VITEBSK, 25 September (BelTA) – Archivists of Belarus and Russia intend to publish the first book of documents “Russia and the Belarusian lands in the 17th – 18th centuries: documents and materials” in the second half of 2020, Head of the Russian Federal Archival Agency Andrei Artizov told journalists, BelTA has learned.
According to Andrei Artizov, Russia expects Belarus to provide access to documents on the period in question. Around a half of all materials in the collection will be published for the first time. The project will be implemented by the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents and the National Historical Archives of Belarus.
The book will tell about the Russo-Polish War of 1654 – 1774 between the Tsardom of Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and economic relations between the two states. “It is difficult to work with documents of that period because they need translating into modern languages and there are only some 600 such specialists in Russia and several dozens of them in Belarus. If everything works out fine, the first book will see the light of day in the second half of 2020. This will contribute to exploring the history of the Tsardom of Russia and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania,” Andrei Artizov noted.
“Russia and the Belarusian lands in the 17th – 18th centuries: documents and materials” is a working title that will be further discussed.
The meeting of the heads of the archive services and national archive agencies of Belarus and Russia is hosted by the Vitebsk regional administration on 25 September. The joint session of the Department of Archives and Office Work of the Belarusian Justice Ministry and the Federal Archival Agency of Russia is focused on ways of making information of national archive agencies available on the Internet. The archivists will also take part in the conference “Storage, preservation and use of documents of non-governmental organizations” and visit a regional archive, museums and churches of Polotsk.
