1st Split Partisan Detachment

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The 1st Split Partisan Detachment was a small unit of the Yugoslav Partisans formed in Split in August 1941, four months after the Axis invaded and Split was occupied by Italy. It was made up of volunteers from Split and planned to join other Partisans in the Dinara mountains. The unit had about 66 men in three platoons. It was led by Đordano Borovčić-Kurir, with Alfred Santini as commissar, and Mirko Kovačević-Lala overseeing all Partisan detachments in Dalmatia.

On August 11, the detachment left Split to gather weapons and link up with other Partisans, aiming to move toward Kamešnica and Otok. The 2nd Platoon got lost and was disbanded, while the remaining fighters pushed on via Mosor to Dicmo. They reached Krušvar and then Košute near Trilj by August 14. That evening they were fired on by local Ustaše Militia; Italian reinforcements soon arrived and surrounded the group.

In the battle that followed, four Partisans were killed, and 25 were captured with 13 escaping. The captured were taken to Sinj; one prisoner was beaten to death there. A special court from Mostar tried the others in the area, and 21 were executed at Ruduša near Sinj while three were acquitted.

Afterward, a Split Detachment was reformed, but most of its fighters joined the 3rd Dalmatian Assault Brigade. By the time Italy’s armistice came in 1943, some remnants remained in Split, with the Dinara Battalion as part of the 3rd Dalmatian Assault Brigade.

Memorials and memory: A public school in Split was named after Borovčić-Kurir. In 1962 a 15-meter monument was erected in Ruduša to remember the detachment’s fighters; it was destroyed by an explosion in 1992 and rebuilt in 2009 with help from RNK Split’s owners. A monument in Split was placed in 1981, but the site was vandalized in 2013. A 1972 film about the detachment, Prvi splitski odred, was released. In 2014 the mayor proposed naming a street after the detachment, but opposition led to the proposal being withdrawn.