Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova greets citizens on Ilinden, urges responsibility as heirs of the republic

President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova issued a public greeting to citizens on 2 August — Ilinden, the Republic Day — calling the date "the most sacred Macedonian day" and a symbol of the long struggle for freedom and statehood.

In her message she recalled the milestones that give the day its meaning: the 1903 Kruševo Republic, which she said realized the idea of a Macedonian republic, and the first session of ASNOM in 1944, which she described as the moment the Macedonian people secured the right to a national state that also guarantees the rights of minority communities.

She also spoke in personal terms about the emotional and historical charge of Ilinden. "On Ilinden, as I see it, I perceive the spark of the Macedonian revolutionary fire that lit the path for the partisans to the primordial goal – freedom," Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova said, adding that Ilinden is the personification of an ancient longing, resolve, steadfastness and courage to confront and accept personal sacrifice as inevitable.

Turning to the broader sweep of Macedonian history, she invoked the leaders and heroes who, she said, shaped the republic. "Through the bloody pages of harsh history, written with Delchev's thought, Karev's republican vision, Pituguliev's self‑sacrifice, Chento's tribune spirit and the deeds of many known and unknown heroes, soaked with rivers of tears, the Macedonian republic was built and formed. Ilinden obliges us to be worthy and responsible heirs, not merely grateful descendants of glorious ancestors. Who, if not us, will be the guardian of the Ilinden covenant? When, if not now, will we justify the trust of the Ilinden participants and the ASNOM delegates? What kind of Republic will we leave to our beloved children and grandchildren?" she asked.

Siljanovska-Davkova appealed to citizens across ethnic, religious and political lines to awaken both the Ilinden and ASNOM conscience and to engage in what she called an unavoidable and urgent struggle for a common Macedonian, European and democratic republic — a rule-of-law state based on separation of powers and effective checks and balances between the legislative, executive and judicial branches, determined to defeat violence, corruption and crime, supported by competent, ethical and efficient administration, a developed civil society involved in decision-making and objective journalism uncompromising in defense of the public good.

"Let us build the Macedonian state as a home for happy citizens. Happy Ilinden," Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova concluded in her greeting on the Republic Day.

Photo: press material from the event