July 17 is a date that for two fraternal nations, the Russians and the Serbs, lives in infamy. It is when in 1918 and 1946, respectively, forces of iniquity murdered Emperor Nicholas II along with his family and faithful servants and, two decades later, Serbian General Dragoljub Mihailovic, World War II guerrilla commander and his nation’s undisputed leader. These horrific murders, of demonic inspiration and driven by maniacal fury, were genuine hate crimes in the most authentic signification of that overused phrase.
The wicked executioners aimed to eradicate from the face of the earth more than just the physical presence of the august individuals at whom their weapons were aimed and who undoubtedly were their political and moral opponents, and of the highest calibre. Emperor Nicholas was the consecrated personification and spiritual embodiment of Russian Orthodox statehood, which they sought to destroy and ultimately to replace with their blood-drenched Communist dystopia. In Serbia, General Dragoljub Mihailovic personified the most sublime ideals of unblemished patriotism and selfless Orthodox service to the nation. His people adored him and followed him unflinchingly in the battles that he waged with equal vigor against cruel foreign oppressors and ruthless domestic seditionists.
Both the Emperor and the General were murdered in cold blood not for anything objectionable that they might have done but solely for what they represented, on the most elevated planes of humanity and morality.
Both murders were appalling in their injustice and the barbarity with which they were committed and became watershed events which shaped the modern history of the Russian and Serbian peoples. Subsequent to these crimes, Russia and Serbia were plunged into a seemingly interminable darkness whence they are only now emerging, haltingly and with a hesitant step. Even many decades later, the ideological heirs and adepts of the murderers are still everywhere and they are influential. Their ferocity remains undiminished.
The Russian Orthodox Church has rightly canonized Emperor Nicholas and his family as martyrs who suffered for their steadfast Orthodox faith. The cult of the martyred General Mihailovic is spreading among the awakened Serbian people who are coming to see in him the incarnation of the highest virtues that their nation has produced.
Memory eternal!
