A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

Behind God's Back

Behind God's Back is the saga of a Serbian female physician's journey through the trials and travesties of World War I, World War II and the communist era. The story fills in historic gaps of these tumultuous events from a unique Balkan point of view; it highlights how small nations struggle to survive when caught in the direct pathway of major nations' ambitions.  A powerful and poignant love story that faces many challenges intertwines throughout the saga. Desa Jovanovic witnesses and experiences such misery in World War I that she decides to become a medical doctor. After the war, she wins a scholarship from Serbia's ally, France, to study medicine in Montpellier, France. Determined to take advantage of her scholarship, Desa keeps her nose to the grindstone regardless of the convivial atmosphere of Montpellier in the aftermath of the war. Despite her determined stance, she is intrigued with a tall, handsome Serbian law student, Danilo Marić, whom she must fight to win from a beautiful French student. After many setbacks, Desa captures the heart and love of Danilo and they're married in an early morning service in Belgrade.

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Deaths and births, careers and relationships cement and sometimes rip apart the relationship. Overall, however, the period of calm in Europe between the wars is generally favorable for the young couple. Everything deteriorates when Hitler's armies goose-step across Europe. The initial bombing of Belgrade in April, l941 claims 20,000 victims and it's a downhill slide from there. Amid the bombing, shelling and rigid Nazi occupation of Belgrade and its environs, Desa tries with all means available to her to save her patients and her family. Danilo joins the resistance and is imprisoned. When the occupation of Serbia finally ends with the entry of Soviet troops routing out the Germans, citizens rejoice. The Russians lead the way for Tito's Partisans to now occupy Yugoslavia. Soon the Yugoslavs learn that the communist rule will be just as cruel as the former Nazi occupation. How Desa and Danilo, their family and friends survive, or don't, the major events of the early 20th century rips across the pages of Behind God's Back. Also, Desa's medical journey explores the difficulties and progress of medicine in the 20th century. Behind God's Back can perhaps be put in a similar category with Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese; Corelli's Mandolin and Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernieres; and Shaghai Girls, Lisa See.

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Џон Фротингам и Јелена Лозанић

Џон Фротингам

Џон Фротингам (John Frothingham, Бруклин, 1879 — 1935) био је амерички правник, индустријалац, савременик и учесник Великог рата и велики љубитељ музике преко које дознао за судбини словенских народа у рату, коме је помогао прикупљањем деце – ратне сирочади и оснивањам четири Американска васпитна дома за ратну сирочад и напуштену децу. Носилац је Карађорђеве звезде са мачевима и Краљевског ордена Белог орла.

Рођен је у Бруклину, у богатој и угледној породици из које потиче и један од највећих америчких сликара Џејмс Фротингам. Завршио је француски језик, свирао клавир и бавио се компоновањем. После дипломирања, музика га је одвоела у Беч, Минхен и Праг са циљем да усаврши технику свирања.

Са Србима, чији ће велики добротвор постати у Великом рату, дошао је у контакт преко исељеничких друштава која су свирала балканску етно музику у САД. Као заљубљеника балканске музике, несрећа Србије у Великом рату, у лето 1914. године погодила га је толико да је у више наврата донирао медицински материјал и новац за ратом захваћену земљу.

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Publishing

Commentary on the Epistles of St. John the Theologian

by Archimandrite Justin Popovich

This Commentary on the Epistles of St. John the Theologian - published now, three years after the blessed repose of Venerable Fr. Justin (on the Feast of the Annunciation, 1979) - was written by the tireless Messenger of Christ forty years ago, in circumstances similar to those in which Christ's Holy Evangelist John wrote his sacred Epistles.

The text of this 93-page soft-bound book has been translated from the Serbian by Radomir M. Plavsic. Published by Sebastian Press, Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Contemporary Christian Thought Series, number 5, First Edition, ISBN: 978-0-9719505-6-6