Slovenia to Use WWI Anniversary to Promote Dialogue
The www.100letprve.si website, which also has a lot of content in English, provides feature articles on World War I and a schedule of commemorative events among other things.
The president of the committee, Defence Minister Roman Jakič, told the press that while Slovenia would also try to use it for tourist and cultural promotion, the anniversary will foremost be an opportunity to remember and honour the war's victims.
The committee's representatives announced Slovenia would focus on the "spirit of overcoming" the divisions that caused the war, while also pointing to the unpredictable consequences of war in light of the conflict that threatens to erupt not far from here.
A number of events, exhibitions and talks are planned in the coming years, including each year a central state ceremony. The first is planned on 9 September this year at the ossuary in the Ljubljana Žale cemetery with President Borut Pahor as keynote speaker.
Next year the "Walk of Peace from the Alps to the Adriatic", running along the bloody Isonzo Front (1915-1917), will be launched in March by Pahor and Italian counterpart Giorgio Napolitano.
In 2016, the main ceremony will be held in July at the chapel built at the Vršič mountain pass by Russian POWs in 1916, and in June 2017 the central event is planned in Kobarid, located on the Isonzo Front.
The concluding main gesture in 2018 will be the signing of a document entitled a European commitment for peace, to which deputies of the National Assembly as well the European Parliament are expected to be invited.