The Chairman of the National Assembly, Predrag Markovic, today attended events to mark St Vitus’ Day in Misicevo, a village near the northern Serbian city of Subotica. The villagers celebrated their patron saint’s day, laid wreaths at the monument to Marshal Misic, one of the leaders of the Serbian army in World War I, after whom the village was named, and dedicated a memorial to Szekely-Hungarians, the original inhabitants of the village.

Addressing the villagers gathered around the monument to Marshal Misic, the Chairman of the National Assembly underlined the necessity of co-operation between peoples in the region, especially in communities such as Misicevo, a village created through colonisation at the time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. By unveiling the memorial to Szekely-Hungarians and laying wreaths at the monument to Marshal Misic, the people of Misicevo have shown how important it was to respect the differences underlying their life, Mr Markovic concluded. He stressed that Marshal Misic on three occasions forgave politicians and returned to active duty from retirement, thereby showing that the good of the state was always superior to interests of any one individual.

The former inhabitants of Misicevo, the Szekely-Hungarians to whom the memorial was unveiled today, were driven from their homes in Bukovina (a region today divided between the Ukraine and Romania) by the Hungarian authorities in 1941 and forced to settle in parts of northern Backa (in present-day Serbian province of Vojvodina). The Szekely-Hungarians left Misicevo in 1944, while the graves of their dead were abandoned to decay. The Misicevo Cultural Centre, with the support of the local authorities, initiated the building of the memorial.

The Catholic vicar of Bajmok led a memorial prayer service at the village cemetery, while the Serbian Orthodox parson of Bajmok led a service for Serbian soldiers killed in World War I at the monument to Marshal Misic. The service was attended by officials of Bajmok and Subotica local authorities, as well as representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Hungary.