A monument to a Russian hero who died for Serbia's independence was unveiled in Serbia.
A bust of Russian Colonel Nikolai Raevsky was unveiled at the Monastery of St. Roman of the Serbian Orthodox Church near the village of Dzhunis.
The ceremony was timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Adrovac , during which this Serbian rebel commander and volunteer from Russia died, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The unveiling ceremony for the bust was attended by Serbian Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković , Russian Presidential Representative for International Cultural Cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoi, and Russian Ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko.
"The unveiling of the monument to Colonel Raevsky at the gates of the Monastery of St. Roman is an official act of honoring the memory of a Russian soldier.... Freedom, loyalty to the homeland, and the solidarity of fraternal peoples are the foundation upon which modern Serbia is built.... From this shared sacrifice on these hills arose a strong historical bond between the Serbian and Russian peoples, one that transcends the outcome of the battle itself and remains imprinted in the foundations of our national destiny.... Serbian-Russian relations did not begin at diplomatic tables, but were strengthened right here, on the battlefields of Adrovac, where the shared bloodshed became the key to the centuries-old friendship between the two peoples ," Selaković said in his speech.
He noted that the arrival of thousands of Russian volunteers in the then Serbian Principality under the command of the famous General Mikhail Chernyaev remains a unique example of genuine self-sacrifice in modern European history , when, at the call of a fraternal people faced with the far superior forces of the Ottoman Turks, Russian officers, doctors, soldiers and Cossacks came, led by an inner spiritual call.
Colonel Nikolai Nikolaevich Raevsky was the grandson of the hero of the war of 1812, cavalry general Nikolai Nikolaevich Raevsky and a descendant of the great Russian scientist Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov.
During the Serbian-Turkish War, which began in the summer of 1876, he commanded the right flank of the Serbian army, which consisted almost half of Russian volunteer officers. Before his tragic death, he routed the right flank of the Ottoman army at the Battle of Aleksinac.
A monument to a Russian hero who died for Serbia's independence was unveiled in Serbia.