President Stevandic Attends State Ceremony Marking Serbian Statehood Day – Sretenje

The President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska, Dr. Nenad Stevandic, attended the state ceremony today in Orasac, marking Serbian Statehood Day – Sretenje.

The ceremony was also attended by the outgoing Prime Minister of Serbia Milos Vucevic, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska Radovan Viskovic, the President of the Serbian Parliament Ana Brnabic, ministers in the governments of Serbia and Srpska, and other officials.

The commemoration for the insurgents was served by His Eminence Metropolitan Jovan of Sumadija, with the concelebration of the clergy.

Addressing those present, Prime Minister Vucevic said that Serbia will remain a country of freedom and that it will not stop and kneel, although some dream of it coming to that.

"Many people today do not like a libertarian and militarily neutral Serbia, and I am telling them from this place that Serbia will remain that way because that is what the majority of its citizens want," said Vucevic, who participated in the ceremony as an envoy of the Serbian President.

According to him, Serbia will never recognize the seizure of its territory, will not give up Kosovo and Metohija, and will not jeopardize its friendship with traditional allies, no matter what pressure they put on it.

"That is the vow of Karadjordje's rebels, that is the debt we all have to freedom," Vucevic emphasized.

Prime Minister Viskovic said that Orasac is a sacred place for Serbs and that the "pilferer of freedom" set off from there 221 years ago.

"We from the Republic of Srpska know best how we paid for the freedom of the Serbs to survive in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of the last century," said Viskovic.

He recalled that Karadjordje launched an uprising in Orasac in 1804, and was already in Visegrad in 1809, after which uprisings for the freedom of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina began, which were unfortunately quickly suppressed.

The Declaration on the Protection of National and Political Rights and the Common Future of the Serbian People, adopted at the All-Serbian Assembly in Belgrade in June last year, established the joint celebration of the Meeting as the Statehood Day of the Republic of Srpska and the Statehood Day of Serbia.

This year, the Meeting was celebrated for the first time in the Republic of Srpska under the slogan "Unity and Pride", and on that occasion, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and a delegation of the Serbian Government paid a two-day visit to the Republic of Srpska.

The celebration of the Meeting began with a ceremonial academy and a series of demonstrations in the Republic of Srpska on February 13 and 14, in the presence of the highest officials of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, and will end with a large gathering tonight, at which the declaration on Vojvodina in Serbia will be adopted by acclamation of the people present.

The Meeting, as Statehood Day, is celebrated in memory of two significant events in Serbian history that took place on February 15 - the First Serbian Uprising of 1804, which was raised in Orasac, and the adoption of the first constitution of Serbia in its modern history.

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