20.06.2014.

Paid respects to the executed Slovaks and Czechs

A wreath-laying ceremony at the Czech-Slovak military cemetery complex in Kragujevac marked the traditional Serbian and Slovakian commemorative event in memory of Slovak and Czech soldiers who were executed in the city in 1918.

The wreaths were laid by State Secretary at the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Policy Dragan Popovic, officials of the Slovakian Embassy in Belgrade, Serbian Armed Forces and Ministry of Defense, and the Mayor of Kragujevac Veroljub Stevanovic.

In the last year of the First World War, a mutiny broke out in the Austro-Hungarian 71st Trencín infantry regiment, consisting mostly of Slovaks and a smaller number of Czechs. For this, the soldiers were court-martialed and then executed by firing squad on June 21, 1918 at Stanovljanska polja.

The soldiers of the regiment came to Kragujevac from Russia after the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty in 1918, and were under great influence of the October Revolution, which led them to rise against their superiors – Germans and Hungarians.

The idea of the necessity of building the memorial complex came to life in June 1922, and was initiated by present Head of the Military Music Service Nikola Stevanovic, and the defence representative of the Republic of Czechoslovakia in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

The construction began in 1924, when a white marble monument was built in memory of the executed Slovaks and Czechs; on its top stands a bronze sculpture of an eagle with spread wings.

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Paid respects to the executed Slovaks and Czechs