Nikolic becomes honorary citizen of Corfu

Nikolic becomes honorary citizen of Corfu

"Instilled in the Serbian essence, the name of the Island of Corfu is pronounced with the greatest respect and love. With gratitude," Nikolic said in his remarks on the occasion of marking the centenary of the Serbian army disembarkation on the Ionian islands of Corfu and Vido.

"We remember our Golgotha, and we will cherish the memory of our suffering, and the gratitude to our Allies and the residents of the Island of Corfu, who cried over our fate and without whose kindness the revival of Serbia would not have been possible," Nikolic said.

Nikolic was handed the Charter of the Honorary Citizen of Corfu today.

"This Charter is a message of friendship between us, the friendship passed for one hundred years from one generation to another, and growing stronger with the passage of time," Nikolic said, adding that for as many as one hundred years, any Serb’s arrival to Corfu had been a pilgrimage.

He reiterated the historical fact that "over 150,000 Serbian soldiers, around 100,000 civilians, 23,000 Austro-Hungarians taken captives and 10,000 horses walked the trail of suffering and reached the coast of Albania" in WWI.

Nikolic said Serbia Serbia would always remember all the assistance and kindness with which it had been treated by the Allies, and would never forget their endeavours aimed at enabling Corfu to accept the Serbs who had outnumbered the inhabitants of the very island.

"The Serbs named Corfu the Isle of Salvation; in sharp contrast, they named Vido the Isle of Death. Hunger, prostration, illness, more than one hundred people dying every single day, and a shared, common blue sea tomb. The exact number and the names of all the victims who remained forever buried in alien seas, far away from their native village, from Serbia, is not known. Such a sea tomb was unprecedented in the history of mankind. Milutin Bojic would later identify the Ionian Sea with the 'Holy Water'," said Nikolic.

Observing that coexistence intertwined many fates and instilled in both the Greeks and the Serbs the awareness of the permanent friendship between the two peoples, Nikolic said:

"There are testimonies to the fact that the inhabitants of Corfu remember the Serbs not only as tormented living skeletons that breathe and walk, but also as the people that sing when their morals have reached a nadir.

"We preserved our faith in human kindness, for we managed to persuade the inhabitants of Corfu not to be afraid by the fact that we came uninvited, that our sojourn would be of a short nature, until we recover and head for the country bequeathed by our forefathers."

Nikolic said he had decorated the Municipality of Corfu with the high honor of the Republic of Serbia – the Sretenje Order of the First Degree, for the unique humane treatment bestowed on many of his compatriots during the rescue efforts in 1916.

"Let this honor, conferred to you by my homeland, be an eternal reminder of how grateful the Serbian people is to its Greek friends. Let it symbolize to Corfu the gem of our brotherly relationship, in the same way as we find Corfu to embody the suffering and revival, the humanity of the Allies and the kindness of the hosts," Nikolic said.