The 1953 Ravna Skrad Market Bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by the Bosken separatist group BRC-21. The bombing targeted a Kresimirian cultural festival being held in a public market, killing nine civilians and injuring dozens more. The attack caused widespread public outrage and was the direct catalyst for Chancellor Kresimir Kresimirovic II’s hardline response, which included his ill-fated state visit to Moraviskameja four months later, where he himself would be the target of an assassination attempt.
Background
The early 1950s represented a period of hardening attitudes in the Kresimir-Bosken conflict. Following the reformation of the ruling party into Blue Dawn and the rise of new nationalist parties like Vjetrusa, the government in Sinj, under the staunchly conservative Chancellor Kresimirovic II, pursued a policy of cultural and political assimilation.
A key element of this policy was the organization of state-sponsored “Kresimirian Cultural Festivals” in contested districts. These events, featuring traditional Kresimirian music, food, and religious displays, were intended to promote national unity and project state authority. The choice of Ravna Skrad for the summer 1953 festival was highly symbolic. As a city on the historic “fault line” between the Kresimirian heartland and the Bosken-influenced south, a successful festival would have been a significant propaganda victory for the government.
Security for the event was high, with the Council for Internal Affairs deploying additional officers. However, BRC-21, viewing the festival as a provocative act of “cultural occupation,” had spent weeks planning a response designed to demonstrate the state’s inability to protect its citizens and to violently reject its presence.
The festival officially began on the 1st of June 1953, and was scheduled to run until the 7th of June.
The Attack
On the afternoon of Friday, June 5, 1953, the Unity Market Hall in central Ravna Skrad was crowded with families and shoppers attending the festival, as it had been for the last four days. At the center of the market’s main hall, a stage had been set up for musical performances. Earlier in the day, BRC-21 operatives, posing as vendors, had placed a large wicker basket near the base of this stage. The basket contained a time-delayed Improvised Explosive Device, constructed from stolen industrial-grade explosives and packed with nails and metal shards to maximize casualties.
At exactly 2:30 PM, during the peak of the afternoon rush, the device detonated. The explosion was devastating. A deafening roar echoed through the hall as the blast wave tore through the crowd nearest the stage. The concussive force shattered every window in the market, sending glass flying, while the shrapnel ripped through stalls and shoppers alike. The immediate aftermath was a scene of chaos and horror, with thick smoke filling the air as survivors scrambled through the debris.
Aftermath and Consequences
The bombing was an immediate national tragedy. Local emergency services were overwhelmed, and the final casualty count stood at nine dead and forty-seven injured.
BRC-21 Communiqué
Two days later, in a note delivered to a foreign press office, a cell of BRC-21 claimed responsibility. The communiqué declared the festival a “legitimate military target,” branding it a “tool of the Sinj regime’s campaign of cultural erasure.”
Government Response
The public reaction was one of fury. The attack on unarmed civilians, including women and children, was seen as an unforgivable act of barbarism. Chancellor Kresimirovic II addressed the nation, vowing to “answer this savagery with the unyielding iron fist of the state” and promising to “crush the viper’s nest in Moraviskameja.”
The bombing marked the definitive end of any consideration for a softer approach to the insurgency during Kresimirovic II’s tenure. It provided him with the political justification for a massive escalation in security operations. This new, aggressive posture culminated in his decision to personally visit the city of Sprodvice in Moraviskameja in October 1953, a direct show of force that would provoke BRC-21 into their later failed attempt on his life.