An exhibition of documents and books “History of Belarus: the Formation of National Statehood” held to honor the Ninety Years of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic
On 18 December 2008 the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus and the National Library of Belarus opened an exhibition of documents and books titled “The History of Belarus: the Formation of National Statehood” dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic.
1 December 1918 came into history as a day of the establishment of a new sovereign state, the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). The new state was born in harsh conditions of the recently finished world war, in the heat of the military intervention of foreign powers into the country, as the national movement became more and more stronger. In the whirl of these events at the turn of the 20th century the first real national Belarusian state appeared on the world map.
The National Archives of the Republic of Belarus offers to the public over a hundred original documents from the period of 1917-1919 that illustrate the sweeping and contradictory nature of the process of self-determination of Belarus. These are documents created by the Belarusian National Commissariat, statute charters of the Belarusian National Republic, delegate mandates for the Workers Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) Sixth North-West Conference, minutes of sessions of the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Belarus. The Manifesto on Declaration of the BSSR is exhibited in the original copies with handwritten notes and in the first official publications. A large complex of documents illustrate the dramatic moments of establishing the Provisional Workers and Peasants Soviet Government of Belarus and the role of Joseph Stalin in this process. Minutes of government sessions and materials created by the national commissariats for land, for post and telegraph, and for health narrate about the first steps in the life of the Belarusian state. Documents on the historiography of the Belarusian statehood have been presented to the public for the first time.
The National Library of Belarus exhibits nearly 300 publications, including encyclopedias, research works, collections of documents and materials, monographs, textbooks.
The exhibition will be staged at the National Library of Belarus (Third Floor) until 20 January 2009.