Monumental Troubles in Croatia

Few months after L'Affair Severina Croatia returned to Page 109 of CNN teletext. This is due to the group of citizens in village of Lovinac who built the monument for their favourite son, causing all kinds of interesting reactions. Top HDZ officials used this as an excellent opportunity to present themselves as born-again European anti-fascists who had reformed and completely changed their tune about some of the more questionable aspects of WW2 in Croatia.

This wasn't the only monument-related controversy in Croatia. In the city of Makarska local veteran organisation was up in arms over the soil, grass and flowers used to decorate monument for fallen soldiers. The soil and flowers were allegedly imported from Banja Luka, city in Republic of Srpska. Veterans lambasted authorities for defiling the monument with "Serbian soil".

Interestingly enough, when Budak used to be around, Banja Luka was supposed to be new capital of Croatian state. History can play bizarre tricks on Balkans nationalisms.