The 22nd Uzvyshsha Readings at the Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art
In the Year of Historical Memory and the 100th anniversary of the State Archival Service of Belarus, on 26 May 2022, the Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art (BGAMLI) hosted the 22nd Uzvyshsha Readings dedicated to writers and artists of the war generation. The conference was attended by employees of the BGAMLI, the Belarusian State Archives of Film and Photo Documents, the National Library of Belarus, the Yakub Kolas State Literary Memorial Museum, the Maxim Bogdanovich Literary Museum, the Centre for Research of Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, literary critics, historians and local historians.
The participants were welcomed by Alexei Tsvetkov, Deputy Director of the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus, who emphasized the importance of historical wartime documents and wished the participants success in further research. The director of BGAMLI Anna Zapartyko noted the direct connection of “Uzvyshsha” writers with the events of the Great Patriotic War, during which Petro Glebka, Kondrat Krapiva, Maksim Luzhanin fought.
At the plenary session, Alexander Krasovsky, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, lecturer at the Belarusian State University, spoke about the life path of his father Nikolai Krasovsky, one of the organizers of the partisan movement in Belarus during the war. He handed over to the Archive-Museum for safekeeping the documents from his father’s archive, including his diary with the mentions of his relations with famous writers. Together with the documents, the Archive-Museum received a unique exhibit – the legendary photo camera “Leika” with which Nikolai Krasovsky did not part during the war years.
The work of the sections included reports “The creative activity of the poet Maksim Tank during the Great Patriotic War in the audiovisual documents of the Belarusian State Archives of Film and Photo Documents” (Elena Tretyak), “The Personality and Fate of Yazep Pushcha in the Writer’s Archival Collection” (Yulia Amosova), “The History of Formation and Development of Librarianship in Belarus through the Context of Archival Documents” (Irina Kuketa), “Sons of Belarusian Writers Who Fought and Died for the Motherland (according to archival sources)” (Anna Zapartyko), “The Last Notebook of Zmytrok Astapenko” (Viktor Zhybul), “Unknown Inscriptions of Yakub Kolas on Books” (Vasilina Mitskevich), “Enemies and Heroes. War Roads of Belarusian Writers” (Mikhail Baranovski), “Yakub Kolas’ Unrealized Dream: Why the national classic never wrote a work dedicated to the Krichev uprising?” (Alexander Kryzhevich), “Zinaida Bandarina’s surroundings in Radoshkovich: Tamara Sokolova and Yekaterina Zhelezovskaya” (Oksana Danilchik), “Documents of the writer and scientist Mikhas Goncharik in the State Archives of Mogilev Region” (Oleg Dyachkov), “The person of Andrey Snitko (1866-1920) in the history of the region” (Yury Bachishche), “Kastus Maevsky and Belarusian Folklore. The history of life and activity of the unknown collector from Volozhin region” (Yanina Grinevich).
The conference also hosted the opening of the exhibition “I Call You to Victory…”, named after a line from the poem “To the Belarusian Partisans” by Yanka Kupala. The exhibition features documents related to the life and activities of Belarusian writers, artists and performers during the Great Patriotic War, reflecting military events in the works of literature, fine arts, theater and film, and the memory of the dead. The exhibition contains books and periodicals from the 1940s, including the collection of famous newspapers “The Partisan Baton” and “Let’s Crush the Fascist Scum”.
