On the holding by employees of the institution «Zonal State Archive in Orsha», within the framework of the republican action «Archives to School», an information hour on the topic: «Life given to the native land…», dedicated to local historian Alexander Nikolaevich Shinkevich

On April 11, 2024, as part of the republican action «Archives to School» and events dedicated to the Year of Quality, with students of grades 5 and 6 of the state educational institution «Secondary School No. 18 of Barani», leading archivist of the department of document use Yu.I. Gryadovka, An information hour was held on the topic: «Life given to the native land…», dedicated to local historian Alexander Nikolaevich Shinkevich.

Alexander Nikolaevich Shinkevich is one of the most famous local historians in the Orsha region.

He became interested in local history in his early school years, but began to study it purposefully in 1980. He collected information on the history, ethnography and geology of the Orsha region from all possible sources. He traveled a lot, taking photographs of unique places, antiquities and architectural monuments, and then looked for written and oral information about them. By the end of the 1980s. The main directions of his local history activities have developed – searching, studying, mapping, photographing, compiling descriptions and promoting information about ancient and natural monuments, collecting folklore heritage.

Alexander Nikolaevich is the author of a large number of publications on the history of the region. While traveling around the Orsha region, in the process of collecting materials and preparing illustrations for his local history publications, he identified several previously unknown archaeological monuments.

Alexander Nikolaevich conducts active public work in local history, often speaks to students in city schools, and conducts interesting excursions to the sights of his small homeland.

During this event, the children got acquainted with documents and photographs telling about the life and work of the famous local historian. After all, a local historian is, first of all, a patriot of his homeland, who scrupulously and in detail studies the territory where he lives.

In addition, within the framework of the project «Open Film Archive. We brought this day closer as best we could.» The students were shown a newsreel dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Vitebsk region from the Nazi invaders, prepared by the Belarusian State Archive of Film, Photo and Sound Documents.