Kordun and Banija are two regions in central Croatia that extend at the foot of the Petrova Gora Mountain range.
This monument is dedicated to the death of ethnic Serbian peasants who died fighting against the Ustasha militias during 1941 and 1942.
The Ustasha was a Croatian nationalist movement that aspired to the creation of an ethnically pure Croatia from non-Croatian elements.
Starting in the summer of 1941, ethnic Serbs began to be forcibly removed.
On 19th July 1941, about 15,000 ethnic Serbs from the surrounding region came to the Petrova Gora Mountain under the protection of a Serbian partisan stronghold.
On 19th March 1942, in response to a peasant uprising, the Croatian militia began Operation Petrova Gora, an offensive intended to liberate the region from all ethnic Serbs and all partisan rebel fighters.
In the course of the reprisal, over 27,000 ethnic Serbs in the area were killed (about 30% of the population).
After the end of World War II and the creation of Yugoslavia, the idea of creating a large memorial on Mali Petrovac, the highest peak of the Petrova Gora Mountain range, had its genesis.
On 6th May 1946, Ivan Ribar, head of the Yugoslav National Assembly, laid the symbolic foundation stone.
However, this project was immediately suspended due to the lack of funds and the lack of architectural plans.
In 1971 numerous proposals were selected but the construction of the monument began in earnest in September 1980.
On 4th July 1982 it was inaugurated in the presence of numerous Yugoslav authorities but the interior of the structure was far from being completely completed.
In the 80s, after Tito’s death and due to numerous political turbulences, the building never reached a finished state before its abandonment.
The building, at its semi-complete time, consisted of a 37-meter-high concrete structure clad in stainless steel panels, an expensive material imported from Sweden.
Inside the structure, it was originally intended to be a congress hall, a library, a reading room, a cafeteria, and a museum that housed hundreds of documents, memorabilia, and artifacts related to the battle and the history of ethno-Serbian struggles in the region.
With the start of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, the Petrova Gora monument fell into disrepair and was targeted and attacked by vandals.
In the following decades it was completely defaced and looted.
What remains now is a hollow shell of a structure, supported by a massive concrete skeleton.
Most of the stainless-steel panels have been removed or stolen, while pieces of fallen insulation are scattered throughout the entire monument.
In recent years, radio towers and other communication facilities have been placed at the summit, taking advantage of the site’s strategic position at the top of the mountain.
The front of the building is fenced but nevertheless holes have been drilled in the fences to allow entry to the structure.
