By: Gašper Blažič
By tradition, the “grey” January, a time to rest from the consumerist and festive madness of the “merry December” (when you practically cannot buy steak tartare in any supermarket because it is no longer part of the annual consumer trend), is anything but boring here in Slovenia. This is the month of pilgrimages to the great “red” sanctuaries: Dražgoše and Osankarica, with the village in Gorenjska being somewhat more significant.
I am grateful to publicist Dejan Steinbuch, who in his column (HERE) outlined the amount of attention the media in the 1980s and 1990s devoted to the annual January celebration in Dražgoše – practically negligible. Some time ago, I referenced a column by Dr Stane Granda, which mentioned how Professor Dr Metod Mikuš, a well-known partisan historian and former priest, taught history students in the post-war period that the Dražgoše case was, in reality, a major scandal.
Nothing is sacred to them!
Out of respect for the village and its residents, who had to strive for decades to rebuild their church (the original was destroyed during the war), I refrain from using the term “Lažgoše” (a play on words implying falsehoods). After all, in 1942, they paid for the partisans’ provocations with their own blood. That said, the residents of this village below Jelovica and Ratitovec – known for the culinary specialty dražgoški kruhki – could, out of a sense of reverence, refuse hospitality to both prominent and lesser-known “pilgrims”, some of whom even set out on foot at night to the monument where the fallen villagers are supposedly buried. Without a cross. These “pilgrims” respect no one and nothing in Dražgoše – not even the fact that this village is the birthplace of the renowned Prevc family (including brothers Mihael and Božidar – the former a one-time member of parliament and mayor of Železniki, the latter the father of the best ski-jumping generation of the past decade). As the academic Dr Tine Hribar once said in an interview for Demokracija: “Nothing is sacred to them, not even the dead.”
No, this is not necrophilia as we typically understand it, but rather intolerable, political desecration of the graves of Dražgoše’s fallen. They exploit them in the same way that Slobodan Milošević, the “leader”, exploited the Battle of Kosovo Polje at Gazimestan (Kosovo) in 1989 for his massive rally – where he declared a bloody war. Today’s Slovenian “Gazimestan figures” speak of a battle that never really happened. We have written about this so many times that it hardly seems necessary to repeat the basic facts. The testimonies of surviving villagers have been publicly documented. Everything is clear. This is about agitational rallies and desecration of the remains of the innocent.
The forgotten Selška Valley Rovt
The veteran organisation officials could choose the nearby Rovt in the Selška Valley as the site of their main celebration. There, the same partisan unit known from Dražgoše, led by Commander Jože Gregorčič and Political Commissar Stane Žagar, attacked a German police convoy – with success. On the German side, there were 46 casualties and four seriously wounded; on the partisan side, three fatalities. The partisans also seized a significant number of weapons and equipment. Importantly, there were no reprisals against the civilian population. One could say this was an excellent example of fighting the occupier – a fact that Dr Jože Možina pointed out years ago in one of the rare episodes of Utrip he contributed to, drawing the ire of Svetlana Makarovič. Remarkably, this all happened at the very start of the conflict, in December 1941! So why is the celebration not held there? Perhaps because “there must be victims”? Or because they know that veteran celebrations at such places provoke strong resistance among normal people?
If Rovt were chosen for the celebration, I would happily applaud the president of the central veteran organisation, Marijan Križman, who said in Dražgoše that the liberation movement was based on “a deep conviction that the nation’s liberation requires the joint effort of political and national forces, which is not ideologically conditioned or exclusionary.” Yes, if only that were true… but unfortunately, it is not. Quite the opposite. The sooner they acknowledge the truth, the sooner true freedom will come. As singer-songwriter Samo Glavan once wrote: “You are free when you’re free in your mind.”
I will leave the rhetorical musings of the keynote speaker Urška Klakočar Zupančič aside. They are not important. Perhaps because “Benita” was already predictable and boring. Thirteen years ago, the speakers were more engaging: then-president of the republic Danilo Türk and the president of the veteran organisation Janez Stanovnik. Perhaps because the early elections had just concluded, and there was uncertainty in the air about whether the fresh winner, the “positive” Zoran Janković, would become the new prime minister. He did not. Not then, nor later. And it was not the fault of the then-U.S. ambassador to Slovenia, Joseph A. Mussomeli. Yet today, Janković is an influential godfather of the current government – practically its behind-the-scenes boss.
How “The Sultan” and “Plavi” joined forces
What about Milan Kučan? He stole the spotlight from the main stars of Dražgoše, including UKZ in her red shoes and NPM in his signature “UDBA leather jacket”. Especially with his bizarre clash with a journalist. Years ago, something similar happened when he asked another journalist whether she was married: “Work on that.” This time, he asked if she still had a job, followed by a cynical explanation that said it all: “Now you exist, now you don’t” (spoken in Serbian: “Sad te ima, sad te nema”).
Since the “prince from Križevci” speaks excellently between the lines, it is hard to say whether this was an impulsive remark or a carefully thought-out one. After all, he has been known to let certain statements slip too quickly. Shortly after Slovenia’s independence, he addressed a comment to then-ministers Janez Janša and Igor Bavčar that flipped many assumptions: “Say hello to the Sultan.” He was referring to Niko Kavčič, a director of Ljubljanska banka in the 1970s who had been ousted by “healthy forces,” but also the financial architect of Maček’s parallel mechanism. This famous OZNA operative played the role of a double agent brilliantly in 1987–88, using the naïve dissident operatives from ČKZ and ZSMS to leak Stane Kavčič’s diary under the illusion of conspiratorial discretion (how wrong they were!). This move, in fact, reinforced the position of the then-head of the Central Committee. A few years later, after Slovenia’s independence, both “The Sultan” and “Plavi” collaborated as godfathers of the “upgrade” to the liberal democrats in Bled. The Liberal Democratic Party evolved into the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia – retaining the same acronym, LDS. It also included a significant number of independence figures: Dimitrij Rupel, Igor Omerza, Igor Bavčar, Jelko Kacin. However, within a few years, all of them left this infernal carousel.
