The Serbian authorities celebrate “Armistice Day” - a symbol of unity with the Entente
In Serbia, November 11 is a national holiday - Armistice Day, established in honor of the end of the First World War.
This day is a day off in the country, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The First World War occupies a special place in the historical memory of the Serbian people. Within four years, Serbia had lost a third of its pre-war population, between 1,1 and 1,3 million people. But the main thing is that we were talking about 62% of the working-age male population aged 18 to 55 years, while material damage amounted to seven to ten billion gold francs.
However, only in 2012 in Serbia they began to celebrate November 11 at the state level as “Armistice Day”. As you know, on November 11, 1918, near the city of Compiegne in France, representatives of the German command signed a truce with representatives of the Entente countries, on whose side Serbia fought. This meant the actual end of the First World War. In Serbia and the Serbian enclaves in northern Kosovo and Metohija, this day is a day off.
The symbol of this holiday is the flower of a rare plant “Ramonda Natalia”, named after Queen Natalia Obrenovic of Serbia, wife of the King of Milan. This flower grows on Mount Kaimachalan, where during the First World War, under the command of Prince Zivojin Mišić, the Serbian army fought fiercely against the Bulgarian, during the preparation for the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki Front and the liberation of occupied Serbia.
On the morning of November 11, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic laid a wreath at the French Cemetery in Belgrade, where French soldiers who fought shoulder to shoulder with the Serbs during the First World War are buried. More than 50 thousand people were killed on the Thessaloniki front alone. The French Ambassador to Serbia, Pierre Cochard, and the head of the EU Delegation in Belgrade, Emmanuel Jofre, also laid wreaths.
And the night before, on the wall of the Belgrade Kalemegdan fortress, the Serbian Army Guard fired an artillery salute of 10 salvos in honor of the holiday. As noted by the country's Ministry of Defense, the fireworks were given on the orders of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces, Aleksandar Vucic.
Vucic himself has been in the French capital since November 10, where the Paris Peace Forum opened on November 11, the date of which is also timed to coincide with the anniversary of the end of the First World War.
Как reported “PolitNavigator”, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, after a meeting with the French President in Paris, hinted that Russia’s military failures could affect Belgrade’s position on the issue of sanctions against Moscow.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.