By: M.B.
Yesterday, March 9th, we commemorate the birth of the father of Slovenian statehood, Dr Jože Pučnik, who with his actions and words decisively marked the transition of Slovenia to an independent state. He was the central figure of Slovenian democratic processes. With his presence and determination, he united the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia – DEMOS and led it to victory in the first post-war multi-party elections in the spring of 1990.
Dr Jože Pučnik was born on this day (March 9th) in 1932 in a Catholic peasant family in Črešnjevec near Slovenska Bistrica. In Europe and around the world, it would be difficult to find a politician or statesman with such an extraordinary story as Pučnik’s. It is known that already as a student at the Maribor High School he came into conflict with the Yugoslav repressive system, when he showed his critical thinking towards the then regime, which prevented him from taking the matura final exam.
As a curious and talented student, he and his classmates set up a circle to discuss the French Revolution and human rights in general. His free-thinking did not go unnoticed by the then Yugoslav regime. They wanted to expel Pučnik from school. He left the youth organisation in protest.
Despite warnings and pressure, the young Jože Pučnik remained brave and fearless. Together with his classmates, he published the illegal newspaper Iskanje in the early 1950s. “About 10 or 12 of us took part in the newspaper. It was not registered, and we distributed it in secret. It had about 20, 30 pages and it was typed by a girl,” Pučnik recalled.
Due to some written critical thoughts, Pučnik was detained in Maribor’s Udba before the year-round exam and questioned in Maribor’s court prisons. After the interrogation, he was accused of destroying socialism. For a year, he was also banned from taking the matura final exam, which he was able to pass after completing his military service.
When he was finally allowed to graduate, he enrolled at the University of Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1958 with a degree in philosophy and comparative literature. He was sentenced to nine years in prison for articles published in Magazine 57 for allegedly undermining the socialist system with the help of articles – most notably Our Social Reality and Our Illusions, in which he criticised a party that bureaucratised and distanced itself from the people.
“One often wonders: do these people still have the feeling that they live among their people and in the state community, where they are the holders of power,” wrote Dr Jože Pučnik. The conviction served as a model example of what can happen to those who publicly express their opposition to the totalitarian system. In prison, Pučnik suffered severe violence. He was also imprisoned in a concrete cell for nine months. He was released after five years.
After returning from prison, he wanted to get involved in journalism and intellectual work again. In issue 33-34 of Perspektive magazine, he drew attention to inefficient agricultural policy with his article “On the dilemmas of our agriculture”. As a central question, he asked himself why agriculture was one of the most sensitive economic problems of all socialist systems.
His thoughts resonated with the public as well as the party ranks. In the next issue of Perspektive magazine, he published a film analysis entitled “Face to Face”, in which he analysed the almighty dominance of the party system over the individual. Because of the record, he was arrested again in May 1964 and charged with hostile propaganda. He did not like to talk about the horrors Pučnik experienced in prison.
However, he wrote: “I give meaning to all those experiences by realising that we had a brutal totalitarian system. Communists never respected the fundamental right to the inviolability of life and liberty. Their regime was as totalitarian as Italian fascism and Hitler’s Nazism.”
When Dr Jože Pučnik returned from prison for the second time in 1966, there was no work for him. He was forced to look for opportunities abroad. He did not go to Germany because he wanted to. He left after being imprisoned twice as a political prisoner. Even though the political authorities “stole” his academic title at the time, he did not give up. In a foreign country, he rose to his feet and regained his academic title.
Throughout his exile, he was always in his homeland, Slovenia, with his thoughts and heart. His departure was only temporary. When he felt that his sacrifice could bring a better future for each of us, he immediately returned to his homeland and began to build a better tomorrow for all of us. In the mid-1980s, he published again in Slovenia, in the alternative journal Nova revija, where he formulated demands for a multi-party parliamentary system.
Pučnik participated in the establishment of the Social Democratic Union of Slovenia and later took over its leadership. During the independence process, he led the DEMOS coalition, which won the first multi-party elections, successfully held a plebiscite for an independent Slovenia, led the Slovenian nation to independence and defended it from YPA attack.
After the dissolution of Demos, Dr Jože Pučnik was first vice-president in Drnovšek’s first government, and then continued his political career as a member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia. During his 1992-1996 term, he chaired the commission of inquiry into post-war Massacres. As the head of the commission of inquiry, Pučnik had an important influence on the fact that we were able to come to the knowledge and truth about this traumatic period in Slovenian history.
In the Slovene political space, Dr Jože Pučnik fought for the truth and for the well-being of the Slovene people. Because of the struggle for truth and justice and his views, he had to spend several years of his life in a communist prison, two years even in solitary confinement. But he remained upright, persistent, brave. They did not break him.
Despite all the injustices that happened to him throughout his life, he never took revenge on his opponents, who so passionately and humiliatingly disabled him all the time, but he fought for people to live a life worthy of a man.
Dr Jože Pučnik fought for the well-being of the Slovenian nation. As soon as he felt that his sacrifice could bring a better future for each of us, he immediately returned to his homeland and began to build a better tomorrow for all of us. He began to build a completely different Slovenia: independent and democratic, based on the rule of law and respect for human rights without division into first and second class.
This morning at 11.00 am, under the auspices of the Prime Minister and the SDS President Janez Janša, a bust of Dr Jože Pučnik in front of the Brdo pri Kranju Congress Centre was revealed. In the afternoon at 4.30 pm in the lobby of the House of Dr Jože Pučnik at Trstenjakova 8 in Ljubljana, where the SDS headquarters are located, they also revealed a bust of Dr Pučnik, made by the academic sculptor Lan Seušek.
On Friday, the Knights’ Hall of the Castle in Slovenska Bistrica will host the traditional 13th Pučnik Symposium. It will begin at 1 pm. On it, guests will talk about Pučnik’s work and its significance for today.
On Saturday, March 12th, 2022, on the party’s 33rd anniversary, the SDS will also commemorate the 90th anniversary of the birth of Dr Jože Pučnik.
Main source: sds.si