PHOTOS: 100th anniversary of Labin Republic celebrated
- by croatiaweek
- in News
(Photo credit: Office of President of Croatia/ Marko Beljan)
The 100th anniversary of the Labin Republic took part last night in the Istrian town.
Attended by President Zoran Milanović, the event marked the historical moment on 2 March 1921, when Labin miners rebelled against the Italian rulers in Istria.
One of the causes of the strike was the decision by the mine owners not to pay a bonus for February 1921, since the miners had taken a day’s holiday to observe Candlemas.
The miners assembled and decided to occupy the mine works and proclaimed the republic in the occupied mines on 7 March with the slogan Kova je nasa (“The mine is ours”). They organised a government and the so-called red guard as a protection from the Italian law enforcement and started to manage the production of mines by themselves with the support of a section of farmers.
On April 8, 1921 the Italian administration in Istria, responding to requests for intervention from the mine owners, decided to suppress the republic using military force. A thousand soldiers surrounded the mine and eventually succeeded after suppressing the strong resistance of the miners. The arrested miners were sent to prisons in Pula and Rovinj.
President Milanović laid a wreath and lit a candle in Labin on the main square in Vinež on Tuesday afternoon.
(Photo credit: Office of President of Croatia/ Marko Beljan)
“I am not a mining grandson, although my late grandfather Ante Milanović worked in the mine for some time. There was a coal mine in Sinj that extracted, it seems, in relation to this mine, a small 30 tons. In which local young men and my grandfather, a hard worker, a father of three children, worked,” said President Milanović.
(Photo credit: Office of President of Croatia/ Marko Beljan)
He added that this rebellion was, in a way, the first uprising against fascism, and it had a relatively civilised outcome in relation to other uprisings and revolutions, large and small at the time.
(Photo credit: Office of President of Croatia/ Marko Beljan)
(Photo credit: Office of President of Croatia/ Marko Beljan)
“After these few revolutions that shook Europe, here in Labin a larger group of people united, above all, in the class struggle, in the fight against injustice, exploitation, exploitation, in the fight for human dignity. It lasted a month, they were defeated by military means, by force. Their organisation was not a strictly hierarchical organisation like the organisation of other revolutions that were developing in Europe at the time. They had a red flag, a sickle and a hammer, they had ideals, it was simply a fight of ordinary people for this better today and for an even better tomorrow,” said President Milanovic.
(Photo credit: Office of President of Croatia/ Marko Beljan)
After the ceremonial session of the Labin City Council, President Milanović ended the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Labin Republic.
