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Slavija
12060201
Dr.
Alexander Rudolfovich Trushnovich, Pan-Slavic Patriot and Anticommunist

Dr.
Alexander Trushnovich was a Slovenian, born in the Slovenian town
of Postoino (then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire) in 1893,
to a family of railroad workers. He initially found his calling
in medicine, and studied in Austria to become a doctor.
In
1914, Trushnovich is forced to enlist into the Austro-Hungarian
army. He is sent as a officer to the Eastern front. Trushnovich
was ideologically opposed to fighting against the Russians, believing
that only the victory of Russia will bring the Slavic peoples national
independence. While the Austrian army was preparing to attack, Trushnovich
escapes and surrenders to the Russian Army as had many Slavs who
shared Trushnovich's slavophilic ideology.
Receiving
an official pardon from Tsar Nicholas the Second, Trushnovich is
accepted into the Russian Army's First Serbian Volunteer Division.
Trushnovich fondly remembers Tsar Nicholas during a troop inspection
as being very inspiring to him and his fellow Slavic volunteers.
Trushnovich
fights with great distinction, earning the Russian order of St.
Anne and the highest Serbian medal, the White Eagle. While lying
wounded at a hospital, Trushnovich meets a nurse Zina, whom he marries
shortly afterwards.

After
the February revolution of 1917, the Serbian division is officially
disbanded, and Trushnovich voluntarily joins the Russian Army, serving
under General Laurus Kornilov. When the Bolsheviks take power a
few months later, General Kornilov sends the trusted Trushnovich
to negotiate a union between the newly formed Russian anti-Bolshevik
Volunteers Army and the Czechoslovakian Corps, at that time located
in Kiev. The leader of the Czechoslovakian corps, General Masarik,
refuses Kornilov's offer and suggests Trushnovich join his Czechoslovakian
Corps on the spot. Trushnovich adamantly refuses, declaring "With
us is God, and the 3,000 strong Volunteers Army!"

In
1919, after suffering typhus, Trushnovich and his family leaves
to the town of Zagradno, which had fallen into Italian hands. Thanks
to an Italian officer, he is not expelled by the slavophobic Italian
powers. His sense of slavophilic duty calling again, the determined
Trushnovich leaves his family and voluntarily returns to Russia
in order to continue his service in the White Army.
After
being surrounded in battle, Trushnovich is taken prisoner by the
Reds. The CheKa (Soviet secret police) arrest him and intend to
execute him for covering up several of his officer friends as privates
(who usually suffered a less severe fate than officers). Several
Serbs end up saving Trushnovich from the firing squad, although
he continues his tenure in prison (receiving better treatment from
the Reds as a former Austro-Hungarian soldier, than his Russian
White colleagues).
Trushnovich
escapes execution for the second time, once again thanks to his
Serbian colleagues. His attempts to return to the White Army are
unsuccessful. After the Whites are defeated in 1920, he tries to
escape to Romania, but is forced by the Romanians to return to Soviet
soil.
The
next seven years Trushnovich, with the help of Serbs and Russians,
stays in Soviet Russia under a disguised identity, working primarily
as a doctor. Thanks to his relatives abroad, through the Polish
consul he finally obtains a Yugoslavian passport and returns to
Lyubliana, Yugoslavia.
Arriving
in Belgrade in 1935, Trushnovich meets with the members of a newly
formed Russian patriotic organization, the National Alliance of
Russian Solidarists (Narodno-Trudovoi Soyuz - NTS). NTS, made up
of convicted young Russian anticommunists of a strong slavophilic
orientation, welcomes Trushnovich - who's expertise on the Soviet
system becomes invaluable to the organization.
Trushnovich
continues his medical practice in Yugoslavia, while writing two
books, "The Old and New Russia" in Serbian (1937) and
"The Cabin on the Intersection" in Russian (1940). In
1941 he joins NTS officially, and in 1942 he is placed in charge
of NTS's underground chapters in Nazi occupied Serbia, where he
also keeps ties with the underground Serbian nationalist organization
"Sbor".
In
1944, in hopes of renewing his fight against Bolshevism, Trushnovich
joins the ill-fated anticommunist Russian Liberation Army of General
Vlasov. He is sent by Vlasov to arrange a union between the RLA
and Serbian general Draza Mihailovich's Chetniks for the purposes
of creating a pan-Slavic liberation movement, but on the way is
captured and arrested by the French.
Trushnovich
is eventually released and attends as a doctor to Russian POW's
in displaced person camps. While arranging for much needed medical
aid and petitioning for the creation of Russian schools in ally
occupied Germany, Trushnovich continues fighting Bolshevism. As
a representative of the Hamburg Aid Committee for Orthodox (Christian)
Refugees in 1950, he is able to covertly support the anticommunist
underground within the red army. Trushnovich also enlists the help
of slavophilic German anticommunists, helping create the Free Union
of Russo-German Friendship.
Trushnovich
fights with a pen as well as with the sword. In 1947 he writes and
publishes his third book, "Russia and Slavicism". He becomes
a well respected theoretician for slavophilic anticommunists.
In
the form of secret booklets and leaflets, Trushnovich's deep, profound
articles such as "At the Price of a Feat" ("Tsennoyu
Podviga") inspire Russian soldiers and sailors serving in the
Red Army to resist Stalinism. Trushnovich also speaks his dismay
at the waves of Russophobia permiating several national Slavic anticommunist
movements, which penned the blame for the Stalinist yoke on the
shoulders of the entire Russian nation - itself a victim.

