In memoriam. Night of Executed Poets in Minsk


The opposition organization Young Front has held the readings from the executed Belarusian poets on the night of October 29th to 30th in Kurapaty near Minsk.

October 29 is a black day of the Belarusian history. On this day in 1937 Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD, shot more than 100 cultural figures, mainly writers and poets.

Kurapaty, a place on the outskirts of the Belarusian capital, is not just the national memorial and a mass grave of the victims of Stalinist repression, it is a site of historical and cultural heritage.

In spite of squally weather and late hour, about 60 people showed up at the event. People came with their children, brought candles and portraits of their purged and executed relatives.

According to writer and researcher Mikhail Skobla, over several decades, the USSR authorities killed 2,000 writers, and one in five of them was Belarusian.

Belsat.eu, photos by Iryna Arakhouskaya

TWITTER