to let them write it for us, and the way they write it we should live it – the minister of defence said and added that sometimes, to our own shame and the same of our descendants and predecessors, we forgot our history and allowed the truth to be forgotten.
- One hundred years is little time for a victim to become an executioner, it is a little time to confuse and forget who did what and who was where in the First and all other wars that followed. It is too little time to forget the Iron Regiment, the heroism of its warriors and bravery of the people that created it, and do not forget that when we speak about the Serbian Army we speak about Serbian people and when you say the name of any Serbian unit you say the name of the entire people, because the Serbian Army has always been the armed force of a nation, that existed for the nation and which has never been distant from the nation – Minister Vulin said and added that there has always stood an equality sign between the Serbian army and the Serbian people.
- You could never tell them apart or separate them, not even in marches through Albanian ravines, or in the front lines, nor later when the times of peace returned the survived back to ploughs and schools, or during and after the wars and conflicts, withdrawals, defeats and victories; you could never tell the Serbian army and Serbian people apart. It is the same today, and that is why it is important, in this moment when the humanity bids farewell to the First World War, that we speak as descendants of one of the rare nations who have nothing to reproach ourselves for in that or in any later war. If they reproach us for our thirst and fight for freedom, one hundred years is little time to forget who was where and how the history recorded it, because the ones who held tightly their terrified children in churches of Mačva and the ones who burnt the churches full of people can never be the same, just like the ones who on the stone of Mačva defended their right and the right of their village that was just behind them to survive and remain, were not the same as those who called themselves the Devil’s units. One hundred years is little time to forget that the first concentration camps in the First World War, and some say in history, were made for Serbian hostages scattered in then Austro-Hungary. It is too little time to forget when the first hangings started in Herzegovina, how the riff-raff burnt Serbian property in Sarajevo, and to forget that in the First World War every third member of the Serbian people, older than 16 was dead, and that the Serbian people is the only people in history of civilisation who kept their right to freedom, sacrificed the best that it had and sent 1300 corporals, its future to the front lines. It is too little time to forget the Toplica Uprising started not because it was wanted but in order for the sons not to be mobilised and taken to Bulgarian trenches on Kajmakčalan to be targeted by Serbian artillery and to be pierced by the bayonets of their fathers – the minister of defence said and reminded that the Toplica Uprising had broken out as a cry of sons who thought that if they had to die then let it be by enemy’s hand than by the hand of their brother of father who were far away behind Kajmakčalan.
- One hundred years is too little time to forget that this people was where it is today. You and I are standing, dreaming and look forward to tomorrow and it was the same one hundred years ago with the people unable to choose where they would be born but choosing to live in freedom in the place where it was born. It is a nation of victors who bring to life, like hundred years ago, its sons and give them names such as Slobodan (the one who is free), Miroljub (the one who loves peace) and sometimes it has to be Ratko (the one who wages war). It is a nation that uses freedom to define the reason for its existence and that is why this evening is our way to repay our great ancestors at least a little bit, unworthy as we are, and also, talking to our children, showing them the photographs and telling the stories about the great and glorious ancestors, to show what we wish to be like and to be worthy of their memory. Tonight, we wish to show to our ancestors that they live in us and that the ones who are yet to come will be even more worthy of their memory – Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin said and concluded his speech saying – May the glory of the heroes of the Iron Regiment be everlasting, and for the rebels of Toplica and all those who exactly hundred years ago had the courage to be and remain here for their country and their people, against all odds, winning when no one but Serbs believed in victory, but that was enough.
Co-organisers of tonight’s event in the Russian house were the Association of Inhabitants of Toplica in Belgrade and Association of Descendants of the Volunteers of the Liberation Wars 1912-1918.
Official event, at which also spoke Dragan Vladisavlјević President of the Association of Inhabitants of Toplica in Belgrade and a representative of the Russian House, was also attended by representatives of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, diplomatic corps and the Ministry of Defence and Serbian Armed Forces.
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