Dorovski Vane

One of the three

The name Vane Dorovski has an outstanding heroic association to it. In the horrendous battles on Gramos in the summer of 1947 a military unit of DAG comprising both Greek and Macedonians youths was ordered to protect the Kotelska tower (Pirgos Kotilis). The Kotelska tower played a decisive role in the battle and the enemy sent large numbers of troops there.

The airplanes droned above the heads of the brave fighters and the place was on fire. Machine guns, mine launchers, artillery and planes all hit the hill aiming for the brave protectors, who fought heroically for many days in a row.

On 16 July the tower collapsed. Most of the courageous freedom fighters were killed. Only three were left alive. Countless enemy fighters lay dead. The heroes shot almost all their bullets at the enemy but kept some for themselves. Arm in arm they threw themselves into the fire so that they would not fall into the hands of the enemy alive. Two of them were Greeks and one was a Macedonian - Vane Dorovski from the village Sheshtevo, Kostur region.

Dorovski fought and died an honourable descendent of the fearless 54 heroes of the "Nozhot" [1] who exactly 40 years earlier on 16 July 1907 under the leadership of the brave Sheshtevo resident - Atanas Popov, bravely fought against a large Turkish army contingent and bravely died. And so that they would not be captured alive by the Turks, they lay on their bombs and, with the battle song "Whoever falls in a battle for freedom, never dies!" they blew themselves up.

The courageous fighters of the Kotelska hill fell for the sacred ideals of democracy, independence and peace, for the equal rights of all peoples.

Kotelska hill is a symbol of the brotherhood and equality between Greeks and Macedonians in their struggle, a symbol that is etched in the blood of the brave Greek and Macedonian youth who will serve as a sacred example for the struggle of our people.

The three eagles of Kotelska hill with their heroism created new pages in the long history of the Greek and Macedonian people. Pages that read like those of the brave women of Zalongo who with a song on their lips threw themselves ito their deaths so that they would not fall into the hands of the Turks; of the courageous fighters of Meoloni in the revolution of 1821, of the immortal Ilinden heroes, of the famous creators and protectors of the Krushevo Republic, of the fearless fighters of "Sliva" and "Mechkin Kamen" of the eagles of the epic story "Nozhot."

"In many places, countless places, people with other names, with strange names, far from our borders, far from us, are a part of the struggle, from distant centuries until today, they sacrificed for human rights and freedom. The old are bound to the young, we are bound to strangers, all humankind, and they light our struggle, the harsh road of our fight."[2]

[1] Nozhot - the peak of Babuna Mountain.

[2] From the book " We will win" by K Purnaras.

From: For Sacred National Freedom: Portraits Of Fallen Freedom Fighters

© 2009

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