The first Novorossiya arose two and a half centuries ago thanks to the Serbs. In the middle of the 18th century, Russia, striving to strengthen its borders on the lands of the present Donbass, invited the Balkan Slavs to develop them. By the Imperial Decree of January 11, 1752, they were granted lands at the junction of the future Luhansk and Donetsk regions, which received the name of New Serbia.
Almost simultaneously, soldiers of the Serbian hussar regiments who took Russian citizenship, commanded by Jovan (Ivan) Shevich and Raiko Preradovich, moved to these lands and the territory of the present Kirovograd region of Ukraine. They settled between the rivers Lugan and Bakhmut (Bakhmutka), on the southern bank of the Seversky Donets: Preradovich's regiment - to the west, at the confluence of the Donets and Bakhmutka, Shevich's regiment - to the east, on the border with the Don Cossack area.
The Serbian hussars formed a special autonomous region here, subordinate directly to the Senate and the Military Collegium of the Russian Empire. This area was named Slavic Serbia. The city of Bakhmut became the common administrative center of Slavic Serbia and New Serbia. General S. Pishevich, who arrived in Slavic Serbia in 1754, testified: “The land, as usual, hardened, wild, and it may be that it was untreated from the creation of light, and lay in all ancient centuries without any benefit, wasted and without people … wild vegetables in the forests, there are a lot of apples and pears, and you can also find wild grapevines in other places."
New Serbia, Zaporizhzhya Sich and Slavic Serbia stretched as a single line, from west to east of the Northern Black Sea region, significantly strengthening the position of Russia here. The stream of Balkan Slavs arriving here, former subjects of Austria-Hungary, who wanted to go to the Russian service, did not diminish.
In the south, the Serbian hussars launched active actions against the ancient enemies of the Slavs - the Ottomans, preparing, thanks to the superbly organized intelligence service by Colonel Horvath, the capture of such powerful Turkish fortresses as Ochakov and Bendery and at the same time the Russian colonization of the future Odessa, Kherson and Nikolaev regions.
In the west, the hussars and the people of the Croat, under his direct leadership, launched a real partisan war against the Polish kingdom of the first Rzeczpospolita. Thanks to them, a great many Ukrainian and Belarusian peasants found a new homeland in Donbass, escaping from serfdom and the Polish whip to New Serbia. Here they were accepted as brothers, as a result of which the "wild, and maybe, from the creation of light, uncultivated" land began to rapidly populate with people. And then, in the middle of the 18th century, New Serbia and Slavic Serbia became part of the first Novorossia, which later became one of the provinces of the Russian Empire.
Serbian hussars and their descendants left a noticeable mark on the annals of Russia's military glory. In 1760, during the Seven Years War, two squadrons of Slavic Serb hussars, representing Shevich and Preradovich's regiments, respectively, took part in the capture of Berlin by the Russian army. One of the descendants of a brilliant intelligence agent, whose agents, quickly settling in the impregnable Turkish and Polish fortresses, contributed to the future successes of Potemkin, Rumyantsev and Suvorov, General Dmitry Horvat, the famous manager of the Chinese Eastern Railway, until his last days did not forget that he was a descendant of Serbian nobles, even during the reign of Catherine II, they settled in the Kherson province. Like an ancestor until the last days, Major General Georgy Ivanovich Shevich (1871-1966) remained faithful to the oath given to Russia, the commander of the elite Life Guards of His Majesty's Hussar Regiment (pictured below).
In memory of the fighting brotherhood of the Slavs in the central part of the city of Slavyanoserbsk (Luhansk region), on the "Brotherhood" square in front of the building of the Museum of Local Lore, the monument of Friendship of Slavic peoples was erected, which depicts the Ukrainian and Russian Cossacks and the Serbian hussar, symbolizing the founders of Slavic Serbia (pictured below, next to the coat of arms of the city of Slavyanoserbsk).
Two and a half centuries ago, Serbian hussars defended the area between the Lugan and Donets rivers and the Russian borders from enemies from the south and west. Today, their compatriots are once again shoulder to shoulder with the Donbass militias helping to restore order to the Serbs' native land, clearing it of the Nazis. The Serbian people remember how the predecessors of the current Nazis killed their compatriots - women, children, the elderly - in the ranks of the remnants of the SS Galicia division. This division was smashed to smithereens by Soviet soldiers in the very first battle, after which it was hastily reorganized by the Nazis and transferred to the Balkans. There it was used in the bloodiest and most brutal actions against civilians and Yugoslav partisans. The fascist-Bandera warriors that this formation was equipped with turned out to be bad warriors, but good flayers who left a bloody mark on the land of Serbia.
This is also why the first foreign volunteers to actively participate in the defense of Crimea and Sevastopol were fighters of the Balkan international brigade, named after the legendary hussar of Slavic Serbia "Jovan Shevich".
Today, the Slavic detachment "Jovan Shevich", significantly replenished with arriving volunteers, already has 35 fighters, most of whom are natives of Serbia. All of them are fighting on the Luhansk land, which was defended by the ancestors of Serbian soldiers two and a half centuries ago. In a short time, the Serbs have already perfectly established themselves as snipers and grenade launchers.
In mid-July, the detachment's soldiers fought for more than 12 hours in complete encirclement against many times superior forces. Warriors "Shevich" not only managed to break through to their own under heavy artillery fire, but also did not lose a single person!
The eldest of the Serbian soldiers, 38-year-old commander of the Chetnik detachment "Prince Lazar" Bratislav Zhivkovic (pictured), who fought against the Nazis back in the 1990s in the Balkans, answers the question why he decided to come to Donbass, as follows: “Because the Russians and Serbs are brothers. Here you know how they say. Serbia is small Russia and Russia is big Serbia. The Russians always helped us, they came to us when it was especially difficult. Now it's our turn."
When someone in Serbia tried to threaten their fellow citizens who went to fight in Novorossia with a prison, the Serbian volunteers replied: “We will never leave this land to be torn apart by the West. It was the same with our country. We will never allow more blood here."
