Slobodan Šiljak

Last updated February 22, 2019

Slobodan Šiljak (1881 in Pljevlja – December 5, 1943 in Pljevlja) was a Montenegrin priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church who was sainted by the church in 2005.

Pljevlja is a town and the center of Pljevlja Municipality located in the northern part of Montenegro. The city lies at an altitude of 770 m (2,530 ft). In the Middle Ages, Pljevlja had been a crossroad of the important commercial roads and cultural streams, with important roads connecting the littoral with the Balkan interior. In 2011, the municipality of Pljevlja had a population of 30,786, while the city itself had a population of about 19,489. The municipality borders those of Žabljak, Bijelo Polje and Mojkovac in Montenegro, as well as the republics of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. With a total area of 1,346 km² (520 sq mi), it is the third largest municipality in Montenegro. Pljevlja is the birthplace of Gojko Ružičić a Serbian-American linguist, who lived and worked in the United States. He was a professor emeritus at Columbia University and contributed significantly to the development of Slavic studies in the United States.

The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Christian Churches. It is the second-oldest Slavic Orthodox Church in the world.

Šiljak studied theology in Prizren. He served as a military chaplain in the Balkan Wars.^[1] Šiljak was executed by a local Yugoslav Partisan unit during World War II on December 5, 1943 as an "enemy of the people". He was proclaimed a saint by the Serbian Orthodox Church in May 2005 in Bosnia and Herzegovina's Žitomislić Monastery despite protests by groups from Pljevlja that he was a war criminal.^[1] Milosava Strunjaš has come forward claiming that Šiljak was responsible for the death of her father Rajko Cerović.^[2]

Balkan Wars Two wars on Balkan Peninsula 1912-1913, leading to the Balkan Crisis of 1914 and start of WWI

The Balkan Wars consisted of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan Peninsula in 1912 and 1913. Four Balkan states defeated the Ottoman Empire in the first war. The main victor of the four, Bulgaria, fought and pushed back all four original combatants of the first war along with halting a surprise attack from Romania from the north in the second war. The Ottoman Empire lost the bulk of its territory in Europe. Austria-Hungary, although not a combatant, became relatively weaker as a much enlarged Serbia pushed for union of the South Slavic peoples. The war set the stage for the Balkan crisis of 1914 and thus served as a "prelude to the First World War".

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina, and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe, located within the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest city.

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The Battle of Pljevlja, was a World War II attack in the state of Montenegro by partisans on Italian military forces occupying the city of Pljevlja under the command of General Arso Jovanović and Colonel Bajo Sekulić, who led 4,000 Montenegrin Partisans.

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The Bukovica massacre was a massacre of Muslims in Bukovica, Pljevlja, in the Axis-occupied Italian governorate of Montenegro. It took place February 4–7, 1943, during Pavle Đurišić's Chetniks' 1943 cleansing campaign. The massacre was aimed at establishing Chetnik control over territories held by the Sandžak Muslim militia. After a short battle with the Muslim militia, Chetniks captured Bukovica and killed over five hundred civilians.

References

1 2 Pop Dušan Prijović was also a war criminal Archived 2011-07-25 at the Wayback Machine ., Danas
↑ Canonization of rehabilitation, B92

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[Danas-1] 1 2 Pop Dušan Prijović was also a war criminal Archived 2011-07-25 at the Wayback Machine ., Danas

[2] Canonization of rehabilitation, B92