BGAMLI took part in the opening of a joint exhibition dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the birth of Valentin Tavlay in Lida

On February 8, 2024, employees of the Belarusian State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art – the head of the department of scientific description of documents of personal origin Olga Fedorovna Shatalova and the leading archivist of the department of information, publication and use Natalya Aleksandrovna Mizon – took part in the opening of the joint exhibition «The path to your house led itself…», dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the birth of the poet, literary critic, public figure Valentin Tavlay, on the site of the Lida Historical and Art Museum. The event program also included a bus trip to the places of V.Tavlay in Lida, staged stories about the life and work of the poet, a meeting with his relatives, etc.

Valentin Pavlovich Tavlay (1914–1947) was born into the family of a railway worker. He graduated from a Polish school in Lida. He entered the Slonim Teachers’ Gymnasium, from where he was expelled in 1925 for refusing to enroll as a Pole. In 1927–1929 he studied at the Vilna Belarusian Gymnasium. He was arrested for underground Komsomol activities and was in Slonim and Grodno prisons in 1929–1930. From October 1930 he lived in the BSSR (worked as an instructor for the Komsomol district committee in Rechitsa, at the newspaper «Zvyazda», and studied at the newspaper department of the literary department of the BSU). From December 1932, he was sent to underground work in Western Belarus (member of the editorial board of the Communist Party of Western Belarus, one of the editors of the Belarusian Newspaper, etc.). On January 4, 1934, he was arrested, sentenced to 8 years in prison in the Grodno prison, sentenced to death on September 22, 1939 and released by Red Army soldiers. Worked for the Lida newspaper Uperad. Member of the Writers’ Union of Belarus since 1941. During the Great Patriotic War, he was a liaison officer of the partisan detachment of R. Katovsky, brigade named after F. Derzhinsky of the Baranovichi formation, head of the Novogrudok intelligence network of the Burevestnik special group. In 1943, together with his parents and younger sister, SD was arrested in Lida and miraculously escaped. In 1945–1947, V. Tavlay was one of the founders and deputy director of the Yanka Kupala Literary Museum. He was buried at the Military Cemetery in Minsk.

The exhibition «The path to your house led itself…» is the first event of BGAMLI dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the reunification of Eastern and Western Belarus.

1. Ales Khitrun and Natalya Mizon during the presentation of an autograph and Treasure Box of BGAMLI

2. Olga Shatalova, Natalya Mizon and other participants during the opening of the event

3. Memorial plaque to V. Tavlay

4. During a tour of the halls of the Lida History and Art Museum