KARAN: NO MATTER HOW GREAT THE SUFFERING, IT DID NOT EXTINGUISH THE DESIRE FOR FREEDOM

CORFU, SEPTEMBER 23 /SRNA/ - Corfu is a place that inspires deep and quiet respect, and an island that, 110 years ago, became both a refuge and a final resting place for many of our compatriots, Republika Srpska President Siniša Karan said in his address at a ceremony marking the 110th anniversary of the landing of the Serbian army on Corfu.

SRNA, the Media System of Republika Srpska, is publishing President Karan’s address in full:

Here, we carry the memory of the Albanian Golgotha, of the path taken by the Serbian people, carrying a burden far heavier than hunger, winter and exhaustion — the burden of uncertainty, of leaving their homes without knowing whether they would ever return.

Many did not live to reach the end of that journey. They remained somewhere in the mountains and ravines of Albania, far from their loved ones, carrying with them only the final thought of their families and homeland.

Those who reached the sea found in it both salvation and a final farewell, because it was here, on the shores and in the waters around Corfu, that a great number of the exhausted and sick found their final resting place.

Here lie those whose sacrifice has been deeply etched into the memory of our people, passed down from generation to generation as a solemn legacy that binds us. And yet, from that same exhaustion and pain was born a strength rarely witnessed in the history of a people.

Those who arrived on this island, barely able to stand on their feet, refused to remain there forever, broken in spirit. They had lost friends, brothers and sons, but they preserved within themselves something no one could take away from them: the belief that one day they would return to their homeland. It was precisely this steadfast and quiet faith that brought them back into the ranks, restored their strength, and set them once again on the path to liberating their homeland.

This is the message we recognize in this place: no matter how great the suffering and loss, they failed to extinguish what burned within that people — the desire for freedom and the determination to survive.

And in the decades that followed, the Serbian people were not spared new trials and new suffering. During the Second World War, they survived the genocide committed against them in the Independent State of Croatia, suffering on a scale that still evokes a silent shudder today and obliges us to preserve the memory of it forever.

But then, just as on the roads of Albania and in the waters around Corfu, that same people showed that loss, no matter how immense, does not necessarily mean the end. They defended themselves, survived, and preserved their freedom, paying for it time and again with the highest possible price.

That is why we are here today, to pay our debt of remembrance and gratitude, because a people who forget the price they paid for their freedom gradually cease to understand its true value.

We express our special gratitude to the brotherly Greek people and the people of Corfu, who, in the most difficult moments, opened their hearts to those who had nothing left but hope.

Today, we remember with deep respect all those who remained along that long and arduous journey, all those who reached the sea but never made it home, and all those whose final days were spent on this island and in its waters.

We also remember those who found the strength to rise, continue their journey, and, after everything they had endured, return to their homeland.

In this place, we do not need grand words, but a simple, sincere thank you for the sacrifice they made, for the perseverance they showed, and for the freedom that many did not live to see, but never gave up on, even in the most difficult moments.

May this place always remind us that, even after the greatest losses, a person and a people can rise again and move forward, carrying with them the memory of those who paid for that strength with their own lives.

Eternal gratitude and glory to all Serbian warriors who walked the path of Golgotha, to those who rest here and to those who, despite their suffering, returned home.