Frane Šore Čelik

Frane Šore Čelik was born in the village Donji Seget near Trogir into a family of a fishermen.[2] He was the son of Marko and Ika, born Vukman Ilak. He completed primary school at his place of birth, where he spent his childhood and youth,[2] and was aware of the injustice that the ruling monarchist-capitalist Yugoslav government exercised through its institutions.

Čelik was an early member of the youth revolutionary movement, which included members of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (KPJ); Zvonko Prlenda a bakery worker, Petar Lozovina, and Tadija Mihanović from Žrnovnica. In mid-1934, he became a member of the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ), and was elected soon after as secretary of the local organization of the SKOJ of Seget Donji. In 1936 he became a volunteer for the Spanish Civil War, where he did not arrive due to poor connections and police burglary. In 1936, under the directive of Party, he went to Stobreč and then to Kaštel Kambelovac, where he gathered the advanced youth and founded the organization of the SKOJ. In 1937, he became a member of the national branch of Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the newly-formed Communist Party of Croatia, and since then was more engaged in a revolutionary life. He developed his own ideological and political education by reading Marxist literature,[2] which led to the radical demolition of his Catholic faith and the Roman Catholic Church as an institution. This was noticed by local reactionaries, monarchists and national clerics who, together with the local pastor Don Jozo Carev, reported Čelik to the Royal Authorities.

In 1937, he went to Šibenik to serve in the regular military of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He continued with his revolutionary work in the military, where he founded active communist cells in the military unit, scouting command. The military command saw his revolutionary action, and he was mistreated and physically punished, and was sentenced by punishment to a navy ship Jadran, where he was also punished.[2]

After serving the military deadline, he returned to his village and continued his revolutionary work. In 1938 a local reader Seljačka sloga was established in the Špika Bunde house in the village and he was its first president. He was included in the forming of the party cell of KPH – Donji Seget, founded in August 1939. At the time of the capitulation of the kingdom of Yugoslavia, he found himself a reservoir on the battery of Novica on Drvenik Veliki, from where he brought a lot of ammunition and weapons.[2]

After the occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and on the basis of the Roman Treaties, the establishment of Italian monarchist-fascist authorities in his native Seget, he was actively involved in the gathering of weapons and ammunition in preparation for the uprising and resistance against the occupier. He participated in the organization of the "shock group" in Seget Donji, which organized and performed the first diversion actions, such as the demolition of telephone and telegraph poles in Marina and Gornji Seget, and in cooperation with the Trogir communists, the demolition of the HDŽ train in Labin Dread, which carried oil for the Ustasha garrison in Sinj. After the arrival of an occupier, under the party directive, he went into an illegal secret life. Italian police and authorities searched for him on the basis of local spies' testimony, such as Filip Bilota, whose name is mentioned in Italian documents. The Carabinieri arrested Čelik in August 1941, in Seget Donji; he was released after several days' detention with the obligation to report back to their office in Trogir. He departed from the partisans unit on April 24, 1942, where he was assigned to the Livno partisan squad, where he was soon appointed as an exemplary fighter and was assigned as platoon commander and then deputy commander of the company. In the battles in which he participated, he emerged as an unforgiving fighter. He attempted suicide on June 12, 1942, in the village Vidimlije in Glamoč,[2] while fighting with Chetniks.

After the war, his tomb was found on the testimony of locals in Vidimlije, and Čelik was recognized by his clothing. His remains were transferred to his resting place in a family tomb at the Konacvine cemetery in Seget Donji.

His name was adopted by the then High Economic School in Seget Donji, the Youth Cultural Arts Society and a street in Seget Donji. On August 15, 1979, a memorial was constructed; a work by Split sculptor Mirko Ostoja was placed in front of the then-Seget Donji High School. [2] In the 1990s, his memorial busts were removed, and street names and institutions bearing his name were changed due to the aggressive policy of reducing the significance of the NOB and its members by certain revisionist-revanchist circles, which began to be openly implemented since the end In the 1980s, despite the introduction of the importance of anti-fascist struggle as a positive contribution to the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia.