Opinions & Interviews

Call to resist attempts to manipulate historical past of Belarus

MINSK, 14 September (BelTA) - It is important we actively resist attempts to manipulate the historical past of Belarus, Head of the Belarus President Administration Igor Sergeyenko said during the national conference to discuss the state policy in the field of history and ways of preserving the historical truth and memory, BelTA has learned.

"The theme of the conference was chosen for a reason. Time itself has prompted us towards a deeper understanding of our history. One can single out a lot of both outstanding and tragic events, reformat them and weaponize them. This is what is happening today: they carefully study the history of Belarus abroad, interpret it in the interests of the policies of their states and often deliberately distort the historical facts. They create myths that are aggressively planted in our society, including with the aim of discrediting our heroic past. The most obvious example is Khatyn and other similar tragedies, when they strenuously tried to convince us that it was the partisan resistance that caused the atrocities of the Nazis. Heroes are turned into villains that caused people’s misfortunes. These fabricated narratives sincerely outrage and insult us, Belarusians, the people who suffered the worst from Hitler's aggression," Igor Sergeyenko said.

According to him, this is just one of hundreds of examples of manipulation of the historical past. "All this information is in the public domain. People see, read and discuss it and, worst of all, begin to have doubts. They are zombified; losing faith in official sources of information in many respects. We must give answers to many difficult questions of our history - truthful answers, without political fraud. This is why the head of state declared 2022 the Year of Historical Memory, which gave start to large-scale state events in the country and wide involvement of people in the effort to preserve and restore the historical heritage. We are well aware that one year is not enough to achieve our goals, so the idea of continuing the Year of Historical Memory underpinned the Year of Peace and Creation declared this year," Igor Sergeyenko noted.

He stressed that a lot has already been done, including with the participation of the National Council on Historical Policy."First of all, we have identified the approaches to the state historical concepts, developed the mechanisms for their introduction into the educational process and ideological-educational work. We are working to restore and reconstruct the country's historical heritage sites and have rethought the concepts of excursion activities," Igor Sergeyenko noted.

The conference has been organized by the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, the Academy of Public Administration under the aegis of the President and Belarusian State University.
The event brought together senior officials of the government bodies, the Parliament, regional (Minsk City) executive committees, higher education institutions, academia and the expert community, museums, archives, public associations, and the media.

The conference opened with a plenary session and will be continued within the framework of three breakout sessions to look into the problems of scientific-theoretical and information-ideological support of the state historical policy in Belarus and the implementation of this policy in the education system.

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