Sidewalk monuments

Many years ago, village stonemasons in western Serbia carved the figures of soldiers who died somewhere on the battlefields into soft sandstone, fighting for Serbia in the First and Second Serbian Uprising, as well as in the First World War, and the closest ones then placed it by the roads. Sandstone is not a stone for all time, but it is still a stone. Thanks to that, even today, these tombstones are visited with due respect. There are about 540 of them in the area around Ivanjica. When you go from the roundabout of that town to Javor, four kilometers away, there is the village of Rokci with the Palibrčki cemetery. If you continue the road from the cemetery for another kilometer on the left side, you will come across a signpost that shows the direction to the sidewalk monuments. When you turn left, after a few hundred meters on the left you can see the necropolis with 32 monuments.

On the front side of the monument, the figure of a soldier with a rifle or saber, some medals, a military flask is engraved … The specificity of Ivanjica sidewalk monuments is that one monument can be dedicated to two or even three killed fighters. They were raised by their parents, brothers and sisters in memory of the closest ones who went into battle, but did not return. All inscriptions contain the fact that the soldier remained on the defense of the homeland, that his bones lay somewhere, appropriate words of praise or thanks … As a rule, these monuments, which were erected with the wish that loved ones do not go into oblivion, are between a meter and a meter high. and after, they are of simple shape, rectangular cross-section … They are also popularly known as “stone books”. The custom of carving sidewalk monuments has disappeared, but some that were made still stand today so that the heroes and sufferings of the Serbian people are never forgotten.