A heart wrenching event is about to occur next week in Croatia unless as many as possible people sign the petition to try and avert this utterly despicable act of erasing, destroying and chilling neglect of Croatian cultural treasures and heritage. PLEASE ACT QUICKLY! Should you wish to sign please follow this link to the Petition Form, sign and submit. THANK YOU!

Translation of text for the Petition:

In line with the order issued by Matica Hrvatska (Matrix Croatica, cultural non-profit institution), on Wednesday 16 January 2019 the drum will start rolling for a public sale of the birth house in the town of Tovarnik of one of Croatia’s greatest literary cultural treasures – Antun Gustav Matos!

Matica hrvatska, founded in 1842, had committed itself to act for the benefit of Croatian people to gather cultural workers and all who are ready to help realise its purpose and tasks; to promote the national and cultural identity of the Croatian people in all areas of artistic, scientific and spiritual creativity.

That is why we are asking for an answer to the question in whose interest does Matica hrvatska announce this scandalous sale and the bankruptcy of Croatian culture. All of us who experience Matica as a Croatian mother will want to know why such a step-motherly attitude towards our Antun Gustav Matos and towards Croatian Syrmia.

Incomprehensible to common sense, Matica hrvatska – after abandoning Matos’s birth-house, of which it was the owner and on which stands a memorial plaque dedicated to Matos and Matica hrvatska – is now placing Matos’s birth house on a public auction, which has never been done with cultural institutions in European history and it is evident that Matica hrvatska is aiming at erasing Matos from Tovarnik. Even the Serbian-Montenegrin barbarians did not succeed in such a thing when in Autumn of 1991, in occupied Tovrarnik, they fired bronze bullets at Matos’s bust which was considered as the most powerful symbol of Croatian culture and independence plights and Matica hrvatska will not succeed, either.

In respect of Matica’s explicit request that not a single one of its bricks can be built into that Croatian lighthouse in Eastern Croatia, we invite all the Petition signatories to contribute financially and in accordance with their capabilities, if they wish to do so, to Antun Gustav Matos Association (Društvu Antuna Gustava Matoša) to alleviate the hardship that the debt of 197.102,38 kuna presents (IBAN: HR7923400091110187281; SWIFT: PBZGHR2X).

At the same time, we call upon Matica hrvatska honourable membership to demand the revocation of millions of affairs burdening the leadership, described in detail in the Proposal for the initiation of an extraordinary procedure for assessing the legality of the work and responsibilities of the Secretary General of the Matica hrvatska Zorislav Lukić and assess the legality of the work of the “Matica hrvatska” association. We, the signatories of this Petition, demand from the once eminent Matica hrvatska, that immediately, due to the enormous material damage caused to the Committee for Construction of AG Matos House and the immeasurable damage to Croatian legitimate and legal cultural interests, suspends all the destructive proceedings which it has been mounting against Antun Gustav Matos Association, the owner of the AG Matos house and the carrier of its remarkably designed reconstruction and construction, for the past fifteen years.

We are determined to stand up against all the destroyers of Matos’s home, whether they are a part of Matica hrvatska or outside it, and say – While we exist, there will be Croatia!

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Signatories to the Petition may be viewed via the Kamenjar portal.

Related newspaper article link/Hrvatski tjednik