MINSK, 2 July (BelTA) – It is the heroic events of the past that shape the national identity of a nation and unite it. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement during a solemn assembly held on 2 July ahead of Independence Day, BelTA has learned.
Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “This is why we are going to view any attempts to discredit the generation of winners as a challenge to the sovereignty stemming from the Belarusian nation.”
In his words, one should understand that descendants and adepts of the ideas of those, who stood on the other side of the frontline, will not abandon attempts to rewrite the history of World War Two or cast it into oblivion. “We have no right to allow it. We cannot allow it in the name of the memory of those, who gave their lives for the freedom of the Belarusian land, for our present and for the future of our children and grandchildren,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
The president quoted some data. The historiography of the Great Patriotic War contains references to over 260 death camps, over 140 punitive operations in Belarus' territory, over three years of intolerable suffering the Belarusians had to endure when the country was occupied. The memory is immortalized in more than 8,000 monuments, documentary films and archives, it lives in the grassroots initiative Belarus Remembers.
Aleksandr Lukashenko noted: “Today it is important to not only preserve but publish all the archives. It is a package of counterarguments that will help future generations of Belarusians preserve the historic legacy of their country.”
Addressing war veterans, Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that the peace they had restored is preserved in Belarus as the greatest treasure in life. “It is our sacred duty to preserve and pass on the peaceful, safe, and independent country of Belarus to the future generations in the name of your great deeds. Despite various woes of the present world I can assure you that we will preserve this peaceful and independent country,” the Belarusian leader concluded.
