To mark the 150th anniversary of the battle of Milavidy on May 22, 1863.
At Milavidy a group of insurgents in the Uprising of 1863-1864 held the day against a superior force of Russian imperial troops. Fought against the Russian Empire and for the restoration of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, of which the Belarusian lands were a major part), the ill-fated Uprising is honored by Poles and Lithuanians as an important element of their national revivals.
The approach in Belarus is less uniform. The Belarusian nation at large honors the Uprising and its participants. However, the official attitude, still infused by Russian and Soviet imperial views, remains cool. The exhibition on Belarusian history shown in this photo reflects the split. Featuring prominently on the left is a heroic portrait of one of the Uprising’s leaders, the Belarusian Kastus’ Kalinouski, hanged by the Russians after the Uprising had failed. Below Kalinouski stands the Pahonja, the state symbol of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and of independent Belarus from 1991-1995. On the other hand the middle text on the right-hand column of three items bears the Soviet-style title “The Struggle of the Belarusian People for Unification with Russia”.
З нагоды 150-а юбілея бітвы пад Мілавідамі, 22.05.1863 г.
Museum in Dastojeva (the village was the original seat of the Dostoevski family) 2007.
Музэй у в. Дастоева 2007 г.
