ZAGREB, Dec 13 (Hina) - Following is the unofficial translation of the full text of a farewell speech Croatian parliament president and acting head of state Vlatko Pavletic made at Zagreb's Mirogoj Cemetery on Monday at the funeral of
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman: "Mournful gathering, "Who at this moment, at this place, throughout Croatia and around the world where Croats live, can without feeling deep sorrow accept the hard, merciless fact of the death of the man who with his life and deed marked the end of the century with his unique contribution to the liberation of the Croatian people and the establishment of the Croatian state. "And yet it has all come so suddenly, for when we look in the mirror within remains fixed his inimitable, erect figure, his lively gait, which took him ahead of his followers just as his deliberation and dissatisfaction with the extant took him ahead of an of
ZAGREB, Dec 13 (Hina) - Following is the unofficial translation of
the full text of a farewell speech Croatian parliament president
and acting head of state Vlatko Pavletic made at Zagreb's Mirogoj
Cemetery on Monday at the funeral of Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman:
"Mournful gathering,
"Who at this moment, at this place, throughout Croatia and around
the world where Croats live, can without feeling deep sorrow accept
the hard, merciless fact of the death of the man who with his life
and deed marked the end of the century with his unique contribution
to the liberation of the Croatian people and the establishment of
the Croatian state.
"And yet it has all come so suddenly, for when we look in the mirror
within remains fixed his inimitable, erect figure, his lively gait,
which took him ahead of his followers just as his deliberation and
dissatisfaction with the extant took him ahead of an often puzzled
surrounding.
"Upon returning from Rome, Dr. Tudjman concealed his fatigue, but
was visibly proud of the exhibition which recapitulated everything
which confirmed the Croatian identity, older than the dying
millennium. It was the crowning achievement of all his endeavours
to shed light and show the world, at a time when various global
theories and projects attempt to blur reality, what a small people
was capable of creating, by defining and confirming, affirming and
enriching its identity in spite of history's adversities, under the
constant pressure of incomparably stronger hegemonists.
"Dr. Tudjman returned from Rome, from his last journey, visibly
exhausted, but (I am sure) happy inside, because had it not been so,
he would not have been able to stand the increasing pain and would
not have suppressed it even when he could have, when he should have
avoided the exertion of his last ascent to Medvedgrad to lay a
wreath at the Altar of the Homeland.
"Always ready for and capable of everything, Dr. Tudjman was not
willing to retreat even at that beginning of his end, when an
incurable, insidious disease attacked him from inside.
"That is Dr. Franjo Tudjman!
"The man who never surrendered, who fought until the last minute,
surprising the doctors as an indisputable medical phenomenon, and
even posthumously inspiring with his example all in whose heart and
conscience he is, and will be, so that they may keep and preserve
what he left to his successors as the most valuable treasure -
independent, democratic, upright Croatia.
"Tudjman's versatility and curiosity, the ability to immediately
grasp the crux of a problem exalted, but sometimes even scared his
collocutors, who found it easiest to agree with him when they could
not at once, with full understanding, join in his preoccupations
which ranged from history to sports, from politics to economy,
philosophy and culture to civilisation's eternal dilemmas between
conflict and dialogue.
"That is what Dr. Franjo Tudjman was like!
"Tudjman did not achieve that without preparation. Opening his eyes
to the world in Veliko Trgovisce, in a small, confined space where
he finished elementary school as an A-grade pupil, Franjo Tudjman
early in his life realised that nothing is given without something
expected in return, so even as a boy he accepted the entire burden of
being a poor high school student in Zagreb, who supported himself by
giving private lessons, while stressing gratitude to a father who
set apart from the most necessary only to enable him and assist him
in his education." (...)
"Childhood is the important seed of significant, deep
peculiarities of every creative personality, but this generative
seed must be spotted and correctly interpreted. I admit that
Tudjman somewhat confused me by confessing on one occasion that the
social-democratic programme of the social order would be closest to
his views if it did not neglect the national issue to such extent.
But when I came across the text of a homework in which he did not hide
poverty, I realised that in the future it would inevitably give him
a social sensibility, and in the first part of his life lead him to
Marxism and the communist Utopia. With time however, he became
increasingly disappointed with it, realising that behind the well-
turned phrases and paroles the Greater Serbian aspiration to
hegemony once again lurked and infiltrated the political life and
the relations among the peoples.
"To those who doubted the motives and reasons behind his turning his
back to an attractive career and his embracing of the idea of the
defence of Croatian national interests, I offer a quote from his
youth when significance is forever profiled, growing and
established, a quote from Tudjman's school notebook in which by his
own choice he wrote about a topic from Croatia's ancient history -
King Dimitrije Zvonimir. This was because an old chronicler left a
document, saying that the mentioned king had been a good ruler, and
that under his ruling this had been a happy country, 'and the poor
did not fear that the rich would take away from him, nor the servant
that his master would do him wrong.'