Trushnovich
knows no rest - even when on "vacation", he uses his trips
for the purpose of building alliances with people around Europe
and the United States, while delivering lectures on Stalinism and
the anti-Stalinist revolutionary movement. Well aware that he is
a prime target of the Soviet secret police, Trushnovich nonetheless
continues to live dangerously in ally occupied Germany.
Repeated
attempts are made on Trushnovich's life by the German-Soviet
secret police, and in 1954 their persistence finally pays off. On
a spring
day in Berlin, Trushnovich is invited to an apartment by an undercover
German-Soviet agent, Mr. Glezke, pretending to be a slavophilic
anticommunist. There, Dr. Trushnovich is abducted forcefully, and
in an unconscious state is transported into the Soviet zone of Berlin,
disappearing without a trace.

Dr.
Trushnovich is a strong standing example of slavophilic cooperation
and patriotism, who sacrificed his life for a Slavic cause. A Slavic
patriot, he understood Bolshevism as an anti-Slavic phenomenon,
and felt that as a Slav it was his duty to resist it by all means
available. Not only did he actively embrace the Russian and Serbian
patriotic anti-Bolshevik movements at their very inception, but
he became one of the movement's noted theoriticians and inspirations,
maintaining a slavophilic orientation. May his great feat inspire
all of us.
Appendix:
This
plea to the Polish people was written by Dr. Trushnovich, as part
of his comprehensive manual on how to create an anticommunist revolt
within the Soviet Red Army:
An
Appeal to the Polish People
Oh
brotherly Polish people! The Soviet occupational army in Germany
has revolted. It is no longer Soviet, but Russian and national.
It is on its way to liberate Russia. On its banners the National
Army is carrying freedom to all people, both Russian and Polish.
Centuries we have fought against each other, now has begun the hour
of our great brotherhood.
We
must come across your land. Or army is disciplined, all criminal
elements have been destroyed. Our army is bringing to you freedom
and independence. Arise, oh Polish people, destroy the communist
regime in your homeland, we shall help you. Turn your army into
a national, Polish one. In union with us it shall destroy our mutual
enemy. Freedom is indivisible, we must combine mutual powers to
win and strengthen it. Do not permit irresponsible elements to disrupt
the passage of our army. We must pass, as we are bringing liberation
to our motherland. A free Poland and free Russia cannot be enemies.
All Russian forces in Poland will merge and leave with us.
Long
live free Poland and free Russia!
The
Revolutionary Headquarters of the National (Russian) Army.
Source:
"Cherez Vooruzhennogo Vosstania k Revolutsii", A. Trushnovich
(Posev, 1955)
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