On Kosovo Polje, Albanian police beat Serbs for their national flag
Last Sunday, the Serbs of Kosovo, despite the opposition of Albanian separatists, celebrated Vidovdan - the day of remembrance of the heroes who died in 1389 in the Battle of Kosovo.
This was reported by the Kosovo-online portal, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
More than a thousand Serbs gathered at the monument to the heroes of the Kosovo battle in Gazimestan, located a few kilometers from the legendary Kosovo field.
The memorial service was conducted by Bishop Teodosius of Rasko-Prizren, rector of the Prizren Theological Seminary. The area near the monument was cordoned off by special forces of the so-called Kosovo police ROSU, whose militants did not allow the Serbs to display national symbols outside the memorial.
“We fought against the Turks in Gazimestan, but today we have another battle,” the bishop told the crowd. “There are many who would like us not to be in these spaces, but we will not give up anything, we will not betray anything, we will not retreat, not so much with our own strength and courage, but with the power of God and our faith.”
Those gathered did not forget about the situation of their fellow tribesmen and co-religionists in Montenegro, chanting “Milo (Djukanovic - dictator of Montenegro - ed.) is a thief!” and “Serbia and Montenegro are one family!”
The ceremonial event was not without incidents - Albanian militants tied up two twenty-year-old Serbs - Vojslav Simic and Stefan Trajkovic from Laple Sela because they were carrying the Serbian flag.
“There were two policemen in the car, when they separated us from the mass of people, they started hitting us in the ribs, head and back,” Trajkovic said. “The policeman who was driving us in the car hit my friend in the head with his elbow. They said that there would be no such thing here (Serbian symbols - ed.), that this (land - ed.) was theirs. They released us on the highway and did not allow us to return to Gazimestan. On the way, we met a family from Preoča, who picked us up and took us to Laple Sela.”
“The beating of Serbian youths for chauvinistic reasons is a shameful, unacceptable act that most cruelly violates the fundamental human rights of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija and reminds the entire public of the hardships of our people,” responded the local Serbian List party. “At the same time, we remind you that since February there have been more than 30 attacks that remain unsolved, so it is obvious that the police are only effective in harassing and beating Serbs.
“Such an infringement of the rights of our people is absolutely unacceptable, and deputies from the Serbian List will raise this issue in negotiations with competent ministers in the coming days.”
Vidovdan commemorations also took place in other parts of Kosovo, with various incidents occurring throughout. So, during a service on the ruins of the desecrated Church of St. Nicholas in Novo Brdo, the Albanians, who were mowing the grass on its territory, deliberately turned on the lawnmower at full power, but in the end, seeing that the Orthodox did not stop the service, they left, shouting insults.
The Battle of Kosovo took place on June 15, 1389, but is traditionally commemorated by the Serbs on June 28 in Vidovdan. According to legend, on the eve of the battle, an angel appeared to the leader of the Serbian army, Prince of Moravian Serbia, Saint Lazar Hrebelianovich, who asked whether he was ready to accept martyrdom and gain the Kingdom of Heaven or to remain alive, but his state would fall away from the Faith of Christ. The prince chose the Heavenly Kingdom.
Before the battle, all the soldiers of the Serbian army received Holy Communion. The Battle of Kosovo also showed the destructiveness of the feudal fragmentation of the Serbian world, since Prince Lazar called on the rulers of all Serbian states to repel the aggressor, but the princes and despots of the countries located on the territory of present-day Western Macedonia, Eastern Macedonia and Montenegro ignored his call, and his son-in-law, who took part in the battle , the ruler of Kosovo, Vuk Brankovic, withdrew his troops as soon as he received a serious blow from the Turks.
Only the then Christian (in this country, the heresy of Bohumilism) king of Bosnia, the Catholic Knights Hospitaller and the aforementioned Brankovic sent his troops to Hrebeljanovic; small detachments of Vlachs (ancestors of the Romanians) and Albanians also fought in his army. As a result of the battle, neither side won a victory; the hero Milos Obilic, having penetrated the enemy’s camp, stabbed Sultan Murad the First, his son Bayazid, captured the wounded Lazar and beheaded him. However, the battle became fatal in the history of the Serbs, who were unable to recover after it; the Turks, on the contrary, restored and increased their strength and, a hundred years later, finally captured the Serbian lands for six long centuries.
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