The Russian Church

In the very heart of Serbia, a little village close to Aleksinac, Gornji (Upper) Adrovac, keeps the memory of Nikolay Raevsky, a man who inspired Tolstoy to create the character of Count Vronsky from his famous novel Anna Karenina.

Text & Photo by Miša Ognjanović

Only a two-hour drive from Belgrade and just ten minutes from the mining town of Aleksinac, a winding road through Pomoravlje leads to the green hills of Jastrebac Mountain. There lies Gornji Adrovac, a village that links Anna, Vronsky, Tolstoy and Serbia. At the end of an asphalt road, hidden among treetops of old lindens that are hundreds of years old, there rises an imposing church in the Russian style. Beside it are several graves and behind it stretches the village and a steep trench that divides plowed fields, plums and other blossoming orchards. From the gentle hill by the church, the sight of the village is almost idyllic. It is hard to believe that in 1876 this village was in flames, that cannons were ripping the earth and that these pleasant hills bore witnesses of violent battles, war’s sufferings and the high price that one generation of Serbs paid for the struggle for freedom.

More than 130 years ago, the trench of Gornji Adrovac was the borderline between Serbia and Turkey. The villagers say that from the hills across, from the Turkish side, the Serbian positions were under fire for days. Today, the remains of Serbian trenches are covered with grass that can be seen at some ten metres from the church. It was recorded that Turks at the Aleksinac front had 15 times more troops and more modern rifles and superior artillery. Political circumstances in the world were not in favour of the Serbs in this war. As Russia was considered the main rival to interests of the West- European powers in the Balkans, Europe didn’t support the Serbian war against the Ottoman Empire. All official pleas that the Serbian government sent to Europe were ignored. Serbia was left to herself. However, as many times during history, material assistance wasn’t decisive in the outcome of war. On the Serbian side, intoxication with the idea of national unity and freedom brought others to fight alongside with the Serbs, mostly volunteers from various European countries. In the muddy trenches there was an Italian unit of Garibaldians and volunteers from Germany, Austria, England, France and many Slav countries. Traditionally, it is believed that the Russian volunteers led by General Chernayev were the most numerous. Among them was a 37-year old Russian colonel named Nikolay Raevsky, in the first line of combat. After two years of war, the border of Serbian autonomy extended southward. And, after nearly 500 years, Serbian troops marched into Kosovo. The Serb-Turkish war was finished with the Congress of Berlin in 1878, when Serbia, after five centuries under Turkish rule, became an independent country.

The Church in Gornji Adrovac, the graves, trenches, borderline, the involvement of the European powers evoke Serbia’s turbulent past and its unforeseeable history and unstable frontiers. And just there, on this hill, where the Russian Church was built 132 years ago, thousands of troops were killed on both warring sides. Among them, the Russian volunteer Nikolay Raevsky. At that time to many an unknown man, Raevsky was soon "resurrected" to acquire world fame. Two years after his death, he became Aleksey Vronsky in Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenin. The life of the Russian high class, with all their norms and ideas reflected in life of Nikolay Raevsky, inspired Tolstoy to create the main character of the novel Anna Karenin. Thus both Nikolay Raevsky and Count Aleksey Vronsky marked Serbia’s history of the 19^th century and entered Serbia into world literature.

Nikolay Raevsky III, a Colonel in the Russian army, belonged to one of the most noble families in 19^th-century Russia. His grandfather, Nikolay Raevsky I, entered history as a hero of Fatherland War. As a general, he led Russian troops against the Napoleonic campaign in 1812. His accomplishment at the Battle of Borodin are described in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The grandmother of Nikolay III, a grandson killed in Serbia, was a granddaughter of the great scientist Lomonosov, after whom Moscow University was named. Known also as the founder of the town of Novorossiysk and as man to whom Pushkin dedicated the poem Prisoner of the Caucasus, Tolstoy’s hero from Anna Karenin, Nikolay III spoke English, German, French and Serbian and was deeply interested in the history of the Slav peoples. Though he graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Moscow, he continued the military career of his grandfather and father before him. In his twenties, after service in the guard regiment, Nikolay was promoted to the rank of colonel and went to the war waged in Tashkent, in Uzbekistan, where he was wounded. Some ten years later, Nikolay Raevsky, in 1876, joined the Russian volunteers went to fight in the Serb-Turkish war. Assignment: Aleksinac battle field, the first front line.

Though the war began in the summer of 1876, the Serb-Turkish confrontation had been expected for years. The main warfare took place at the administrative borderline near Ivanjica and Aleksinac, which separated the Autonomous Serbia from the Ottoman Empire. The Turks were superior in number and arms but morale among the Serbs was extremely high. In the summer of 1876, at the Aleksinac front, both sides suffered causalities. Generals believed that the battle at this frontline would be decisive for the future of old Serbia. On August 20^th, the Turks shelled Serbian positions for hours as an overture for an infantry attack. The Serbian trenches at Gornji Adrovac were falling apart under deadly mortars and bullets. The ground shook from the thundering of cannons, the trench of Gornji Androvac was plowed up, covered with cartridges, broken rifles and the bodies of killed soldiers. Both armies prepared for the final offensive. That August 20^th, 1876, after several hours of shelling, the armies confronted. However, Nikolay Raevsky this time didn’t lead his Russian co-fighters to enemy trenches. Hit by a shell fragment, Nikolai remained forever on the green hills of Gornji Adrovac, on the site of today’s Russian Church of the Holy Trinity. Soldiers buried him in the nearby Church of Saint Roman, which gave birth to the legend that his heart rested eternally in Serbia. His remains, however, were moved to Russia. It was written that, while mother Anna Mikhailova moved the remains of her killed son, Serbia bid farewell with the highest military honours to this hero and his family that suffered for the freedom of a brotherly people. The ceremony was attended by Prince Milan Obrenović.

Soon, in 1877, Raevsky appeared as the Count Vronsky in Anna Karenin. On the green hill where Raevsky died, the Church of Holy Trinity was erected in 1903. People call it the Russian Church, the Raevsky or Vronsky Church. A replica of the church in the Ukraine in which Nikola Raevsky was baptized, the church was built by Countess Maria Raevskaya, the wife of his brother Mikhail. The land on which the church was built was purchased from peasants by the Serbian Queen Natalija Obrenović. It is truly Russian and truly unique, richly painted with motifs from the history of both peoples. Among them are figures of Alexander Nevski and Saint Sava. Countess Maria Raevskaya also donated money to build a school. On thetree-lined road with lindens that are hundreds of years, in the yard before the church, a school was built, which today needs repair.

And while Tolstoy was finishing his famous novel about Anna and Aleksey, the seedlings of lindens arrived from Russia. The Raevsky family sent lindens to Gornji Adrovac, in which it was believed that their son’s heart rested, in memory of his native country and as a symbol of life being born many times from tragedy. Lindens were planted along the road leading to the Russian Church. Every spring the lindens blossom and the Church shines in the spring sun. Every generation of Serbian pupils learns about Anna Karenin and the memory of the Russian hero Raevsky is passed on to new generations of Serbs that this Russian patriot really obligated. When every spring restores the strength of the lindens, there is new hope for a better life of new generations in Serbia which historically suffered tragedy but also felt love reflected in the life of Nikolay Raevsky, forever remembered in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenin.