On the completion of the internship of undergraduates in the National Historical Archive of Belarus

On March 31, 2023, the production (research) practice of students of the magistracy of the Faculty of History of the Belarusian State University ended at the National Historical Archives of Belarus. It was aimed at giving students practical skills in working with handwritten sources that are stored in the archive. Under the guidance of the head of the Department of Research and Publication, Candidate of Historical Sciences Dmitry Matveychik, students learned how to conduct a primary (required funds) and secondary (required files in the funds) search for materials, and also gained practical experience in developing historical sources in order to identify the necessary information.

Undergraduates will use the acquired skills in their further professional activities, and the collected historical material – when writing master’s theses. The students themselves note the great benefit for them of this form of practical training. One of them, Elizaveta Pukhteeva, notes the following: «The practice gave me the opportunity to get acquainted and study a large number of files from different funds in a short time, as well as improve my skills in working with archival sources, especially the skills of parsing handwritten text».

In the future, the NEA of Belarus plans to continue accepting students for practice in order to transfer practical experience in the development of handwritten documents to them.