A presentation of the book of the current Serbian Ambassador to Russia, Slavenko Terzic, ‘Old Serbia. The Drama of one of the European Civilizations’ was held in Moscow. The chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, Sergey Stepashin, praised the work of the diplomat: "there is no such nation that is closer to us than the Serbian people. And it's a great responsibility for the governments of our country, and for all of us. And this book, I believe, one of the best historiographical, journalistic investigations of the Serbian civilization, even of European civilization, is a testament to this fact. I read the book, but frankly, the book requires very careful reading, because this is a serious research work. Frankly speaking, I hardly remember such a deep, fundamental, academic study of European civilization in general."
According to Stepashin, there are many different kinds of essays, innuendo, sometimes notions today, but the work of Slavenko Terzic has been evaluated by the Academy of Sciences. "Slavenko is a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences. And I think we must also present it in this capacity. And this work is a testament to the fact that today we welcome and discuss the book of not just an author and historian, but also of a very profound, strong Scientist with a capital letter. No wonder he headed the Institute of History."
Stepashin believes that Terzic's analysis can be projected on what is happening in the former Soviet space and in Europe in general: "Alas, there are centrifugal tendencies on the one hand, and an attempt to accumulate power hegemony of one or two countries in Europe, so different processes are present today. And without taking into account the history, problems, tragedies, what happened in the former Yugoslavia, Serbia in particular, what is happening now in Kosovo cannot be bypassed."
According to the ex-prime minister, this book is also a good science for our country: "I replaced, as you may remember, Yevgeny Primakov. Despite the fact that the deceased academician turned round over the Atlantic on his way to America, I, however, flew, but it did not help in his career, it did not help, unfortunately, Yugoslavia either. Frankly, history has no subjunctive mood, but the book leads me to this thought: I think that in today's conditions, with today's political leadership of our country, the tragedy in Belgrade would not have happened, and there would not have been the other tragedies that we are experiencing today."
