Ana Kostić
The University of Belgrade, Serbia
Supervising professor: Ass. prof. Dr. Nenad Makuljevic

Memorial Church of Nikolay Raevsky in Gornji Adrovac

The Church of Holy Trinity in Gornji Adrovac (Serbia) is a memorial church dedicated to a Russian colonel Nikolay Nikolayevich Raevsky (Николай Николаевич Раевский) who lost his life as a volunteer in the Serbo-Turkish wars on August 20th, 1876. Raevski’s mother bequeathed 50,000 roubles whereas his dauther-in-law Maria Rayevski, maiden name Gagarina, took over the responsibility for erection of the church in cooperation with Archbishop of Niš, Nikanor Ružičić who consecrated the foundation stone. The church was completed by September 2nd, 1903.
In the period of 27 years following the death of Nikolay Nikolayevich Raevski (1876–1903), the memorial complex, consisting of a grave monument, memorial church, and a school building within a park, was created on a hill Golo Brdo near Gornji Adrovac, at the very spot where colonel Raevsky heroically parished. The memorial complex, with its various visual forms, expresses both personal identity of Nikolay Raevsky and collective identities of the Russian and Serbian people, through their respective national ideologies.
The paper discusses all phases and forms of creating the visual memory of Nikolay Nikolayevich Raevsky, starting from the finding out of the exact place of his death and its first form of permanent marking, up to the construction of the temple of Holy Trinity, its final decoration and the complex meaning.