"Everything therefore is crystal clear: primarily the source of
social sensibility, and joining the partisans, into the anti-
fascist struggle, for social justice. But at the same time, a deep
interest in Croatian history, in Croatia, in a ruler whose people
are happy and peaceful, safe on their own soil, or as Tudjman the
statesman would say: 'One's own man in one's own home.' Is not all
this indicative of Tudjman's later tempting ideas to liberate
Croatia from the Yugoslav yoke, and to realise the ideal of his
youth - a prosperous state of happy people, a state of well-being,
as he more than once pointed out in his speeches?
"That is what Dr. Franjo Tudjman was like!
"There is something else he wrote in his school notebook: 'My wish
when I grow up is to become an honest and hard-working man.'
"Truly, everything could be predicted ahead, even before Tudjman
himself broke free and resolutely took the path of the second stage
of the struggle for the realisation of the ideals of his youth,
betrayed by the ideals which to him turned out to be unbearable
because of the lies about justice without justice, about freedom
without freedom, about equality without equality - lies coming from
both individuals and the peoples in the communist Yugoslavia.
"That is what Dr. Franjo Tudjman was like!
"To trace the trajectory of his life by biographical data is barely
possible, because his life cannot fit into one, even a unique novel.
It would make a voluminous Romanesque tetralogy.
"This certainly is not the occasion for me to even outline them,
because a lot more is known and understood about them.
"It is well-known that Dr. Tudjman left his indelible mark on
everything that happened in the last decade. Decisions not only
strategic, but also numerous tactical ones, bear his signature. He
had, represented, defended opinions and suggestions on everything
which entered his sphere of interest, which was known and
recognised to be comprehensive.
"The part Tudjman played in exposing the falsities in recent
Croatian history, especially in the history of the labour movement
and the partisan struggle, is also well-known. It is well-known how
much he risked - for that risk, that courage, he paid - by objecting
to exaggerations regarding the number of Jasenovac victims,
because like few he had at his disposal data necessary to expose the
Greater Serbia myth on the biggest Serb town underground, the post-
Kosovo myth concocted to forever mortgage Croats with a burden
which would be easy prey for hypocritical representatives of
brotherhood and unity, who in truth are Greater Serbia encroachers
on Croatian territory and a great part of our cultural heritage.
"Tudjman also wrote that, 'since the first days I can remember,' he
carried the 'fateful impressions of persecuted Croathood.' He drew
them in the family, learned them from his father, realised them
during the course of his life, accepted them from reading his
ideological and national-political forefathers.
"Evident were also his industriousness and orderliness, his
strictness in sticking to the line of basic spiritual direction,
the honesty he swore to as a boy; yes, the honesty of a scientist who
did not allow himself to exaggerate even when it would have been
politically expedient - writing about Jasenovac, as well as about
Bleiburg.
"That is what Dr Franjo Tudjman was like!
"Reading philosophy developed in him a tendency to immerse himself
in history as not only a chronology or interpretation of facts, but
also as a secret which should yield a lot more than a succession of
events, in truth the essence of man's life, the meaning of the
endless relay race of generations which preserves and constantly
increases mankind, while at the same time humanity is being lost at
an increasing rate.
"Bearing all this in mind, knowing this true, to some
insufficiently known or even concealed side of Dr Franjo Tudjman,
we can easily guess what the embryo of his political programme could
have contain. In its most compact form, Dr Tudjman advocated a
consistent democratic metamorphosis of society along the
principles of political pluralism and civil rights, social-market
economy, entrepreneurship; he advocated the nurturing and
development of all positive cultural and political traditions of
the Croatian people, from the Starcevic doctrine and Radic's
existential republicanism to Croatia's left-wing; he advocated the
connection with Europe and the world, especially with Croatia's
numerous emigration, while excluding ethnic intolerance; he
advocated a society of freedom and justice, morality and labour,
the personal happiness and well-being of the people. Because, 'only
unrestrained, completely free, independent, sovereign and equal
peoples, as well as citizens within certain countries, can
contribute to the all-round progress of all physical and spiritual
powers, increased material riches, the uniqueness and diversity of
lasting cultural values of human civilisation and a greater harmony
in the life of man.'
"On the acquirements of a rich, accomplished legacy, as a statesman
and political visionary, Dr. Tudjman developed as a personality to
such dimensions that in the foreseeable near future he will have no
equal. It is difficult today to imagine that any more influential
party could declare other important and different basic aims
regardless of how sincere or capable of achieving them it may be.
