Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's greetings to the Forum of Historians' hosts and participants from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus
3 June 2023 13:22
1098-03-06-2023
Colleagues,
I am delighted to welcome the participants of the Russian-Belarusian Forum of Historians' first meeting. I'd like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the hosts, including the Russian History Society, the History of the Fatherland Foundation, and academic history institutions, as well as the Russian State University for the Humanities, and our Belarusian friends. I thank you all for spearheading this important initiative. The Russian-Belarusian historical legacy is priceless and the research community should work hard to achieve an in-depth understanding of it.
Indeed, the demand for this work is high and can hardly be overestimated. The collective West is continuing with its attempts to cynically falsify history. Textbooks are rewritten, facts are distorted, and monuments are demolished. Their goal is clear for everyone to see and it is to sow inter-ethnic and inter-religious discord, to foment language chauvinism and to pit our fraternal peoples against each other in order to prevent the Union State from getting stronger.
The only way to overcome this is to recreate the objective picture of the past. It is no coincidence that historians are called memory keepers. I think it would be appropriate to recall the words of Vasily Klyuchevsky who once famously said that a nation that has no memory of its past has no future.
Colleagues,
In the coming days, you will discuss many issues, including very complex, sensitive and acute ones. Controversies and discussions are unavoidable, but, as we know, the truth is born in a dispute. I'm sure you will be able to bring your positions as close as possible and enrich historical science with new knowledge.
In the future, we should think about pooling our efforts to compile a monograph on the history of the Union State, especially as we completed a similar project earlier. I'm talking about a large-scale and extended effort by the academies of sciences of Russia and Belarus to draft a multi-volume historical and documentary publication titled "The Country on Fire."
It is hard to overestimate the importance of historical research for the edification and patriotic education of our youth. We have a duty to our young people to convey the historical truth to them in an undistorted form and ensure the continuity of generations. In this regard, I hope that the forum will contribute to deepening bilateral cooperation in education, and its outcomes will be used in the education process. The idea to harmonise education programmes, to jointly draft history textbooks and guidelines for teachers, and to develop common approaches to improving history education is quite promising.
I wish you productive communication, exciting joint projects for the benefit of our citizens and further progress in the Russian-Belarusian allied relations.
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