MINSK, 5 May (BelTA) - The two-day international youth forum The Light of the Great Victory has kicked off at Belarusian State University, BelTA learned.
Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Karanik attended the opening ceremony. “In the run-up to the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory, the most important day for our people, we recall the years of war hardship and realize that it is indeed a celebration of joy with tears in our eyes. Yes, our nation survived, prevailed but at the very high cost. We lost every third person; we are still discovering the terrible facts of genocide. And it is important to preserve the memory of history as a tribute to the victorious generation that broke the back of fascism. It is important also because whoever fails to remember the lessons of the past is doomed to repeat them. We must do everything to ensure that our people never again experience the horrors of war, that war never again sets its foot on our blessed land. That is why we work with the youth to keep the link between generations so that they preserve the memory of the Belarusian people's feat and pass it on to the next generations. The memory of those years should live on for centuries,” Vladimir Karanik said.
Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Karanik attended the opening ceremony. “In the run-up to the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory, the most important day for our people, we recall the years of war hardship and realize that it is indeed a celebration of joy with tears in our eyes. Yes, our nation survived, prevailed but at the very high cost. We lost every third person; we are still discovering the terrible facts of genocide. And it is important to preserve the memory of history as a tribute to the victorious generation that broke the back of fascism. It is important also because whoever fails to remember the lessons of the past is doomed to repeat them. We must do everything to ensure that our people never again experience the horrors of war, that war never again sets its foot on our blessed land. That is why we work with the youth to keep the link between generations so that they preserve the memory of the Belarusian people's feat and pass it on to the next generations. The memory of those years should live on for centuries,” Vladimir Karanik said.
Rector of Belarusian State University Andrei Korol emphasized that the opening of the forum is a landmark event. “It is dedicated to the upcoming great holiday, the Great Victory, the anniversary date. Students from 10 Russian universities and 12 Belarusian ones are taking part in the forum called as The Light of the Great Victory that our university has been holding since 2009. It is extremely important that the participants of the forum were able to bring forward their messages, find answers to the questions and get this sense of unity. In the future, this will help to preserve the truth about the military past and pass on to the next generations the real history with its key heroes and their feats,” he said.
The centerpiece of the event was an open mic with Vladimir Karanik. The main agenda of the meeting was the historical memory and truth about the events of the Great Patriotic War. The program also includes lectures, conversations and discussions on the interpretation of the war in the international agenda, the work of Soviet authors, the partisan movement and their underground work. In addition, the forum program includes a panel discussion “Change of Epochs: Visualization of Historical Memory in the 21st Century”, a meet-and-greet with Maria Yagodnitsyna, sWWII veteran, Chaireoman of the Belarusian Union of Leningrad Siege Survivors, military-patriotic competitions and a song contest.
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