By: Dr Andreja Valič Zver
The 23rd of August is approaching, the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, which the Slovenian government also declared a memorial day in 2012.
The decision was based on the Resolution on European Conscience and Totalitarianism from April 2009, supported by a large majority of European MPs, including Slovenian ones. It placed the suffering of victims at the forefront as the central common denominator. Much time has passed since then, yet it is difficult to claim that the situation in this important field in Slovenia has significantly improved. This does not negate the important work of individuals, NGOs, and governmental and parliamentary institutions who, despite obstacles and resistance, continue to break new ground in Slovenia’s “fields of death”. But despite all this, one still has the feeling – a justified one – that many more actions are needed, especially in politics. When comparing Slovenia’s steps with those of Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and other former states behind the Iron Curtain, a considerable lag is visible.
Let me support this claim with two current cases that have stirred the Slovenian public and would be impossible in the previously mentioned former communist countries. The “Stepanjan” and “Pačnik” cases clearly show that Slovenians have not yet dealt with the legacy of communism as would be appropriate. I met Sara Stepanjan and her mother, the daughter and wife of the late musician Agop Stepanjan, when they visited me at the Study Centre for National Reconciliation. Their family story is full of injustices and demonstrates the totalitarian functioning of the former State Security Service (Udba) deep into the 1980s. Reading Igor Omerza’s book, which describes Agop’s ordeal and the suffering of the Stepanjan family, breaks the heart of any empathetic person. Their suffering continues in the form of practically inaccessible documents located in Belgrade archives. Sara and her mother saw them but were not allowed to photocopy or otherwise bring them back to Slovenia. The family wants, and has the right, to know the truth. And here lies the key difference: other countries understand that memory, truth, and justice are fundamental to transitional justice if we want to address the legacy of totalitarian wrongdoing. Yet the Slovenian left‑wing government under Cerar opened and closed (!) the chapter of Yugoslav‑era archives within half an hour during negotiations with Serbia. A shameful act that must be condemned and corrected if possible.
And now, in Slovenia, a man who symbolically “cut off the dictator’s head” will apparently be prosecuted and likely convicted. A symbolic act with great weight. This reminds me of discussions during Janša’s third government about removing Tito’s statue from Brdo. It was eventually moved to a museum site in Pivka, where it no longer causes embarrassment. Attempts by Golob’s circle to return “Comrade Tito” to Brdo did not materialise. By analogy, the giant statue in Velenje would also belong somewhere on the margins, perhaps in a kind of eerie “theme park” of history’s greatest criminals, together with Kidrič from in front of the presidential palace and Kardelj from Republic Square. Or maybe not even that. One cannot imagine statues of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, etc., in public spaces of democratic countries. But in the Soviet Union, pardon, Putin’s Russia, such things exist. The “good Stalin” syndrome is strongly present and encouraged by the current authorities. Do you see the striking similarities with the Slovenian reality? As in Putin’s Russia, Slovenia’s memorial landscape and judiciary still largely look in only one direction. We must finally rid ourselves of this totalitarian reflex, otherwise the future does not look bright.