Written by: Boban Batrićević
It’s hard to recall a bigger blow to Andrija Rajo Mandić – the Chetnik duke turned Speaker of the Montenegrin Parliament – than the one he suffered today. Since 2020, he’s weathered plenty of political storms, but few have hit with this much force.
In just a matter of hours, his carefully staged spectacle around the Thirteenth of July Award crumbled – dissolving like cheap sneakers on the sweltering Podgorica asphalt. All of it in vain: the embrace of the Russian ambassador, Budva’s working-class theatrics – none of it mattered when the people (and not the naaaarod, as his kind would say) finally began to wake up.
First came the civic initiative STEGA, joined by leading activists, announcing a public protest. Then, one of Montenegro’s most celebrated artists, Miloš Karadaglić, took a principled stand, refusing to accept the award in protest of the murky dealings behind this year’s selection. Alongside Karadaglić, the award had been handed to two irrelevant figures: one, a Chetnik sympathizer who denies both the Montenegrin nation and the genocide in Srebrenica; the other, whose main claim to fame seems to be that his brother is the notorious priest Dragan.
Karadaglić’s act of rare moral clarity was soon echoed by another powerful gesture: the Minister of Education, Science, and Innovation publicly demanded that the award be treated with the respect it deserves. And finally, as they so often do, the Montenegrin community in Berlin placed the crown on the day’s events – applauding Karadaglić’s decision and donating to his foundation supporting young talents and artists.
It’s hard to recall the last time we saw such a diverse group of people come together to defend the dignity of an award named after the most important date in modern Montenegrin history. An award once bestowed on the giants of our science and culture, but one that, in recent years, has been dragged through the political mud – so much so that a Milosevic-era janitor from Belgrade University, who once swept the streets during the 1990s protests, not only received the award but somehow ended up sitting on its jury.
And finally, credit where it’s due: to those who exposed the embarrassing fact that would-be laureate Bećir Vuković never even published the book he claimed to – going so far as to forge the CIP (Cataloguing-in-Publication) registration. And credit as well to everyone organizing tomorrow’s protest at 7:30 p.m., and to all who spoke out with courage and clarity on this issue.
Let this be a hard lesson for Montenegro’s enemies: it will be the people of culture, science, and education who stand first and firmest in defense of this country’s dignity – against their arrogance, their nationalism, their hatred, and their efforts to tear down our symbols and our history.
May this be the beginning of the Chetnik duke’s fall.
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