The Medov tragedy represents the peak of patriotism, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Igor Lukšić, and assessed that Montenegro owes a lot to its emigration.
Today, the Rectorate of the University of Montenegro held a Ceremonial Academy on the occasion of marking the centenary of the suffering of Montenegrin war volunteers near the Albanian port of Medova.
The photo exhibition "From Medova to Lovćenska Villa" was also opened and the monograph "Century of Remembrance, Medova 1916-2016" was promoted, published by Matica Montenegrin, the Diaspora Administration and two expatriate associations of the United States of America and Canada.
Lukšić assessed that the Medovo tragedy represents the pinnacle of patriotism, patriotism and willingness to go to death for one's people and country.
"I admit, in the overall balance, Montenegro owes a lot to its emigration, because as a rule, it is mostly remembered only in significant and critical moments of its history. In that sense, we have not, and cannot, repay the victims of the emigrants from the ship Brindisi enough," he said.
According to Lukšić, the Montenegrin people first expressed their stronger memory of that event in 1940, by erecting the Lovcen villa monument in Cetinje.
"Today, and especially after Montenegro regained its independence, this event is slowly becoming what it should have always been - a role model and guide in a moral, human and patriotic sense," he added.
Lukšić said that today, thanks to Montenegrin emigrants, Montenegro is sovereign, stable and prosperous.
He said that on that fateful January 1916, Montenegrin freedom became a distant dream, the Montenegrin royal power was humiliated by capitulation, the Montenegrin army was dissected, demoralized, perished en masse at Mojkovac, and the volunteers under Medova.
As he added, until the end of the Great War, the Montenegrin state-building name gradually disappeared, and everything led to the oblivion of the name of the knightly, Podlovčen people, as well as the Petrović Njegoš dynasty.
"Hope was reborn thirty years later, in the magnificent national liberation struggle, which significantly recovered what belonged to our old Balkan state in the state sense," Lukšić added.
As he stated, on May 21, 2006, after the democratic referendum, Montenegro again proudly raised its flag in the family of European and world countries.
"What the volunteers from Medova did not see, today's generations of their descendants saw. All the patriots and heroes of Montenegrin history owe a great deal to all that, and our heroes from Medova also deserve a great deal," said Lukšić.
He expressed, as he said, eternal gratitude and glory to our ancestors, volunteers and victims, with the hope that the event in Medov would never happen again.
Director of the Diaspora Administration, Predrag Mitrović, said that the shipwreck of Montenegrin volunteers from America is the greatest mass tragedy in the history of our emigration and one of the brightest examples of patriotism in the history of Montenegro.
As he said, the Administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, in cooperation with the competent authorities, will continue to work this year on highlighting that tragedy, as well as installing a memorial plaque in the port of Medova.
"Neither we nor the citizens of Montenegro will forget the Medovo tragedy, both in the country and in the diaspora. Together, we will preserve the memory of the sacrifice of the victims of Medova and treat each name with reverence. The complete program of the centenary is to remember them and their names. Eternal glory and thanks be to them," Mitrović said.
The editor of the monograph that was promoted today, Marko Špadijer, pointed out the need to nurture the culture of memory.
"These days, the national memory of the last days of glory, but also the disappearance of the Kingdom of Montenegro, as a sovereign state, in the whirlwinds of the Great War, which owes its resurrection to the unconquered spirit of freedom and national self-awareness, which in the last century were subjected to great trials, is being refreshed." he said.
Spadijer said that the new generations should not be buried with the consciousness of past times, especially not, as he said, with history prepared for ideological and nationalist use, but should be trained for their own critical valorization.
"In order to remember our feats and deaths in a civilized and permanent way, institutions must be built that will maintain awareness of respect for the past," he said.
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