"Wyzwoleni" i zniewoleni

45,00 PLN
Scientific editing: Aleksander Smalianczuk
Publisher: Centrum Dialogu im. Juliusza Mieroszewskiego
Edition: pierwsze
Publishing date: 2023
Binding : twarda
Format: 150 x 245 mm
Number of sites: 578
ISBN: 978-83-64486-29-1

The publication „Wyzwoleni” i zniewoleni. Polsko-białoruskie pogranicze 1939-1941 w białoruskich dokumentach archiwalnych is an attempt to counter the Soviet vision of the 'liberation' and 'unification' of Belarus in 1939 imposed by Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime.

The Belarusian edition of the book was deemed extremist by the Lukashenko regime.

A look at the Soviet occupation through the eyes of a Belarusian historian

The aim of the author of the collection - Professor Alexander Smalianchuk - was to find and select documents that would allow us to understand the attitude of various social and national groups of the population of the north-eastern provinces of the Second Polish Republic to political changes, as well as their attitudes towards socio-economic and cultural reforms under the 'first Soviets'.

The book consists of 125 documents, most of which have been published for the first time. They come mainly from the National Archive of the Republic of Belarus and the State Archive of Social Organisations of the Grodno Region. Due to the political situation in Belarus, it is practically impossible to access them. The book contains documents in the original (Russian, Belarusian) and their translations into Polish.

The issues dealt with in the documents are quite broad and include the organisation of administrative and state structures, the creation of kolkhozes, Sovietisation of the education system, restrictions on religious life, mass repressions against the population in the occupied and then illegally incorporated areas of the north-eastern provinces of the Second Polish Republic. The volume also includes an excerpt from a report by Belarusian archaeologists on the results of excavations carried out in 1997-1998 in the Kuropaty Wilderness. They unequivocally prove that during the time of the "first Soviets" the inhabitants of the occupied areas of Poland were executed en masse there.