MOGILEV, 22 September (BelTA) – The archives of Belarus and Russia keep national memory intact, Head of the Federal Archival Agency of Russia Andrei Artizov told reporters during a joint meeting of the collegiums of the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Justice Ministry of Belarus and the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation, BelTA has learned.
“We are keepers of national memory. The most important objective of our cooperation is to preserve this memory, keep it intact and make it accessible to our people. We should make sure that this memory is not distorted, that people know the truth,” Andrei Artizov said.
According to him, the Great Patriotic War is one of key topics of collaboration. “This topic is relevant for Russians and Belarusians. There were millions of victims. Therefore, collections of documents related to the Great Patriotic War are being prepared together with our Belarusian counterparts. Our famous project No Statute of Limitations recounts the crimes of the Nazis and their allies, because the Nazis were not alone in this. We publish all these testimonies in our books. More than 20 such publications are devoted to regions of Russia that suffered during the war. Now this project has come to Belarus: three books have already been published, one of which is dedicated to Mogilev Oblast,” he said.
Viktor Kurash, Director of the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Justice Ministry of Belarus, noted that such meetings with Russian colleagues have been held since 1992. “We discuss all topical issues of archival work. These are storage, acquisition, restoration of documents, popularization of the use of documents. Now the use of electronic archives has come to the forefront, therefore we jointly develop information programs and introduce them using modern cloud technologies. Today archives are not just repositories. They are research centers, because the search for documents is a type of scientific work. We are also involved in a publishing activity, which gives access to our documents to a wide range of users. Archives are also cultural centers hosting exhibitions timed to important dates and individuals,” Viktor Kurash emphasized.
According to him, in recent years Belarusian specialists in collaboration with their Russian colleagues have published several dozen collections of documents about Belarus' post-war reconstruction after the Great Patriotic War, held exhibitions dedicated to the Munich Agreement and the Peace of Riga; now a new project is in the works dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials. “The work of archives is especially relevant today, amidst attempts, including those of the collective West, to distort the history of the war,” he stressed.
“Now we are working on closer integration as part of the Union State. The foreign policy of our partners has pushed our countries to closer cooperation. And today we see that everything that we have done for each other before is paying off. I am sure that the visit to Mogilev will be informative for our guests and that they feel comfortable here. And I have no doubt that a professional discussion will be useful for their further work,” Mogilev Oblast Governor Valery Malashko said.
