Knin: Monograph '1995.' Featuring Footage by 26 War Reporters Promoted
Ahead of Victory Day, Zoran Filipović's lavish monograph was presented in Knin, offering over a hundred photographs from the final year of the Homeland War across 300 pages.
Ahead of Victory Day, Zoran Filipović's lavish monograph was presented in Knin, offering over a hundred photographs from the final year of the Homeland War across 300 pages.
On Tuesday evening, the monograph '1995.' was promoted at the Fra Lujo Marun House in Knin. It is the third book in a trilogy about the Homeland War, published and co-authored by Zoran Filipović. The ceremony was held as part of the observance of Victory Day, Homeland Gratitude Day, and Croatian Veterans Day, which is celebrated on August 5.
Spanning an impressive 300 pages, measuring 27 x 32 centimeters, the book contains over a hundred unique photographs credited to 26 Croatian war reporters. Among them are veterans of war photography from Slobodna Dalmacija: Matko Biljak, Božidar Vukičević, and the late Nikša Antonini.
The monograph does not merely provide a visual record of operations such as Operation Storm, Operation Flash, and Operation Southern Move. It also includes detailed war maps showing troop movements during the first days of Operation Storm, which officially lasted 84 hours. On a 700-kilometer front line, with 200,000 soldiers under arms, the forces of rebel Serbs and their supporters were defeated.
The military aspect of the entire year 1995 is thoroughly analyzed and interpreted in the book by leading military historian Davor Marijan. Alongside his analysis, readers will find two texts by President Franjo Tuđman, including his famous call to Croatian citizens of Serbian ethnicity to remain in their homes, with guarantees of all rights under the Croatian Constitution.
In addition to Filipović, the book was promoted by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Croatian Veterans Tomo Medved, who also authored one of the texts in the book, and war photographer Matko Biljak. The program was hosted by HTV journalist Mirta Šurjak. Among the co-authors is Zvonimir Frka Petešić, a Croatian diplomat and head of the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia.
Filipović, known to the wider public for his work with the Magnum Photos agency under the name ZORO, emphasized that this is his 24th authored book in his career. He also recalled his wartime experience: he spent six months as a photo-reporter in besieged Sarajevo.
Filipović explained that the book also carries an important historical dimension. Alongside Tuđman's call for Serbs to stay, the book publishes the order by Serbian authorities for the evacuation of the civilian population of the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina towards Serbia.
"This refutes the lies from the Belgrade kitchen about some collective expulsion of Serbs from Croatia,"Filipović said for Slobodna Dalmacija.
In his statement, he also emphasized the deeper historical context of the Croatian struggle:
"Operation Storm was so brilliantly executed because we were led by love for our homeland, while our enemy was led by hatred. As I wrote in the book, Croats, from their arrival in these areas until the creation of the independent Croatian state in the 1990s, never waged wars of conquest against the territories of other peoples and states, because they committed to this by forming an alliance with Pope Agathon, as attested by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, while the Pope in return promised Croatia and the Croatian people eternal protection from the Vatican. We witness that the great Pope John Paul II fulfilled the promise of his great predecessor, just as we Croats have remained faithful to our promise. We have never reached for what belongs to others; it has always been someone else who wanted this piece of paradise where we live."
The monograph '1995.' thus represents the final part of the war triptych, following the previously published books '1991.' and '1993.', completing the photographic and historical story of the creation of independent Croatia.
