Branko Sbutega

Branko Sbutega (born April 8, 1952 in Kotor , Yugoslavia ; † April 27, 2006 Dobrota , Serbia and Montenegro ) was a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Kotor and a peace and human rights activist in Montenegro.

Life

Branko Sbutega graduated from high school in his hometown of Kotor. He then studied medicine and theology in Zagreb, Vienna and Rome. In 1979 he was ordained a priest. Until 1982 he worked as a chaplain in Dobrota near Kotor. That year he became parish priest at the church of St. Eustachius there. In 1991, the Croatian Bishops' Conference sent him to Padua , Italy , where Sbutega set up and managed a care center for Yugoslav refugees. In 1996 he returned to his Montenegrin parish. In addition to his work as a parish priest, Sbutega was also the diocese secretary and responsible for the historically valuable archive of the diocese.

In 1999 he established the diocesan caritas of the Kotor diocese and became its first director. The first major test for the new Catholic aid organization came in the same year when thousands of refugees from Kosovo came to Montenegro. Caritas von Kotor ran a large refugee camp and thanks to his diverse international contacts, Sbutega managed to raise enough donations to care for the refugees. For example, he traveled to Germany with great difficulty during the NATO war against the rest of Yugoslavia in order to obtain support. Among other things, he succeeded in bringing extensive funds raised by the city of Leipzig and the local parishes of all denominations to Montenegro, disregarding the embargo that existed at the time.

After the situation in Kosovo had changed and the predominantly Muslim Albanians returned home, Orthodox Serbs and Roma soon came to Montenegro as refugees. Caritas von Kotor under Sbutega's direction was also involved in their care and supply.

From the beginning of the 90s until his death in 2006, Branko Sbutega campaigned for understanding between the peoples of the collapsed Yugoslavia through numerous lectures and articles in various newspapers and magazines . As a Montenegrin with Croatian roots and extensive international experience, he was predestined to mediate between the national fronts. Sbutega has repeatedly warned members of all ethnic groups to make peace. In other European countries he was a sought-after interlocutor because the humanistic intellectual was able to explain the conflicts in the Balkans as a victim without making common ground with any of the parties.

The versatile priest supported civil rights groups in Montenegro that fight against corruption in the authorities or against environmental crime. In the last years of his life he was particularly committed to the rights of the Roma in his home country. He was also involved in the ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox Church and various Protestant denominations. Sbutega was also co-initiator and honorary president of the Kotor Art cultural initiative , which organizes exhibitions, readings and concerts.

Since 2004 Sbutega has been a member of the Intergovernmental Montenegrin-Croatian Council, a body that was set up to improve relations between the two countries.

Appreciation

The Serbian writer Filip David wrote in his obituary about Sbutega:

In the dark times we have gone through - and through which we are still going - loners like Don Branko Sbutega were the indispensable flames of light. These loners stand against the crowd and against the demagoguery that leads this crowd.

The concert series organized by Kotor Art every summer has been called Don Brankovi Dani Muzike (Don Branko's Music Days) since 2007 .

Works

Monographs

• Mary of the Rock. Perast. (Tourist guide, with Gracija Brajkovic et al.) Zagreb 1988
• Stara književnost Boke . (Ed. Together with Ivo Banac & Slobodan Prosperov Novak) Zagreb 1993
• Kurosavin nemir svijeta . (Monograph) Beograd 2006, ISBN 86-481-0036-4

Article (selection)

• Naše posljednje ljeto . In: Dubrovnik. Casopis za književnost i znanost Matice hrvatske 3 (1992), pp. 210-215
• The Adriatic Coast. A Space of Division and Collaboration . In: The Mediterranean. Cultural Identity and Intercultural Dialogue . Edited by Biserka Cvjeticanin. Zagrab 1999, pp. 215-220

Web links

• Njegoskij Fund Network: Jesuit Roman Catholic Priest Don Branko Sbutega (1952-2006) (Eng.)
• Njegoskij Fund Network: Music encounters in the Bay - by Don Branko Sbutega, Honorary President of KotorArt (engl.)