In comparison to today’s ruling powers, Drnovšek’s era of governance seems almost gentlemanly. The transition model of the liberal democrats relied on “boiling the frog” – gradual changes without dramatic overreach. This makes many former Drnovšek collaborators and sympathisers seem “right-wing” today because they cannot identify with the current style of governance, which is much more radical than that of the 1990s. Regardless of the Depala Vas affair. Even then, many intellectuals, particularly from the Nova revija circle, loudly criticised the transitory misdeeds. Back then, Kučan was still the president of the republic. And much younger than he is now, carrying the weight of his ninth decade. The “people’s” president, who travelled in a Golf for the sake of appearances, while preferring to be treated in Switzerland rather than in Slovenia’s public healthcare system – far from the eyes of the public.
My personal experience with “Plavi”
I never met Kučan personally – or at least I do not recall it. Perhaps this spared me the diagnosis Kučan delivered in the 1990s to a young intellectual, now university professor Dr Boštjan M. Turk. However, I did have a different kind of encounter with him. Over a decade ago, he responded to one of my articles in Družina. I cannot remember the details, as the letter is not available in the online archive (I will investigate which issue of the print Demokracija it was published in). But when the “big brother” himself gets involved in correspondence, it is clear the matter is serious and significant.
At the time, his response did not seem particularly crucial to me. But looking back from today’s perspective, I can confirm there was a clear “before” and “after”. Until then, I was considered a rather “promising figure.” Shortly before, I had graduated in theology and was a journalist for Demokracija. I was frequently quoted in Družina (Zadetek v polno) and occasionally called by Radio Ognjišče as a political analyst (for phone commentary). I had several open opportunities for collaboration and even hosting roundtables. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, this “interest in me” began to fade. Within about a year, I realised I was no longer considered young or promising. Calls stopped coming; quotes disappeared. Even interest from the Časnik.si portal began to wane. A period of ignorance ensued. Suddenly, I realised that as a publicist, I no longer existed – I was just a “nobody and nothing”. Younger and, above all, more “moderate” figures were already taking centre stage. When I published a book on the train drivers’ strike and later a collection of articles in Slovenija, vstan’, the only coverage came from Demokracija and Nova24TV. To everyone else, I simply did not exist.
I do not know if this was happening spontaneously or if there really was some kind of “command from the background”. Yesterday’s incident with the journalist and Kučan reminded me of this: now you are here, then you are gone. And I suspect this was no coincidence. The fact that it was not just an unfortunate accident is evidenced by an offhand remark made by one of my interlocutors when awkwardly trying to explain why I was not invited to a particular event. Something along the lines of not wanting to risk state subsidies because of one person – meaning me. If they invited me, they would risk going bankrupt. And it is foolish to jeopardise the future of an entire institution by inviting someone who is on a “blacklist”.
The dance of death from Hrastovlje
Since I started this writing with a reference to Steinbuch’s column, I will end it there as well. The author made a slight error – but only slight. Most of his assessment still holds. He answers the question of why the Dražgoše myth is constantly resurrected as follows: “So that the ruling elite can maintain tension among the people for the next thirty years, between the ‘left’ and the ‘right’. That is the magic of Dražgoše. What could be better for those in power than ‘divide and rule’? Whoever can set people against each other over a trivial matter – in our case, 80-year-old traumas – can rule for a long time and watch with a smile as partisans and home guards, communists and clericals, reds and whites, left and right, old and young, mercilessly clash with each other.”
I would, of course, immediately dismiss as incorrect any both-sides theories about this being a simple conflict between two factions. Instead, it is a confrontation between political fundamentalism and normalcy – not between left and right, liberals and clericals. That is just an external façade. Why, then, do the directors of Slovenia’s version of Gazimestan need this tension? In the 1990s, when Drnovšek governed with gentlemanly restraint, such celebrations with so much publicity were insignificant. Today, they have become the alpha and omega of political life. Steinbuch is correct when he suggests – albeit between the lines – that the transitional predators at Dražgoše engage in a perpetual Hegelian reaffirmation of their own political agenda. And they can only do this by provoking an “enemy”, someone who challenges the myth with entirely honest intentions. Yet, in doing so, this challenger unwittingly confirms the public superiority of the “liberators”, cloaked in one guise or another.
Another well-known publicist, Miran Videtič, aptly described this phenomenon as “profit-partisanship.” After all, the events from the wartime period are merely tools and cannon fodder – a kind of public-opinion perpetuum mobile. Because “we, the communists” (as Stane Dolanc said) eternally need money and power, while “the others” (the bourgeois right, Janša supporters) are enemies, collaborators, murderers. And such messages are served daily to the average Slovenian about opposition leaders. Would they really want such people in power?
If the 2022 elections truly marked the final battle for the survival of Kučan’s generation, Kučan’s increasingly brutal honesty reveals the moral defeat of the transitional predators. And the time when this will evolve into an actual defeat is not far off. Demons sense the end first. And then they begin to rage. Shortly before Dražgoše, Kučan made two things clear: first, a grand coalition and collaboration between the “healthy forces” and the “unhealthy” ones is out of the question (what a slap in the face for the naïve Anže Logar!). Second, reforms are not really needed. A hardline party conservatism, Leonid Brezjnev-style.
In short, it has begun. The dance of death from the fresco in the Hrastovlje church – if only because Robert Golob, before the last election, claimed that people were dancing. Golob’s peace has long since evaporated, and the bravest of the brave have ended up – in the risotto.