Page 877 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Shaken by the vicious crashing and the smell of burning from the fires that already swallow the houses in the Serbi- an district of Potkljaja, the hearts of frail children and feeble old Serbian people, those who did not want or could not ran away from the city with the military convoys, speech- less old men and women, women with children and thinned ranks of men scattered around the city, imprisoned and detained in their homes without any defense, listen to the breath of destruction which gets closer to them, crying des- olately over the dying city in Cviljen.12
The albanian rabble also destroys the monument of the Russian consul ivan Stepanovich jastrebov, a great Ser- bian friend, from the middle of the 19th century who was a witness of the then Serbian suffering and who indebted the Serbs most during his duties in the very city of Prizren.
as an eyewitness to their slavish suffering in the alba- nian rim and national extinction in the islamic and Roman Catholic proselytizing floods, which ended in complete albanization, in one case or in another, due to rejection of the Serbian and transition to the albanian language, jastre- bov most deeply felt the tragedy of this phenomenon, not- ing that ”women resist longer, remaining in the old faith, and better preserve their faith and language.”
Having got to know the Turks and the albanians well, from whom he would save kidnapped Serbian girls, defend the Prizren Seminary and the people on the street attacked by albanian mobs using both his gun and means of his dip- lomatic immunity, as a diplomat jastrebov penetrated and managed to get there where it was impossible for any Serb to arrive and in his valuable books he carefully wrote down many things he was the last witness of.
He also wrote down his anticipation of the Serbian fu- ture in his almost prophetic inspiration: “in Kosovo, the Serbs lost their empire, in Kosovo the decisive battle will resolve the future of the Balkan Peninsula and the future of the Serbian people.”
Now the monument of our gratitude to this benefactor of our people, who was glorified during his life for his cred- its for the survival of the Serbian nation and was ceremoni- ally welcomed by Serbian masses at all stations from Thes- saloniki to Belgrade, also lies knocked down by a dynamite on the Prizren asphalt and is going to end up on a alba- nians’ waste, without any doubt.
So did the grandfathers of now-a-day albanian destroy- ers demolish the monuments of the King alexander the Unifier and the renowned Kosovo benefactor Sima a. igu- manov at the beginning of World War Two and Neo-Fas- cist occupation, and so did the grandfathers of these grand- fathers at one time killed most prominent representatives of the Serbian and Russian state in Kosovo—the first Ser- bian consul Luka Marinković, at the entrance to the Con- sulate in Priština in 1890 and the first Russian consul in the
12 Part of Prizren which means Bereaved if literally translated— transl note
The Chronicles of the Renewed Crucifixion of Kosovo
newly opened Consulate in Mitrovica, Grigori Stepanovich Stcherbin, on the street in 1903, just because they sought to protect the Serbian citizens from the pogroms and un- bearable albanian lawlessness.
...
The black “troikas” and street rabbles start with kidnap- ping, murdering, beating up and expelling helpless Serbs and systematic burning of their homes both in the town and in the surrounding areas...
They rob and burn down the Monastery of St. Mark’s with the 15th century church in the nearby village of Koriša. On a street in Prizren, they stop and kidnap a monk Hari- ton Lukić (38) from the car he is driving and he goes miss- ing without a trace. in Gnjilane they kidnap: Vlasta Cvetko- vić, the owner of a hardware store, from Bojana Street, Slo- bodan Stojković, from the settlement of Komnik, Dragan Furunović, Božidar (69) and his spouse Dušica (69) Lazić from the village of Žegra.
Today the Holy archierarchical Synod of the Serbian Church has addressed the international forces in an official statement from Belgrade:
The Holy Synod is deeply concerned about the events in Kosovo and Metohija and the latest exodus of our people there On this occasion, the Holy Synod is appealing to the international forces which now occupy Kosovo and Meto- hija to protect the rights of Albanians and safeguard their return hone, to also equally protect the Serbian people and other ethnic groups living in Kosovo and Metohija At the same time, we are claiming an immediate protection for the Monasteries in Peć, Visoki Dečani and Gračanica as well as other great holy sites of the Serbian people
We are also appealing to our brothers in Kosovo and Metohija to stay at their centuries-old homes and not to desert their holy places, firmly believing in Christ’s words: “He who endures until the end, will be saved” Face with the tragic position of our entire people and the federal state, convinced that the final judgment and justice are in God’s name and not in the instrumentalized Hague Tribunal, we are simultaneously demanding that the current President and his Government resign for the sake of people and their salvation, so that new persons, eligible to the national and international public, could take over the responsibility for their people and their future, as a National Salvation Gov- ernment Every reasonable person must find it perfectly clear that numerous interior problems and contradictions, as well as the isolation of our state in the international environ- ment, cannot be resolved and surpassed under such a Gov- ernment and such circumstances
...
From the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Lit- toral, from Cetinje, Podgorica and Nikšić, here arrives a group of clerics, journalists and faithful people—a priest and professor of Cetinje Seminary, Cetinje parish priest and editor-in-chief of “Svetigora,” Radomir Nikčević, a hi- eromonk jovan Ćulibrk and a monk Pavle Kondić from
875