24.01.2019.
Marking the Day of Odbrana Media Centre and 140 years of military press
Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin has attended today the ceremony marking the Day of Odbrana Media Centre and 140 years of military press in Serbia at the ceremonial hall of the Central Military Club.
Congratulating the holiday to the members of the Odbrana Media Centre, Minister Vulin pointed out that 140 years of military press was the jubilee of top professionals who knew their army, who knew their craft, but who loved their army above everything and were with it at all times.
- No one could ever possibly make a distinction between the army and the people with certainty. No one in the history of the Serbian people was able to completely distinguish between a soldier from a civilian when tough times hit, because the people that lasted in those 140 years, which was written about, was an army. So it was, and so it will be.
- Minister Vulin said adding that this is the reason for invincibility, because “an army can capitulate, but the people cannot capitulate, and the Serbian army is people and therefore it could not be defeated and will never be defeated”.According to him, 140 years of writing is actually 140 years of memory, and we Serbs tend to believe as a people that the truth itself is sufficient and that what we know that is true is enough and that it is not necessary to talk about it, because the truth itself will find its way. He recalled that because of such characteristic of the Serbian people, we came to the point that 100 years later there is an organised wave of revision saying that all the participants in the World War I are equal victims.
- We are not all the same and we will never all be the same. It cannot be forgotten, Vulin said, adding that it is often said that Serbs are people who wish to be a soldier and a warrior, and that Serbs are in fact only people who wish to live, survive and last.- Just because we were silent about Jasenovac and allowed ourselves not to remember, we came to the point that we have to prove again and explain that twenty thousand slaughtered children in Jasenovac are crimes that humanity does not remember, Minister Vulin pointed out, adding that no one could believe that only seventy years later Jasenovac will be a labor camp, and the heads of the Croatian state will talk about the number of victims as the main and only criterion, and that we will come to the point that the fascists are spoken about well and fine.
- Who could have believed that it would take only seventy years to hear here in our martyred Serbia a nice word for Dimitrije Ljotić? Who could have believed that we will hear a good word about this human waste that led Serbian children before the German bayonet in that terrible horror and crime in Kragujevac, the minister of defence said.
This year, he reminded, 20 years since the NATO aggression will be marked and, he added that this year we will remember every day, as it was, without any shame or fear, because we have nothing to be ashamed of or afraid because we were not afraid then either.
- “It has been 20 years since horror happened in which dozens of our children were killed, in which there was an attempt to take Kosovo and Metohija by force. It has been 20 years in which we still mention the names of those who have never grown up, in which we remember those who were the best and the bravest and did not deserve to die”, Vulin said, adding that he cannot accept that only civilians are being spoken of as innocent victims. “All the victims of the NATO aggression are innocent, because no one has the right to come to your country and kill you only because you wear a uniform defending your country, just as no one has the right to kill a three-year-old child, an old woman, a man, a woman.”“In that year 1999”, minister Vulin pointed out, “one could not possibly make a distinction between the army and the people with certainty, and those who bombed us acted exactly like that, not recognising the existence of the front line or the rear, because everything and everyone was a target”.
- These 140 years include also these 20 years of memory, 20 years after which we will not be ashamed because we did not initiate or cause any war and we will not be afraid, because we were not afraid in any war, - Minister Vulin said congratulating all the winners and wishing them to continue to have a lot of great texts and contributions so that we can all be proud of our army for a long time. And he said to the Serbian Armed Forces that its state and the people loved, respected and appreciated it.
At today's ceremony, the Ivan Marković Journalism Prize was traditionally awarded for the best journalistic contribution in 2018. The jury unanimously decided that this recognition belongs to the Radio Television of Serbia team, for the direct television coverage of the Century of Victors 1918-2018 exercise, broadcast on the First Programme of the RTS, on 10th November 2018.Minister Vulin presented the award to the author's team that consisted of the project leader and director Veselin Grozdanić, executive editor of the broadcast Saša Barbulović, producer Petar Milošaković and technical director of the project. Žika Miljković.
The Minister of Defence also presented special awards for the jubilee - 140 years of military press, awarded by the jury for this week to Politika daily: “Nineteen years since the Kumanovo Agreement”, published on 10th June 2018, to authors Toma Todorović, Miroslav Lazanski and Milan Galović.
Speaking about the significance of the anniversary, Colonel Stevica Karapandzin, director of Odbrana Media Centre, pointed out that the achieved results testify that this institution remains a worthy successor to the “Ratnik” (The Warrior) journal, as the ideological source of the written word.
- Summarizing the results of marking the century since the victory in the Great War, we proudly emphasize that in the past four years we have done a lot to restore the memory of what must not be forgotten. It is not just a matter of contributing to the communication of the truth about the times of heroism and unrecognized patriotism, but also on the fight against the revision of history and emphasizing the need to incorporate the values inherited from the old warriors into the identity of the modern Serbian Armed Forces, as evidenced by the exhibition entitled “Diana's Children” and the edition of the “Ratnik” journal.
Director of Odbrana Media Centre presented the Plaque of the Ministry of Defence to academic painter Predrag Đakoviž, the best contributor in 2018, whose exhibition entitled “Golgotha and Easter” at the Great Gallery of the Central Military Club had significant publicity.
As a sign of gratitude for the successful cooperation in the year behind us, the Odbrana Media Centre has given awards to Prof. Mirjana Zorić, PhD, for news and information activities, to Ivan Mangov, architect of the exhibition “Diana's children”, for the field of culture promotion, as well as to Prof. Aleksandar Životić, author of several important historiography books for the field of publishing.Today's ceremony was attended also by Lieutenant General Milan Mojsilović, Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, representatives of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, numerous associates and friends of Odbrana Media Centre.
Within the marking of the jubillee, after the ceremony, the guests had the opportunity to see the exhibition “By pen and the sword”, by Lieutenant-Colonel Ivan Mijatović, PhD.
On behalf of the award-winning team of Radio-Television of Serbia, Veselin Grozdanić pointed out that this was a beautiful professional award to RTS and the team that counted more than 200 people, as well as recognition to colleagues from Zastava Film MFC for their outstanding contribution to the execution of the broadcast, and all together, and also a great deal of satisfaction for the successful completion of the task set before television producers.
Miroslav Lazanski, on behalf of the authors' team from the Politika newspaper, pointed out that this award is extremely important to him and his colleagues, because it comes exactly from the Serbian Armed Forces as an acknowledgment for the long-term monitoring of the activities of the Serbian Armed Forces, but also because the jury, in assessing the contributions, recognised that the army of the then FR Yugoslavia did not capitulate in NATO aggression.
Odbrana Media Centre celebrates its Day in memory of 24th January 1879, when the first issue of the “Ratnik” military journal.was published in Serbia, whose tradition is continued by the Odbrana journal.
