Mezentsev: we treat heroic deeds of partisans with great respect and honours
The new book – Operation Bagration. Partisans of the Belarusian Land... – has been presented today at the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War History during the round table discussion. The publication is timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of Belarus’ liberation from Nazi invaders. The book takes us back to the tragic past of our nations, giving answers to some pressing questions of today. Unique information is collected under the cover, and the publication was created in co-operation between the archival community of Belarus and Russia, the Justice Ministry of Belarus, and the Defence Ministry of Russia. It also contains information from home archives. Some facts and archival documents researched by historians are being published for the first time. The book convincingly testifies that we have a shared memory and one Great Victory.
Dmitry Mezentsev, the State Secretary of the Union State, who was present at the presentation, stressed the importance of today’s events on the eve of Belarus’ most important state holiday – Independence Day.
“Belarus and Russia view the task of protecting historical truth in a special way. Our presidents have repeatedly stressed their respect for the heroic deed of Soviet soldiers. Today, amid unprecedented boorish attitude towards the memory of older generations who fought and defeated Nazism, towards our monuments in Europe that are being demolished, we must be more united and wiser and look into the pages of that history in detail, analysing both those documents that we know and those that we present today. It’s very important that such a presentation is held on the eve of the great holiday: the 80th anniversary of Belarus’ liberation. We are saying that the older generation is obliged to make sure that the understanding of the great feat by the youth is akin to ours. This book is devoted exclusively to the Belarusian theme. In the 1940s, more than 370 thousand people made a choice to go into the forest and fight the enemy, not understanding for how many years they were leaving, not understanding what would happen tomorrow. But this choice has been made. Today we are talking about this with great respect and honours.”
The new book is designed for a wide audience, but first of all it is addressed to young people. Its very name contains the main pillars of our memory of that Great Victory, which we will always be proud of: the unsurpassed military skill and strategic superiority of the Red Army during the largest offensive Operation Bagration and the greatness of the feat of the Belarusian people, who began an armed struggle against the occupiers from the first days of the war.
The book was prepared by the Union State Standing Committee as part of the Library of the Union State series. This is the third book in the Defending the Fatherland series – based on archival documents, irrefutable evidence of military glory and the feat of the people’s avengers.
