Rep. n° 06/2024
Moscow, June 27, 2024. On the eve of the 110th anniversary of the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand d’Este and his wife in Sarajevo, the Slovak Embassy to Russia organized a commemorative event in the premises of the Slovak cultural institute in Moscow on 27 June 2024.
Guests from the diplomatic corps, academic, cultural and religious circles of Russia viewed the exhibition “Slovakia and the First World War” prepared by the Slovak Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. Among the distinguished guests who accepted the invitation to the event were numerous ambassadors and diplomats responsible for culture, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia, Orthodox Bishop of Istra Serafim (Amelchenkov), Director of the House of Russian Diaspora Viktor Moskvin, scientific workers and students dealing with Slovakia and Central Europe.
“We also have to remember tragic historical events, so that humanity stands up more actively for peace, against war conflicts, especially in today’s times of aggression“, Slovak Ambassador to Russia Ľubomír Rehák reminded in his speech. “The violent death of our crown prince a month later, on 28 July 1914, became a pretext for the outbreak of the Great War, which devastated Europe and other continents for more than four years. As a result of the war, great empires fell apart and new states emerged – democracies and dictatorships“.
The ambassador praised the Slovak non-governmental initiative Tree of Peace, which he supports and which, by planting trees in symbolic places, cultivates the memory of the victims of the First World War and other armed conflicts in the world, spreading the ideas of peace and understanding among nations.
At the initiative of the Representative of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia in Moscow, Archimandrite Serafim (Shemiatovsky), the premiere opening of the monumental painting “Destruction of the First World” was part of the event. An impressive 7-meters-long painting based on the Book of Genesis motif of the Great Flood was painted by Nikolai Anokhin, a member of the Union of Russian Painters. It thematically appropriately complemented the commemoration of anniversary of the Great War.
After the unveiling of the painting, the Slovak ambassador was joined by the painter N. Anokhin, the ambassadors of Ghana, the United States of America, as well as the chargé d’affaires of Djibouti, and they read in Slovak, Russian and English languages several verses from the Bloody Sonnets, the anti-war masterpiece of the Slovak poet Pavel Országh Hviezdoslav written in 1914.
As part of the commemorative program, talented young musicians – the Tretiakov siblings performed works by Schubert, Brahms and Liszt. The tour of the exhibition was also accompanied by a youth quartet with works of classical music.
