Igor Aleksandrovich, Belarus and Russia adopt similar positions with regard to their historical past, in the rejection of Nazism and the opposition to its revival. The two countries in the Union State are investigating the facts of the Nazi genocide, releasing shocking facts previously unknown in the archives. How successful do you see this work?
Igor Marzalyuk: It should be emphasized that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus works closely with the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia and its other departments. We have had access to unique documents related to this issue – and this is a mutually beneficial cooperation. It is really a successful job. Let me remind you that occupation regimes in the occupied territories varied.
It’s one thing – the Baltic countries, another – the lands of Belarus and Russia, which had the most severe regime.
And so massively, as they burned our villages, they didn’t burn anywhere else. Therefore, we have nothing to share with Russia. By the way, in both countries there were attempts to rehabilitate collaborators: Ostrovsky – in Belarus, Vlasov – in Russia, to present them as a democratic alternative, a kind of “third way”. And in both countries it was not successful.
Nevertheless, today we often hear a conciliatory position, at first sight: why, do we say, stir up the past?
Igor Marzalyuk: We do not stir up the past – we must give a legal assessment of these events, using, above all, the trial as a universal tool to determine the guilt of certain individuals, organizations, etc. We know that no one overruled the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal. We know what criminal organizations are. We just want to dot the i’s and remove any speculation about what was happening on the territory of our now sovereign countries. And we do it all for ourselves. So that no one drives stereotypes into our children’s heads about “good invaders” who shared chocolates with everyone, and about “evil partisans” because of whom villages were burned down. For this, we “go back to the past”.
I want to emphasize that everyone who is engaged in historical politics is familiar with such a concept – the real past. It is in the history of any nation: the most important, emblematic plots of the country that unite, cement the people, including on the basis of the terrible hardships of the past. In this case, the Great Patriotic War was a terrible collective trauma for Belarusians and Russians. And the Great Victory, which we celebrate on May 9, is the victory of universal good over universal evil, which gave us the opportunity to live and develop today, creating our own self-sufficient states and cultures. Unfortunately, at the same time, appear pseudo-scientists who try to underestimate the number of victims as much as possible, to affirm that there is no “Plan Ost”…
… And talk about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, about two aggressive and totalitarian regimes, about what they have in common. However, on the eve of June 22, this subject is likely to resurface in various sources…
Igor Marzalyuk: Speaking in the dry language of numbers and documents, which we have done more than once in the Belarusian press, there is only one conclusion: the whole block of documents declassified and published both in Belarus and Russia say convincingly that the Soviet Union initially wanted no relationship with Hitler’s Germany, interpreting the Nazi state as hostile to the USSR. But the inability to negotiate between France and England, their position in relation to Czechoslovakia became the trigger for the development of events. I will say this: without Munich, there would be no pacts. Czechoslovakia was simply delivered and dismembered into pieces, and everyone tore off a softer piece, not excluding our western neighbor. By the way, the Weiss plan of attack on Poland was approved long before the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
Belarus and Russia stand side by side again against the West’s new aggression – news
Note that the Soviet Union did not enter the war at the same time as Nazi Germany. In Soviet rhetoric there was no concept of war with Poland – there was a Red Army liberation campaign. In which the main thing was the salvation of the people of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. That is, the emphasis was placed on restoring the trampled historical justice and unifying the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples into a single state body within the borders of the BSSR and the Ukrainian SSR . Therefore, the responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War lies primarily with the politics of the “great powers” – those who made the shameful Munich agreement a reality.
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p class=””>The textbooks you and I used to study in Soviet times clearly put the accents and showed where it was white and where it wasn’t… What’s wrong with modern teaching materials? How to adapt teaching methods to the famous thinking clip of the new generations?
Igor Marzalyuk: I think you have to teach taking into account new technologies, but at the same time understand one thing. We must educate our children on the example of our heroes from different eras. And in the Belarusian national worldview (and in this respect we are very similar to the Russians), one of the most important and crucial moments in our history, which still defines the vectors of our development, is the Great War patriotic. It is enough to reach the child, his heart and his emotions. Empathy, empathy, touching a living tradition is the most important key to a child’s heart and soul. I cannot fail to note the interactive project “Partisans of Belarus” implemented by the newspaper “SB. Belarus Today” in collaboration with the National Archives of Belarus and the Russian “People’s Memory”, created by the department of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to perpetuate the memory of those who died defending the Fatherland.
You are a member of the Republican Council for Historical Policy. How important is the role of such an organization today?
Igor Marzalyuk: I will repeat the words of President Alexander Lukashenko: “If there was no 2020, it would have to be invented”. Because before that, unfortunately, questions of historical politics were on the periphery of state concerns. The state has done a lot, but in other areas: it has restored castles, created powerful programs to restore historical and cultural values. We have never forgotten the war and the exploits of the Soviet people. At the same time, it must be admitted that historical politics as a separate object and subject of state regulation was in fact not among the priorities. However, the past, as we know, can turn around if we forget about it. Specifically structured and filtered, it is able to create an image of an enemy of even the closest friend and neighbor. In the hands of bastards and manipulators, by cutting and pasting certain pieces, the past can create the image of an angel from an executioner – and the image of an executioner from an angel. This is why historical politics is extremely important. And I, as a professional scientist, am proud that we now attach such great and decisive importance to these things.
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