Roadside memorials are stone monuments that can be found in western parts of rural Serbia. These monuments are commissioned and erected by family members of a soldier who was killed in the war but the location of his burial is unknown, and is placed by the road near the soldier's native house. Roadside memorials were also erected in memory of those who were killed by bandits. A popular name for the monument is "roadsider" (krajputas in Serbian). In recent times, the roadside memorials were erected by the road as a memorial to those who have died in car accidents, but the law will ban this act in the near future.
The roadside monument is located in the village Jasenovo, 37 km down the road that connects small town Prilike with Kokin Brod. It is a memorial to a priest called Risto who was killed on the site in 1880. The monument was commissioned and erected in 1882 by a woman named Jelena but it was not known if she was priest's daughter or wife. The stone has been standing and the inscription of it has been readable for over a hundred years. BozidarDraskovic, an old peasant from Jasenovo, told me that back in the old times the first grade pupils did not have school books, so on their way back from school they would stop by the monument to practice reading.
Whilst cleaning the letters I noticed a word I could not read as that part of the stone was severely damaged. I asked Bozidar if he remembered what the word was and he immediately said "ALMIGHTY", which perfectly fitted with the readable foreword "GOD" and with the remains of letters on the bottom of the stone.
In 1990, during the reconstruction of the road, the stone collapsed into the ditch and broke into two pieces. Moving it to a new place could have been done quickly and easily and at no material cost, but the workers and their supervisor still would not do so which was a great shame. There it layed broken for almost twenty years.
The monument was made of sandstone, which was used for manufacturing of sharpening tools. Over the years, passersby used to cut off pieces of the tombstone and use them for sharpening their mows, knives, etc., which was also a great shame.
As for Jelena who has commissioned the monument, some residents say she was the priest's wife, but many more claimed that she was his daughter. It was also not known for certain who the people that killed the priest were. Some say they were robbers, others say that they were members of a political party. At that time radicals and progressives were leading political parties in Serbia. Priest Risto was from one party and the people who had killed him from another. They killed him while he was mowing the grass on his meadow in the place called Gradac, where the memorial was raised. The locals told me this story.
However, according to the letter that I have received from the historian Mr. Goran Piljak the story I had heard from the locals could not be true, because the murder took place on 29th February on the spot with an altitude of 1250 meters above sea level, where the snow is neck-deep at that time of the year. Furthermore he said that the priest was probably a member of the radical party, and that Jelena was not the daughter but the wife, because the adjective "grieving" which could be found on many monuments of that time was always referring to the spouse.
Toponimys like Gradac, Gradina, Gradiste etc. are the places in Serbia in which the remains of medieval and old constructions can be found. Truly, on the top of Gradac, one can see long lines of stones in the soil that look like a foundation of a long defense wall. Perhaps this was used to house a city of a famous duke such as Duke Momcilo, a famous character from folk songs.
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