Episode "Better a Grave Than a Slave"
Darko Gavrilović , president of the Board of Directors of the Center for History, Democracy and Reconciliation, was one of the interviewees in the ” Document ” show.
In the episode ” Better a grave than a slave ” there was talk about how more than 80 years have passed since the military coup and demonstrations March 27, 1941 years, against the accession of the Axis powers, that is, the overthrow of Prince Pavle Karađorđević and the Cvetković-Maček government.
Today, we live in a time in which it has become accepted to a considerable extent that it would have been better if we had not resisted, how the partisans led the country to ruin and that it was wiser for the insufficiently armed Kingdom of Yugoslavia not to anger Hitler.
It goes without saying that in such extraordinary circumstances, we should not expect that the memory of such a significant event is particularly marked. But why is the culture of memory not a reliable landmark in anti-fascist Serbia?
To what extent, as some believe, was Great Britain behind the coup? Winston Churchill then declared that “early this morning the Yugoslav nation found its soul.”
From today’s point of view, have we neglected that this sentence is part of war propaganda and moral support? How did we come to be “wrong” about all the shades of truth about that event?
Although people don’t think that way today, but the slogan “Better a grave than a slave” that was emphasized on 27. March 1941, were spoken in another country, in another time, such as, for example, the time of the leader of the uprising of the Roman slaves, Spartacus, would it be possible for it to be freed from politics, ideologies and manipulation?
Or is it just an inspiration to popular alternate history writers as a subgenre of fantasy?
How to avoid subsequent interpretations of that important historical date without justifying certain political phenomena in the present. Is it an exaggerated impression that the thirties are coming back to us? Are we able to follow the sane historical facts that would teach us something?
The interlocutors were:
- Mile Bjelajac, historian and political scientist
- Ljubinka Škodrić, historian
- Darko Gavrilović, historian
- Duško Radosavljević, political scientist
