DECORATIONS (IN POSTWAR YUGOSLAVIA)
DECORATIONS (IN POSTWAR YUGOSLAVIA)

Summary/Abstract: ESTABLISHMENT OF DECORATIONS. The precursors of postwar Yugoslav decorations were the public citations made during the National Liberation Struggle itself. These citations were for success in combat, for acts of courage, self-sacrifice and bravery. Two such citations were published on August 10, 1941 in the first Bulletin of the Headquarters of the National Liberation Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia. One of them mentioned for the first time the word “people’s hero”. This was later taken as the name for one of the first seven decorations established. The title “people’s hero” was established by an ordinance of the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Partisan and Voluntary Army of Yugoslavia, published in the Supreme Headquarters’ Bulletin No. 12—13 of December 1941 — January 1942, “as the highest recognition possible for soldiers of all ranks and for political commissars who have especially distinguished themselves by bravery and self-sacrifice in the National Liberation Struggle against the occupier and domestic traitors”. This title could only be awarded by the Supreme Headquarters.

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