"Let's build schools, hospitals and children's playgrounds. We cannot erase or change the past" - this is how Lana from Belgrade responds to the initiative of the mayor of the capital of Serbia, Aleksandar Šapić, which resonated outside of Serbia.
Šapić, the candidate of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) for the same position in the upcoming elections in Belgrade, advocated that the Museum of Yugoslavia become a "museum of Serbian history".
He also announced the initiative to return the grave of Josip Broz Tito, which is located in the museum complex, to Kumrovec, Croatia, where the lifelong president of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was born.
"Šapić is running a campaign on a populist and nationalist wave and will certainly have more similar proposals. I don't even remember that period, but it all has great significance as a cultural monument," Nemanja from Belgrade told Radio Free Europe (RSE).
Advocating for the "relocation" of Tito's tomb was part of the program of most right-wing parties in Serbia, but this is the first time that it has come from representatives of the authorities.
Even in the early nineties, the radicals of the Hague convict Vojislav Šešelj demanded the same thing.
"I don't know what political points he can get and what kind of political program is it where you destroy the cultural heritage of a city?" asks historian Branka Prpa.
While the Ministry of Culture of Serbia does not answer RSE's questions about the initiative to move Tito's grave and abolish one of the most visited museums in the country, reactions are coming from mayors from neighboring states.
The leaders of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina said that the legacy of the leader of the anti-fascist struggle in the Second World War is welcome in that city.
The mayor of Cetinje in Montenegro reacted the same way, and the idea of Josip Broz returning to his native Kumrovec was supported by the mayor of that municipality in Croatia.
Josip Broz Tito died on May 4, 1980 in Ljubljana.
Four days later, he was buried in the winter garden of his Belgrade residence in Dedinje, which was later named "House of Flowers".
What did Šapić say?
"I will launch an initiative to bring Josip Broz back to Kumrovec, where he came from, and for the House of Flowers to be the place where the greatest Serbian great men will rest, for it to be a museum of Serbian history," Šapić announced on Instagram on April 3, his statement from a guest appearance on tabloid television Informer.
The Historical Museum of Serbia, for which Šapić advocated, has existed in Belgrade since 1963.
"He preserves that cultural heritage when it comes to artifacts. And when it comes to documents, it is preserved by the Archives of Serbia," historian Branka Prpa reminds RSE.
What does the Museum of Yugoslavia keep?
The Museum of Yugoslavia does not want to comment on Šapić's statements.
Under the name Museum of the History of Yugoslavia, it was founded in 1996.
Today, it includes the House of Flowers, which contains the tombs of Broz and his wife Jovanka, the Old Museum with a permanent exhibition and the "May 25" Museum with thematic exhibitions.
Within the complex is the "Sculpture Park" with 20 works by famous Yugoslav artists, such as Antun Augustinčić, Fran Kršinić, Stevan Bodnarov and others.
The Museum's more than 200.000 exhibits illustrate Yugoslav history during the 20th century, with an emphasis on the life and work of Josip Broz Tito.
"We can be happy to have it due to the fact that this Museum, like the Archive of Yugoslavia, entered the succession after the breakup of the Yugoslav state. The principle of provenance was respected, that is, where something was created, it should remain on the territory of Belgrade," says Prpa.
"These are international agreements on succession and other matters, and this cannot be resolved as Šapić thinks, primarily because the Serbian state has taken responsibility for preserving that cultural heritage," says Prpa.
Since its opening in 1982, the House of Flowers has been visited by around 20 million people. Mostly foreigners from all over the world, according to the information of the Tourist Organization of Belgrade.
'Milosevic buried like a canary'
After the post on Instagram, Šapić further explained the initiative about "relocating" Tito's grave.
"This is not about someone wanting to destroy that building, or to forget about that period of our history. We should never forget about the period of communist history, because it is one of the most disastrous for the Serbian people," Šapić said. April 4 for Pink Television.
He praised the leader of the Chetnik movement in the Second World War, Dragoljub Mihailović, who was convicted in 1946 for war crimes and collaboration with Nazi Germany.
In 2015, the High Court in Belgrade ruled that Mihailović's trial was a "political-ideological process of the communist regime", but that the court is not competent to establish the facts of whether he was a war criminal.
Šapić also referred to the former president of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, who died in 2006 in the custody of the Hague Tribunal, where he was tried for crimes during the wars of the XNUMXs in the former Yugoslavia.
He was buried in the yard of the family house in Požarevac.
"We buried Milošević like a canary, he wasn't even buried in the cemetery, and this one (Tito) lies here in Dedinje," Šapić added.
During his political career, the former water polo player took pictures with convicted war criminal Veselin Šljivančanin on two occasions.
A member of his party SPAS (Serbian Patriotic Union), which merged into the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in 2023, is Svetozar Andrić, who is under investigation in Bosnia and Herzegovina for war crimes.
