The 1975 ''Zaliv'' Scandal was a

political scandal In politics, a political scandal is an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. Politicians, government officials, party officials and lobbyists can be accused of various illegal, corrupt, uneth ...

in SFR Yugoslavia that began when the summary killing of 12,000

Slovene Home Guard The Slovene Home Guard ( sl, Slovensko domobranstvo, SD; german: Slowenische Landeswehr) was a Slovene anti- Partisan military organization that was active during the 1943–1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Ljub ...

war prisoners by the Yugoslav Communist regime, which occurred in May and June 1945, was publicly discussed and condemned for the first time after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

in 1975.

The scandal

The scandal followed after the killings were condemned by

Edvard Kocbek Edvard Kocbek () (27 September 1904 – 3 November 1981) was a Slovenian poet, writer, essayist, translator, member of Christian Socialists in the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation and Slovene Partisans. He is considered one of the best au ...

in an interview that appeared as a special edition of the journal ''Zaliv''; it was written by two Slovene writers from Trieste, Boris Pahor and

Alojz Rebula Alojz Rebula (June 21, 1924 – October 23, 2018) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, and translator, and a prominent member of the Slovene minority in Italy. He lived and worked in Villa Opicina in the Province of Trieste, Italy. He was ...

, and published in Italy. The interview was titled ''Edvard Kocbek: pričevalec našega časa'' (Edvard Kocbek: Witness to Our Time) and served as a pretext to launch a massive denigration campaign against Kocbek by the state-controlled Yugoslav media. Kocbek, who lived in Yugoslavia, was put under constant secret service surveillance until his death in 1981. The international pressure on

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

, especially the intervention of the German writer

Heinrich Böll Heinrich Theodor Böll (; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll is a recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). ...

, was probably the main element that protected Kocbek from judicial prosecution.Detela, L., & Kersche, P. 2004
''Kocbek Edvard: Literatur und Engagement''
. Vienna: Kitab. Boris Pahor and

, who interviewed Kocbek, were banned from entering Yugoslavia for several years and were only able to enter it to attend Kocbek's funeral.

References

{{DISPLAYTITLE:1975 ''Zaliv'' Scandal 1975 in Yugoslavia Political scandals in Yugoslavia Political repression in Communist Yugoslavia Political history of Slovenia Slovenia in World War II Interviews Extrajudicial killings in World War II Historiography of World War II World War II prisoner of war massacres Massacres in 1945