IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE HEROES FROM THE SALONIKA FRONT: Little Nikola climbed Kajmakčalan and lit a candle at the spot where his great-great-grandfather bled!

It was not easy, but when heart and a great desire lead you, nothing is insurmountable.

“The climb up Kajmakčalan, and the moment I stood at the place where my great-great-grandfather Jovan Vujović (1885-1975) was 110 years ago and was wounded, will remain in my memory forever. At the top of that holy place, we lit candles, and in front of the chapel built by King Aleksandar Karađorđević, from our throats, probably due to excitement and surging emotions, ‘Tamo daleko’ spontaneously resounded. And then we all in unison, as a pledge, shouted the slogan from my paper: ‘To be heard… to be preserved… to be remembered!’.”

Still under the impression of the trip and a kind of pilgrimage to Kajmakčalan, on Vidovdan, this is told to us by young Nikola Birčani, a finished sixth-grader of the “Mihajlo Pupin” elementary school from Veternik, one of the five winners of the contest “My hero from the Salonika Front”, organized by the organization “Kajmakčalan 1916”. Nikola is also a descendant of Ilija Birčanin, whose surname he proudly bears.

HE RETURNED HOME PROUD

This, as Nikola says, unique adventure, would not have been possible without Biljana Marčeta and Jana Todorović from the organization “Kajmakčalan 1916” and Jovan P. Milinković, the guide, who organized the trip for the winners of the contest “My hero from the Salonika Front”, but also admirers of the giant-heroes from the Republika Srpska and Kosovo and Metohija and provided them with an opportunity to connect and fulfill their wish to walk the paths their ancestors trod.

-I returned home proud because I am a guardian of the memory of glorious ancestors – elementary school student Nikola Birčanin sincerely says. – My wish is to visit Kajmakčalan again.

-The climb up Kajmakčalan was the hardest and most precious moment of the trip – reveals Nikola to us with a voice full of emotion. – The climb to the site of the bloodiest and most significant battle on the Salonika Front is something that everyone must visit and experience. But other places as well, in order to understand what our ancestors did for us and their fatherland. The bus breakdown did not stop us from following the path of the warriors. Meter by meter, we overcame a climb full of challenges. We felt fatigue, but the thought of our ancestors, who reached the peak through battles, gave us strength.”

Walking on the gray stone, which in some places glistened in the sun as if covered with diamond dust, striving toward the top, Nikola, but also the other participants crossed, as he tells us, over overgrown trenches dug in that karst, less than half a meter deep. In them they also found an occasional bullet, witnesses of the bloody battles more than a century ago.

-We also came across parts of barbed wire that soldiers tore with their bare hands to overcome the enemy obstacle – Nikola recounts the sights they encountered along the way, while climbing the whole time wrapped in the Serbian tricolor. – In one of those trenches, my great-great-grandfather Jovan also fought. He was wounded, and many other soldiers gave their lives for the freedom of us all.”

Describing the journey to Kajmakčalan, Nikola says that the first stop was the Udovo ossuary monument in North Macedonia, a place of remembrance for Serbian soldiers killed in 1915. Nearby is the monument in Polykastro, where the command of the Serbian army and allies was located, in the shape of a pentagonal pyramid with a torch on top.

HE RETURNED HOME PROUD

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