Pages of war diaries of Belarusian writers

Published: June 22, 2022

June 22 is a memorable date in the Republic of Belarus – the Day of National Remembrance of Victims of the Great Patriotic War and the Genocide of the Belarusian People. At dawn on June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany began the war against the USSR. A unique source of information about the first days and the whole period of the war are diaries and diary notes. The difficult conditions for the creation of such documents, the almost universal prohibition on keeping personal records that could fall into the hands of the enemy, the problem of preservation and identification of war diaries make them a rare and valuable source of information about everyday life during the war.

The Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art (BGAMLI) holds diaries and notebooks, which belonged to poets, prose writers, translators, critics and literary scholars Anton Aleshko, Alexander Astapenko, Dmitry Astapenko, Lukash Bende, Pyotr Volkodaev, Vissarion Gorbuk, Ales Zhavruk, Alexei Karpyuk, Pavel Kobzarevsky, Mikhail Klimkovich, Nikolai Loban, Mikhail Lynkov, Yanka Mavr, Evgeny Romanovich, Adam Rusak, Georgy Shcherbatov.

These documents are not equal: they vary in size, content, territorial and chronological coverage. But even the smallest records give an insight into the individual events of the war, the people, and help to learn about the fates of the survivors and find information about the dead.

1. Diary of prose writer, doctor Anton Aleshko. 1942. BGAMLI. F. 208. Op. 1. D. 61. Ll. 1, 3.

2. Diary of literary critic Lukash Bende. 1941. BGAMLI. F. 66. Op. 1. D. 313. Ll. 1, 7.

3. Diary of poet, prose writer Pyotr Volkodaev. 1941-1944. BGAMLI. F. 74. Op. 1. D. 281. Ll. 1-2.

4. Diary of prose writer Vissarion Gorbuk. 1941-1942. BGAMLI. F. 234. Op. 2. D. 44. Ll. 1, 7.

5. Diary of prose writer Aleksey Karpyuk. 1944. Photocopy. BGAMLI. F. 257. Op. 1. D. 87. Ll. 2-3.

6. Diary of poet, translator Pavel Kobzarevsky. 1941. BGAMLI. F. 31. Op. 2. D. 179. Ll. 1-3.

7. Diary of prose writer Nikolai Loban. 22-23 June 1941. BGAMLI. F. 148. Op. 2. D. 105. Ll. 1, 3.

8. Diary of writer, literary critic, public figure Mikhas Lynkov. 1944. BGAMLI. F. 191. Op. 1. D. 199. Ll. 17-18.

9. Diary notes of writer, translator Yanka Mavr. June 1941. BGAMLI. F. 290. Op. 1. D. 64. L. 1.