Capital city of Podgorica, Secretariat for Culture and Sports, (N/R: Acting Secretary, Mrs. Ana Medigović)
The proposal that the house in Podgorica in Ivana Crnojevića street no. 18 placed a memorial (memorial plaque) to the national hero Komnen Cerović
Komnen Cerović (1916-2000) is one of the most important Montenegrin personalities of the second half of the 1954th century. With his courage, vision and ethics, Komnen Cerović marked the time in which he lived and left a unique and indelible mark in the modern history of Titograd, and also of Montenegro. And then when he was part of the very top of the Montenegrin communist government until 1941 and then when he voluntarily stopped being so. With his life, he shone with the brilliance of one of the best people of his time. The Montenegrin history of the second half of the 1945th century does not have many personalities who can rise to the level of "examples". But one of those "examples" is undoubtedly Komnen Cerović. Into the Revolution of 1941-XNUMX. he invested himself and his passion. He came out of the war as a bearer of the "Partisan Monument in XNUMX" and later received the Order of "National Hero".
Because of his political support for the liberal ideas of Milovan Đilas and his attempt to democratize Yugoslav society, Komnen Cerović fell politically in 1954 - as the media and propaganda said at the time. The alleged "betrayal" of the Party (SKJ) and the Revolution should not have gone unpunished. Especially if it is a "betrayal" from his champion and respectable. He was dismissed almost immediately from all leading party and state positions. He was brutally exposed to political, social, police and any other isolation by the top of the Titograd, Montenegrin and Yugoslav political authorities. Also, he was exposed to decades of very modest family material life.
Confined to himself and his freedom, Komnen Cerović built his imperative by jumping high from the then political and state local and wider environment. In other words, as soon as he "fell" from power, K. Cerović was already elusive for Montenegrin landowners and lovers of all kinds of government. He built a higher level of internal freedom by surrounding himself with a solid wall of political inviolability and moral intransigence. Despite all kinds of pressure over a long series of years, Komnen Cerović remained persistent, irrepressible and invincible.
Surrounded by decades of silence around him, and urban and social excommunication, Komnen Cerović lived the life of a silent guardian of the torch of freedom in Montenegrin society. With the sense of individual virtue and the struggle for universal ethics, Komnen Cerović made a civilizational feat worthy of greatness and unforgettable that the city of Podgorica and Montenegro must not forget.
Titograd did not have, nor should it have, many "islands" of political or any other freedom. On the contrary. But it is certain that one of those "deserted islands" was the house where K. Cerović lived. Therefore, it is the duty and moral imperative of the current Montenegrin society, Podgorica and its administrative body: the Secretariat for Culture and Sports of the Capital City of Podgorica, to which this proposal was addressed and whose main activity is "erecting memorials" (Official Gazette of Montenegro - Municipal regulations no. .19/13), that a memorial plaque with his name and image be placed on the house where Komnen Cerović lived from 1954 until his death in 2000 in memory of this man. It is a request from the past and a warning from the future. But also a requirement of the present and a roadmap that can only lead Montenegrin society upwards and for the better. By placing a memorial plaque to K. Cerović, the city of Podgorica and Montenegro would remove some of the ideological dust that fell on this man. This would give Titograd and today's Podgorica a new glow. I shine by example, courtesy, repentance and admonition.
In a word, higher culture.
Komnen Cerović was born in the village of Tušina near Šavnik in 1916. He finished elementary school in Boan and high school in Pljevlje. He entered the Faculty of Forestry and Law in Belgrade in 1937 and 1939 respectively. As a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from 1939, but also earlier, he participated in numerous demonstrations before the Second World War. He was both arrested and tried. During the Thirteenth of July Uprising in 1941, he managed the military sector at the Central Committee of the KPJ in Pljevlja. In the Second World War, he performed several leadership military duties (Secretary of the Regional Committee of the KPJ in Pljevlja, Political Commissar of the Second Battalion of the Third Proletarian Sandžak Brigade, member of the Regional Committee of the KPJ for Sandžak, Deputy Political Commissar at the Main Staff for Sandžak, etc.). In mid-June 1946, Cerović was appointed Minister of Trade and Supply in the first post-war Montenegrin government. Later, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Industry in the Government of Montenegro and Vice President of the Executive Council of the Republic of Montenegro. He was a member of the KPJ Provincial Committee for Montenegro, and at the founding congress of the KPJ of Montenegro, Cerović was elected a member of the Central Committee and a member of the Politburo. He was also a member of the National Assembly of Montenegro and the Assembly of the FNR of Yugoslavia.
Komnen Cerović died in Podgorica in March 2000. He was buried in the family tomb in Podgorica.
Proposer,
Veselin PAVLICEVIĆ
Bonus video:
