Croatian president criticized for saying Yugoslavia was behind the Iron Curtain (it wasn’t) · Global Voices
Croatian President <PERSON> during NATO Military Committee Conference in Split, Croatia, Sept. 17, 2016. Photo by <PERSON>, CC BY 2.0
Croatian President <PERSON> drew an avalanche of sneers on Balkan social networks after she said Croatia was behind the Iron Curtain, an assertion considered historically inaccurate.
The president made the remarks during her acceptance speech of the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award, given by the Fulbright Association in a ceremony on October 26 in greater Washington D.C., United States.
<PERSON> has been president of Croatia since 2015. She is currently campaigning for reelection — Croatians will vote on December 22.
This is what she said on October 26:
I was a girl born on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain when I started dreaming big. Together with my friends, all of them boys for that matter, I would lie down on the ground in the evening and gaze at the stars and the flickering lights of the aircraft flying high in the sky, wishing they would take me away, to those other places where people said freedom of choice existed. Where, they said, you could do whatever you wanted. Where, they said, you could say whatever you believed in without being persecuted. And where, they said, you could become whatever you wanted, only if you work hard enough. And I am proud tonight to dedicate this award both to my family and my nation.
Her words caused many angry reactions and accusations of historical revisionism.
Journalist <PERSON> wrote an extensive thread on Twitter debunking her comments — while also taking the opportunity to poke criticism at Croatia's current state of freedom of expression:
I just wanted to remind you what free speech looks like today in the free Croatia
— <PERSON> (@yellena_p) October 27, 2019
Meanwhile, others criticized the president's attempt to portray herself as a victim in spite of her privileged upbringing.
According to her official biography, <PERSON> was born on April 29, 1968, in Rijeka, where she attended primary school. 739
She attended high school in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the US, graduating in 1986. At that time, the Iron Curtain was still standing, and kids from the Eastern Bloc didn't have a lot of opportunities to travel to the West.
Yugoslavs, on the other hand, prided themselves on the privilege of holding the “red passport,” which allowed them to travel both to the Western and Eastern Blocs, as well as to some Non-Aligned countries that were off-limits to a few Western citizens. Such mobility also extended to working and studying — for example, Yugoslavs formed, along with the Turks, the largest population of “guest workers” (gastarbeiter) in West Germany.
<PERSON> President <PERSON> is again presenting a different view on history. She claims she grew up on the “wrong side” of the #IronCurtain & had no freedomsof choice, obviously forgetting she finished high school in the US #Trumpian https://t.co/rS4QoFXodG
— <PERSON> (@AdelinaMarini) October 27, 2019
<PERSON> also belonged to the more affluent section of Yugoslavian society. In the 1980s, her family owned a butcher shop and a ranch with 22 cows in the village of Lopača near Rijeka. Unlike the countries of the Eastern Bloc or neighboring Albania, socialist Yugoslavia never completely clamped down on private property and allowed entrepreneurial activities.
<PERSON> @KolindaGK , @HDZ_HR i <PERSON> ! Zeljezna zavjesa izgledala je ovako. pic.twitter.com/rcljb0Tgv4
— špijunski (@pogledizstklma) October 27, 2019
Only for <PERSON>, the [political party] Croatian Democratic Union and the Fulbright Association. This is how the Iron Curtain looked like.
Responding to the criticism, <PERSON> said that <PERSON> included Yugoslavia within the range of the Iron Curtain when he first came up with the term. But <PERSON> made that speech in 1946, just after the communists took power in Yugoslavia, but before their split with the Soviets two years later. 260