The letter of academics of HAZ to the Croatian state leadership about the need to make the European path of neighbors (Montenegro, BiH and Serbia) conditional on certain issues of national importance for Croatia, as expected, caused numerous reactions.
On the one hand, people here remember that academics can also be ominous birds - it all started with the infamous By memorandum - and secondly, few people today in these countries are at all interested in what academics think. Both "ours" and "theirs". Politicians, it's true, sometimes like those academic center shots - they give them the opportunity for some kind of lavish execution - but the impression is that today all that doesn't have the same weight as it used to. Admittedly, this applies more or less to everyone.
The very entry into the EU gives the neighbors who have completed the job an opportunity to hit the future Europeans with a stick. After all, do you remember how Slovenia ironed Croatia with the Gulf of Piran and the former savings of the Ljubljanska banka? They are what I would say "eternal" Money, our people, our nature. All will be arranged in our "European warm rabbit".
Part of the negative reactions, it seems quite rightly, was directed at the tone of the letter. Behind some lines, it is difficult to hide the infantile malice of the embittered ancients. Intonations that recall the spirit and time of the Memorandum cannot bring anyone good. It's probably the most accurate Lekićeva wording - this gesture should not be "neither underestimated nor overestimated".
After all, all the things emphasized in the letter could have been said somewhat differently. But then the political ambition of this oppression would not be visible, which is probably more important to the authors than anything else. Academics talk about more or less defined things, such as land and sea borders, but it is evident that the reactions, in addition to the intonation itself, emphasize only those moments in the foreground.
In short - "polite" right-wing rhetoric, with the doping of national vigilance. So, everything is mostly clear. Except…
In addition to the issue of borders and war reparations, the letter of the HAZU academic clearly mentions the return of stolen cultural treasures.
While I see these first two issues (war reparations and borders) as an ideal stage for classic Balkan skirmishes, this third moment should attract a bit more attention. And I see that none of the politicians and other interested parties mention it.
Stolen treasure? What treasure? Wasn't it all returned? We, here in Montenegro, live in the belief that everything that should have been returned - and was returned. I remember, back in the days of the Minister of Culture Branimir Popović, one of the large painting collections, if I remember correctly, of the works of the people of Dubrovnik was returned Milovan Stanić...
But academics talk about the "return of stolen treasure", and from "this side", no one says that it was stolen - returned. If so, of course.
That is already an interesting quote. Because it could mean that it is exactly like that, that is, that the stolen treasure - was not returned. And indeed, the academics are right here - I don't believe it's moral to go to Europe, or anywhere, and not return what you stole to your neighbor.
I would like one of the Montenegrin officials to explain: has everything that was stolen from the cultural assets in the XNUMXs during the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia been returned? The public has long been under the impression that this shameful episode was closed in the only possible way: with the return of the robbed.
From the fact that no one told them after the Academician's letter to HAZU, it could mean that they are right, that is, that the stolen cultural treasure was not returned. In that case, a new set of questions would have to be opened. Is it possible that not everything was returned? Why and thanks to whom?
If everything was really returned, that fact would most strongly discredit the tone and spirit of the letter from HAZU. So why haven't we heard it?
In the end, someone from the Ministry of Culture or the Government would have to come forward and say clearly - whether the stolen item was returned, whether there is a record of it, whether it happened according to the appropriate procedures. Or, if not, why not?
Who knows, maybe there is some "Shaner" patriotism on the scene...
Bonus video:
