On 6 March 1929, at the Croatian hotel Esplanade, the founding meeting of the Zagreb Rotary Club was held encouraged by the Rotary International Europe director of the time, Josef Schulz. The event was attended by 26 prominent Zagreb citizens who thus became the members of the founding Zagreb Rotary Club team. The founders included, among others, Ivan Meštrović, Franjo Hanaman and Branko Šenoa. The ceremony of the official awarding of the certification of the acceptance of the club in the Rotary community, the so-called Charter, was held at the Plitvice Lakes on 28 June 1929. This was how the Rotary movement, with all its ideas and aims, officially came to be in Croatia, 24 years after Paul P. Harris encouraged its establishment on 23 February 1905.
The idea behind the Rotary is to help those who are in need without any selfish motives. Today, Rotary International is the largest service organisation in the world with over 1.2 million members organized in 35,000 clubs. Their aim is to promote peace, to fight against various diseases, to promote the right to healthy drinking water, the protection of mothers and children, to support education and growth and to promote local sustainable entrepreneurship. The motto behind the Rotary today, Service Above Self, which indicates that the idea of service to the community has to be above our individual personal interest, clearly shows what kind of members the Rotary wants to have. The Four-Way Test on each activity promoted and supported by the Rotary clubs was developed for this purpose and the members have to provide a clear and unambiguous positive reply to the following questions: Is it the TRUTH?; Is it FAIR to all concerned?; Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?; Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned? Numerous activities by the Croatian Rotary clubs within Rotary District 1913, at the national and international level, support the soundness and accuracy of this test, as well as spreading the idea of global friendship and cooperation.
The Croatian Rotary members, over 1400 from 54 clubs, will continue their selfless work to help the others. The Zagreb Medvedgrad Rotary Club expresses special gratitude to the Croatian Post for accepting the proposal to celebrate this anniversary, which shows that the mottos Croatian and Global(Hrvatsko, ali globalno) and Be the Inspiration(Budi nadahnuće) are supported by the daily activities of the Croatian Rotary members.
Dr. sc. Gordan Akrap
Hybrid Warfare Research Institute
