25.05.2016
A book "The smell of incense 1912-1918" promoted at the Central Military Club
In front of many books lovers, especially of the historical provenance, gathered in the Choir Hall of the Central Military Club, hosted by the Association of 1912 to 1918 National Liberation War Veterans, a truly interesting and unusual book, "The smell of incense 1912 - 1918", was presented. It is a sort of testimony of the heroic sacrifice of the villagers of Azanja, the largest Serbian village, paid for their country in two Balkan wars and the First World War. The Azanje registrar, Zarko Talijan, after more than a decade of patient research and "digging" through archival documents, visiting historical and regional museums and monuments erected in honour of the dead Azanje villagers, and the immediate environment, published the book – a monument to the victims from Azanja, issued by the Novi Sad publishing house "Prometheus", known for its historical and journalistic works from our local and wider history.After the opening statement of the President of the Association of National Liberation War Veterans Jovan Markovic, historians Milos Kovic, PhD, and Nemanja Devic, MSc, political analyst Dragomir Andjelkovic, Director of "Prometheus" publishing house Zoran Kolundzija and the author spoke very emotionally about the book in which they listed a shorter or longer biographies of about 800 Azanja villagers killed in the First and Second Balkan Wars and the Great War for the freedom of the fatherland. Highlighting the historical value of the book, not only locally, but also in the wider historical framework, the promoters of this unique work did not chose words of praise for the efforts of the author to testify about the sacrifice of Azanja villagers paid for the freedom of the fatherland. Apart from that, they reminded, the book is a monument to Azanja villagers who had more than nine thousand people on the eve of the Great War and they paid a tremendous sacrifice for the freedom of Serbia.
The names of many of them are not even found on any monument erected in honour of the dead, but they are recorded in this unique chronicle of Azanja fight for the honour and glory. This book, as promoters testified, is a sort of payback to ancestors, but also a proof of the immortality of the national identity in the generations that succeeded them. The testimony is useful to historians as a historical document of the first order, but also to the lovers of national literature and journalism who will, in the stories told on its pages, certainly find a part of their experience. Because we are all, the promoters said, the descendants of the veterans and freedom fighters. They deeply indebted us with their sacrifice and it is on us to appreciate that sacrifice and honourably pay back. The book "The smell of incense 1912 - 1918" is one of the ways to do so.
PHOTOGALLERY
