10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Special program at “Fran Krsto Frankopan” Krk Primary School with an address by the host “Fran Krsto Frankopan” Krk Primary School, representatives of Baška Municipality, representatives of Veli Vrh Pula Primary School and NFCA representatives
11:00 – 11:30
Commemoration for teacher Ivan Šorić, all teachers killed in the First World War and all those killed and martyred during the First World War
12:00 – 13:30
Football matches between Elementary School “Fran Krsto Frankopan” Krk and Elementary School Veli Vrh Pula
13:30 – 15:00
Lunch and gathering of participants
Baška
The Baška Valley occupies the extreme southeast of the island of Krk, which ends in the Baška Bay in the south, dominated by the 1,800-meter-long pebble beach called Vela Plaža. In this naturally isolated area there are the settlements of Baška, Jurandvor, Batomalj and Draga Bašćanska. In administrative terms, all the settlements belong to the Municipality of Baška.
Baška is the largest settlement in the Municipality of Baška, with 981 inhabitants (according to the 2011 census). The elementary school “Fran Krsto Frankopan” Krk, Branch School Baška, operates here, which has a total of 109 students from 1st to 8th grade.
Football club Vihor
The local football club Vihor was founded in 1923 as part of the older Vihor Sports Association (founded in 1913). With the reorganization in 2008, the football club was separated as an independent sports association. Today it competes in lower ranks within the Croatian Football League. About twenty students of the Branch School Baška are members of the local football club.
Ivan Šorić
Ivan Šorić was born in Baška in 1890. After graduating from the Teacher’s School, he worked as a teacher in schools founded by the educational society Družba Sv. Ciril and Metod for Istria. He was first a teacher in Veli Lošinj, and then he moved to Pula and worked at the Veli Vrh school. It was there that he was caught in the First World War. He was mobilized in the 97th Infantry Regiment and went to the Eastern Battlefield (Galicia). He died of cholera on October 27, 1914, at the age of 24.
A DAY TO REMEMBER
A DAY TO CELEBRATE PEACE
On Thursday, September 22, 2022, the marking of The Peace Field Project was held at the Baška Branch School. It is an international project launched in 2013 on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. The holder of the project is the Children’s Football Alliance, which initiated the foundation of the International Children’s Football Alliance. The main partner of the project is the Village of Peace in Messen, Belgium, near which there was a battlefield during the First World War, where during Christmas 1914, German and British soldiers met in “no man’s land” and played a football match. This unique event in the history of war entered the professional literature under the name of The Christmas Truce.
61 schools, football clubs and groups from 16 countries on five continents have joined this international project. The first school from the Republic of Croatia to join the project in September 2021 was Veli Vrh Primary School from Pula. The Baška Branch School is connected with the Pula school by teacher Ivan Šorić, a native of Baška, who worked at the school of Družba St. Cyril and Methodius for Istria in Veli Vrh. After the outbreak of the First World War, teacher Šorić was mobilized and sent to the Eastern (Russian) battlefield, where he died of cholera in October 1914. Pupils and staff of Baška Branch School were guests of Veli Vrh Elementary School during its accession to this international project, and this Thursday a return meeting between the two schools was arranged.
Thus, in the school sports hall in Baška, the program of joining the Baška Primary School to the Field of Peace project was held. The program was opened by the students of the lower grades who, as a school choir, sang the school anthem under the direction of teacher Kristina Ivošić and with the piano accompaniment of teacher Davor Burlović.
In their welcoming speeches, the Mayor of the Municipality of Baška, Mr. Toni Juranić, and the Principal of Veli Vrh Primary School, Mrs. Ileana Zahtila Blašković, reminded of the importance of conveying the message of peace among young people, all with the aim of avoiding conflicts and conflicts and developing tolerance, peaceful coexistence and human rights. Then student Leona Kovačić (6th grade) recited the song Let the whole world be, and in the part of the program that was dedicated to teacher Ivan Šorić, students from 7th grade Petra Čuljat, Niko Parčić and Lea Seršić reminded those present of his life and tragic fate. At the end of the program, the history teacher Tvrtko Božić presented the head of Baška Branch School, Kristina Ivošić, with the Declaration of Peace, by signing which the Baška school was officially included in the aforementioned international project. Let’s add to this that the school Peace Plaque of Baška Branch School has already been placed on the Peace Wall in Messen (Flanders).
In the continuation of the program, the project participants visited the exhibition “Baška students’ time machine”, set up in the Zvonimir Gallery. The program concluded with the playing of friendly football matches between students of Baška and Pula schools on the Football club “Vihor” playground, which on this occasion was transformed into the Field Peace. The soccer referees for this occasion were history teachers Igor Jovanović from Pula and Tvrtko Božić from Baška, who are also Croatia’s International Children’s Football Alliance (ICFA) Peace Field Project (PFP) Managers.
