A GIFT FROM SERBIO TO THE WHITE HOUSE, A PHOTO OF 55 KILOS! Trump’s thank you letter recently reached the Serbian Foreign Ministry from Washington

In it, the still current first man of America is thanked for the book “Diplomatic Diary: when the Serbian flag waved at the White House.” In the letter, Trump says that “the United States still remembers the contribution of the great Mikhail Pupin to the United States and celebrates our common values ​​of freedom and independence,” adding that the United States looks forward to continuing cooperation and strengthening good relations between our two greats. nations.

In fact, this letter from the President of the United States is a reaction to a special gift that was sent to Washington with the help of Ambassador Ljiljana Niksic. On October 15, the President of the United States sent a letter to our Foreign Ministry as a sign of appreciation for the action that marked the centenary of the event that symbolized the friendship and alliance in the First World War between the two nations. It is well known that in American history, someone else’s flag was flown at the White House only twice, on July 28, 1918, in honor of the alliance with the Serbs, and in 1920, when the flag was raised. French.

As part of the same action in Belgrade, US Ambassador Anthony Godfrey entered the Serbian Army House on June 9 this year for the first time to inaugurate the exhibition “Serbian War Volunteers of America on the Thessaloniki Front”. He was the first American diplomat to enter the Army House after 1999 and the NATO bombing and the first to have the opportunity to meet with the descendants of Nikola Tesla and Sava Kosanović, Mihajlo Pupin, Milunka Savić, Duke Stepe .. .

– It was a magnificent moment – testified General Vidosav Kovacevic, president of the Veterans Association of the Wars of People’s Liberation of Serbia, the umbrella association of veterans.

The latest letter of thanks from the United States is followed by a further deepening of ties between the two nations and war alliances.

– As part of the response to the Washington mail, the least we could do was ask our Ambassador Niksic to send a Serbian flag and a badge, “Natalija Ramonda”, to President Trump. In addition, a group of our compatriots and friends has been working on a painting, a triptych, also destined for the White House, with portraits of Mihajlo Pupin, Woodrow Wilson and Captain David Albala, our Serbian war medic. We have been informed that the triptych has been completed and that the certificate also went to America a few days ago, and this extraordinary work will be done later – Lazar Kosanović, president of the Association of War Volunteers 1912-1918, his descendants and admirers , testified for “Novosti”.

As confirmed to “Novosti”, the triptych “When the Serbian flag was raised at the White House” weighs up to 55 kilograms, is two meters long and one meter high, and was made by academic painter Marina Gavanski Zisis, who also is our Honorary Consul in Montreal. Parts of the painting are on 24 karat gold foil on a 100 year old cherry tree. The entire composition is decorated with a woodcut of floral decorations from the Studenica monastery, whose founder was Stefan Nemanja, the founder of Serbian statehood.

The triptych was made by seven artisans, calligraphers, painters and woodcarvers, and the initiators were the descendants of Dr. David Albala, Pupin and Tesla, Duke Stepa, Milunka Savić, among whom is the famous pianist and composer Marina Arsenijević , an American of Serbian origin …

– We know that there are no eternal alliances or eternal enemies and I am glad that our diplomacy, in the end, is guided by that truth – says General Vidosav Kovacevic, who fought against NATO in 1999, and in 2020 had the opportunity to strengthen the hand of Ambassador Godfrey at the Army House. – His Excellency Godfrey is a West Point cadet and as a soldier he understood very well what happened throughout history among our peoples. I understand Washington’s outstretched hand as a broader US response to all of Belgrade’s goodwill gestures. We are left with the task of contributing to the culture of remembering the days when we understood each other much better.

CHERRY SYMBOLS

When asked why the triptych was made on a centenary cherry tree, we were told:

– The cherry tree in the United States symbolizes the truth. That is, when George Washington as a child, playing with his two brothers on a farm in Virginia, cut about 60 cherry trees and when his father got angry with the question of who was to blame, of the three, only the youngest of the George He burst out and said, “Me.” Since then, the cherry tree in the United States has had this symbolic meaning.

STATUS OF A SERBIAN VOLUNTEER

THANKS to the initiative of the descendants of Serbian scientists from the United States and famous warriors from Serbia, academic sculptor Katarina Tripković made a model of the “American Volunteer” monument and launched the initiative in the Association of War Volunteers 1912-1918. to make a bronze bust. It would be a gift to the United States Commission to commemorate the centennial of the Great War, in order to obtain its place in the eventual Serbian pavilion of the Memorial, which is being built on the site of the American military complex in Arlington (Washington).

For the place in the Memorial Complex, Serbia is best recommended by the words of Robert Lansing, Wilson’s Secretary of State since 1918: “When the history of this war is written, the most glorious chapter will be called Serbia.”