"This has been confirmed in the statements party leaders made on the
occasion of his death, as well as in the words of many world leaders,
and in the spontaneous reactions TV cameras recorded of numerous
ordinary people, for whom Tudjman is much more than a president of a
party and the state, because for them, as well as for us, he is
really the creator of the eternal Croatia.
"This is what, for all of us, Dr. Franjo Tudjman was like.
"In the period now already known as the TUDJMAN ERA.
"He was an exceptionally able politician, a negotiator who was
difficult to oppose and impossible to outsmart; those who did not
follow him in his policy, today also recognise his status as the
great man who it is impossible not to refer to.
"As a topic of future studies Dr. Tudjman will again make topical
the eternal, unresolved problem of the role of great persons in
history and the share their decisions had in the history of peoples.
Tudjman's friend and favourite writer, Krleza, wrote about this:
'While science prepares and widens experience, and art illuminates
and condenses it, politics should turn it into practice and, by
enabling further human growth, ennoble man's reality'.
"Dr. Franjo Tudjman comprised everything that Krleza, too,
ascribed to the scientific verve, and that he always had an interest
in literature is proved by those piles of books which he had read,
not giving up that need and pleasure even while in prison, where he
read fiction, and by writing down quotes in his notes from the
prison confirmed that in that way, too, he enriched his experience
about people and life. As regards his political, intuitive
orientation toward the resolution, and not only the consideration
of concrete national, social, and economic questions, I am inclined
to accept Krleza's decided claim that the political genius is much
rarer than the artistic one, because 'we can see in the history of
culture whole series of civilisations with exceptional artistic
and philosophic abilities, but without any political talent, in its
noble human sense'.
"The path of Dr. Franjo Tudjman is marked exactly with significant
signposts which led him to the position of the head of the party and
the state, and rescued him from wandering and from by-ways,
enabling him to lead his people to the right path after so many years
wasted in the historical wilderness. Regardless of all objections
which future biographers may raise regarding some of his decisions
and moves, acknowledgement remains undivided that Tudjman
possessed an exceptional ability to wait before making a decision
as long as it takes, but also to react quickly when necessary and
when any delay, even the shortest one, could be fatal.
He had what Krleza believed was an irreplaceable characteristic of
a politician, and that is, 'to be able to act in line with place and
time and employ the means which suit the needs of the specific times
and place' (1938). If he makes a wrong step, or becomes disoriented
for a brief moment, if he makes a mistake in choosing means, or is
late or hasty to engage in action, a politician is remembered only
as a more or less wise and benevolent personality, whether he be an
idealist or a Utopian, however, without an exception he is
remembered as a loser, whose loss is not only his personal tragedy
but at the given time, the tragedy of the whole nation.
"We need not go far back into Croatian history; the 20th century is
enough to concretise these only seemingly theoretically founded
claims, after which it becomes even more obvious how much Dr.
Tudjman stands above all his modern political predecessors, as the
originator, political organiser, and state and military victor -
therefore the creator of the modern and sovereign, free and
independent, democratic Croatia.
"He possessed an unwavering will to act in order to achieve the
desired aim, accepting diplomatic games only to come out as the
victor, decisively entering conflicts which he could not avoid -
surprising, confusing, dazing, and intimidating the opponent,
remaining even at the end of the risky undertaking the victor who
gave back to the Croatian people their confidence and the mentality
of the victor, and to the Croatian Army the old glory of one of the
best warriors in Europe, the glory which had been passed over in
silence for a long time.
"De Gaulle was right to claim once that nothing great can be done
without great men, and 'they are great because they wanted to be
great'.
"That is what Dr. Franjo Tudjman was like!
"This eulogy is not based on transient, overly subjective
impressions which cannot be proved. On the contrary! The claim that
Dr. Franjo Tudjman, by leaving us is becoming part of tradition and
legend, would otherwise be unfounded.
"Therefore, in the end, I can rightfully make a contextual turn and
exclaim:
Croatia, joyful Croatia,
it is in you that the man we are parting from today was born and rose
to the highest heights.
Croatia, blessed Croatia, which owes its Resurrection to the
statesman who leaves us today.
Croatia, saddened Croatia, on the day when we are painfully aware of
whom we had, because he is no longer physically with us.
But if humanity is the immortality of mortal man, then Croatia, "the
eternal Croatia", as Dr. Tudjman called it at the end of his many
speeches, is the true immortality of Dr. Tudjman as the creator of
the state, the undisputed great man of Croatia's recent history.
Highly respected President, dear Franjo!
May your memory live, our gratitude to you, and may you rest in
peace."
(hina) ha/rml