Summary
Stevan Jakovljević: Serbian Trilogy 3: Gate of Freedom
I wonder now, why are these peasants being slaughtered, this is already the fourth year? Why do people kill each other, even though they have done no harm to each other... What was this Boris Želčev hiding from me, whom I met dead? And he also loved, dreamed of life, longed for his home, just like me. And if we had met by chance in life, we would certainly have been good friends. Like this, I killed him... Or he would have killed me. After the Albanian Golgotha and the silence of the blue graves, it was time for a decisive act. Through the lens of an officer and the words of an ordinary soldier, this work traces the journey from the recovery in Corfu, through the bloody battles in Kajmakčalan, all the way to the lightning breakthrough of the Thessaloniki front in 1918. Stevan Jakovljević, himself a witness of horror and glory, does not only paint battles; he masterfully portrays the spirit of the people who, despite losses bordering on biological survival, found the strength for the last, victorious rush to the homeland. Freedom's Gate is the climax of an epic saga about a people who refused to disappear. The writer reminds us that freedom is the most expensive word in our language, paid for by the young and most valuable lives of Serbs for whom homeland was more important than life. This is the chronicle of an unprecedented feat, a breakthrough that destroyed the foundations of the world order. "In war, the infantry comes first. After that, the artillery. Then the division headquarters, the army and the Supreme Command line up. Finally, the lifers and idlers leave. When peace is concluded, the order is given: left-circle! And those who were at the end are now the first, and these little infantrymen, if they are still alive, remain the last."
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