During the campaign so far, Šapić, as a SNS candidate, said that Belgrade needs a "Serbian mayor" who will not allow "secessionist and anti-Serb politics".
"The problem is that Serbian society is undergoing rehabilitation of theses, personalities and ideas that brought this country to war and horror in the 1990s. And Šapić is part of that matrix," says historian Branka Prpa.
Šapić's initiative was opposed by SNS coalition partners from the Socialist Party of Serbia.
The initiative was also criticized by the parties of the opposition coalition "Serbia against violence" - the Green-Left Front and the Movement of Free Citizens.
All requests for the 'displacement' of Tito
The tomb of Josip Broz Tito has been a target of right-wing movements and parties since the beginning of the nineties and the collapse of Yugoslavia.
On the eleventh anniversary of his death, on May 4, 1991, radical leader and later Hague convict Vojislav Šešelj and his supporters brought a hawthorn stake in front of the "House of Flowers" in order to prevent Tito from "vampirizing".
Then Šešelj, like Šapić, requested that Tito's remains be moved from Belgrade to his native Kumrovec in Croatia.
Residents of the former Yugoslav republics are the most numerous visitors every May 4, on the day of Tito's death and on May 25, when Youth Day (Broz's birthday) was celebrated, Belgrade, May 25, 2020.
The same request was made in 2000 by the leader of the right-wing opposition movement Dveri Boško Obradović.
The initiative is still in the pre-election program of the Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia, whose leader is the grandson of Dragoljub Mihailović, Vojislav Mihailović.
What do they say in Sarajevo?
There is a place for Tito's legacy in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Prime Minister of Sarajevo Canton Nihad Uk said after Šapić's speech.
He accused the mayor of Belgrade of nationalist statements and historical relativization.
"There is an anti-fascist city that prides itself on the legacy of partisans and one of the largest anti-fascist movements in Europe during World War II, but also on anti-fascist resistance to sick ideologies in the recent past," Uk wrote on April 3 on his Facebook profile.
The mayor of Belgrade replied that it doesn't matter to him where Tito's grave will be moved.
"I want us to symbolically cross paths with that. Here, this little girl from Sarajevo calls, they say she can go there too – I don't have any problem, let her go wherever," the mayor of Belgrade told Pink on April 4.
"This little one from Sarajevo", Šapić called his colleague, mayor Benjamina Karić, who supported the position that Tito's grave be moved to Sarajevo.
"Nevertheless, I deeply believe that Belgrade is much more than the rhetoric and ideas of the mayor who is currently at its head, and that anti-fascists, of which there are many in Belgrade, will not allow this kind of desecration of the symbol of anti-fascism," Karić told RFE/RL.
If the mayor of Belgrade implements his ideas, "let it be known that Sarajevo has never been, is not and will never be cramped, on the contrary," she said.
Sarajevo residents interviewed by RSE see populism in the speech of the mayor of Belgrade.
"It's our history and it shouldn't be touched. He was buried there and I guess he should stay. But if they don't want it, here we are, Bujrum," says pensioner Meliha.
Pensioners from Sarajevo, Meliha and Sead, say that they were Tito's pioneers and that they would support the idea of his grave being moved to Sarajevo, if "Belgrade does not want it".
Twenty-year-old Filip says that initiatives to move Tito's grave anywhere do not make sense.
"Tito is the image of anti-fascism and those stories about moving the grave are crazy. Populism is all that and reflects the current situation. Tito did not deserve this," Filip said.
"He's welcome here, but he shouldn't touch anything but stay where he is," says Filip.
"Still, Sarajevo is multi-ethnic, I think more so than Belgrade and Zagreb. It's all a fight, but I one hundred percent support moving from the House of Flowers to Sarajevo," said Aida from Sarajevo.
Answer from Cetinje
The mayor of Cetinje, Nikola Đurašković, said that the Montenegrin city will always be open to Tito, as well as to all anti-fascists.
He added that Belgrade, "whether Šapić and his ilk liked it or not, was liberated by partisan troops under the command of Peko Dapčević, who submitted a report on the freedom of the Serbian and Yugoslav capital to Supreme Commander Tito".
"If today there is no place for symbols of anti-fascism and liberation from occupation in Belgrade, rest assured that there is certainly one in Cetinje," Đurašković said in a statement on April 4.
The initiative of the Belgrade mayor was supported by the head of the Croatian municipality of Kumrovec, Robert Šplajt.
"We don't look at all this through some ideology or the return of some old times and systems, but through the commercialization of the whole story," Splait said on April 4, as reported by the Hina agency.
He reminded that Kumrovec is visited annually by over 160.000 tourists.
If Tito's remains were returned, he says, the number could reach a million a year.
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