THE ROYAL COUPLE VISITS DERONJE AND LITTLE DEJANA

Belgrade, 16 May 2007 – Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Alexander II and Crown Princess Katherine accompanied by Mr. Dusan Babac, member of the Privy Council attended the ceremonial dedication of a Monument of HM King Alexander I in Deronje today and afterwards paid a visit to little Dejana, the young girl that was operated on by Prof. Dr. Kalangos the famous Greek surgeon.

Their Royal Highnesses were welcomed by Mr. Todor Savic, the President of Association for the monument reconstruction with a large number of Deronje citizens.

The official ceremony started with the memorial service in the Church of St. Archangel Mihajlo served by Father Vojislav Lucar and Father Radovan Mijatov. Afterwards, HRH Crown Prince Alexander II officially admired the Monument of his grandfather HM King Alexander I and addressed the people:

“Dear people of Deronje, it is a great pleasure to be here with you to admire the Monument of my grandfather King Alexander I. He was a great builder, successful head of state and a good King that loved his country and his people very much. He was married to the beautiful Princess Maria of Romania that gave him three sons – my father Peter (later King Peter II), Tomislav and Andrej. This year on the 8 June, we are celebrating their 85th wedding anniversary. Today we are removing the injustice that happened in 1941, when this monument was removed. We must not erase our history, we need it as a basis for future generations” – emphasized Crown Prince Alexander II in his speech

Afterwards Mr. Savic addressed the present on behalf of the Association for reconstruction of the HM King Alexander I monument, which initiated reconstruction of the sculpture originally made by Mr. Dragan Spasic, Academic Sculpture. He spoke of the history of the monument and The Royal Family Karadjordjevic and gave the word to Mr. Aleksandar Jugovic, representative of the Ministry of Culture of Serbia that supported this project. He stated that this was a wonderful project that the Ministry of Culture supported with pleasure.

The ceremonial dedication of the Monument of HM King Alexander I in Deronje ended with the magnificent performance of local cultural-artistic society.

On their way back, Crown Prince Alexander and Crown Princess Katherine visited little Dejana and her family in Apatin to see how she and her family are after the very difficult heart operation on her heart valve she had in January. Dejana is feeling very well and she lives a normal life now.