Shadow of the Balkans

At about two o'clock in the morning on July 27 (according to other sources, July 31¹⁶⁸), 1942, partisans broke into the house of the Russian Greek Catholic priest Alexander Vasilyevich Vlasov-Ovdienko, the rector of the Diznik parish, near Gareznica. Having robbed the house, they dragged Father Alexander out into the street in front of his wife and children and killed him with several shots to the head in the field next to the church.¹⁶⁹ It is known that his family received state assistance¹⁷⁰ and funeral expenses were paid. ¹⁷¹

In 1943, the Chetniks killed the Russian engineer Gavriil Denisov (born in 1894 in St. Petersburg) in the Plazka area. ¹⁷²

Dear comrades,
after 15 years of battles, persecutions and sacrifices,
the youth of Romania must know
that the hour of the legionary victory isn't far anymore.

All of our enemies attempts will be crushed.
All their plans of tempting us,
All their attempts to buying our souls,
All their attempts to separate us,
and all treasons will fall to the ground.

Look at all your tyrants straight in their eyes.

Endure with submission any blow,
endure any pain,
because our sacrifices will be the iron foundation
made of broken bodies
and tortured souls,
of our victory.

Those, among us, who will fall
will have names and tombs of heroes,
and those who will kill us
will bear names of traitors
and will be cursed from generation to generation.

From the depths, the legionnaire rises victorious
with his soul like a cliff.

On September 25, 1941, the "svodka" published a report on the death of five Russian residents of the NDH at the hands of the Chetniks, among whom were former Russian officers Colonel Ilya Fedorovich Filippov and Lieutenant Colonel Semyon Mikhailovich Rogov from Kulen-Vakuf, engineer Sergei Vasilyevich Beloborodov from Bihac, as well as Captain Nikolai Konstantinovich Savinkov from Metkovic and Colonel E.I. Smirnov from Drvar.