By: UKOM
Published below is the address of Prime Minister Janša to mark the occasion of the Day of Restoration of the Primorska Region to the Motherland, celebrated today.
Dear people of Primorska,
When the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in our first term of office from 2004 to 2008 designated the Day of Restoration of the Primorska Region to the Motherland a national holiday, we did so out of responsibility for our history and our Slovenian identity. Responsibility to the generations of Slovenians from Primorska, who were not broken by suffering and trials, but rather were made stronger. Or, according to highly esteemed Boris Pahor, one of the many patriots who testified to their national consciousness not only in words but also in deeds: “But it is also true that our perseverance has made us endure for centuries and that faith in survival is our duty and heritage. A heritage growing from rocks like an oak on the Karst land.”
Faith in survival is indeed the heritage of generations of Primorska people. Part of this heritage is the confidence that the day when Primorska was restored to its motherland would shine bright and clear in all its power. And that everything would be repaid a hundredfold.
Or, in the words of Ivan Cankar from his sketch Our Beautiful Homeland (Lepa naša domovina, 1909): “I, brothers, believe in the homeland that we all sense coming. What was forcibly taken from us, what we have been cheated out and deprived of, shall be returned and repaid a hundredfold! Our homeland is a fight and it is the future; it is worth the noblest of bloods and the best of men.”
A lot of blood was shed when Slovenians in Primorska defended their land against foreign forces. At the beginning of the last century, the Soča River flowed red; then flowed the blood of TIGR members and partisans, and later, unfortunately, also the blood of Slovenians who wanted to escape from the communist dictatorship to freedom across the green border. It was only 30 years ago that the Slovenian motherland won its own statehood and thus created a finished framework for the century-old freedom struggle of Slovenians from Primorska. Since then, the blood no longer flows. Primorska, together with the whole of Slovenia and the entire Slovenian nation, now lives a new life.
Compatriots, fellow citizens,
I wish you all a proud celebration and sincerely congratulate you on our national holiday, the Day of Restoration of the Primorska Region to the Motherland.
Janez Janša
Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia
Source: gov.si