Belarusian Written Language Day – September 6th, 2015

The Belarusian Written Language Day Festival is marked in order to popularize achievements of the domestic literature culture, preserve the succession of spiritual traditions of Belarus. The event provides a unique opportunity to get familiar with the living language, people who participate in creating books, newspapers, and magazines.

t is no accident that the Belarusian Written Language Day is held at the beginning of a new academic year. Education, information, and culture are the three branches that shape the intellectual elite of a nation, its present and the future. On this day we pay the tribute to our ancestors, who have created the foundation of the Belarusian education and the written language.

The festival is traditionally held in towns, which are historical centers of culture, science, literature and book printing. The first holiday took place in Polotsk in 1994. In the years later, the Belarusian Written Language Day was marked in Turov, Novogrudok, Nesvizh, Orsha, Pinsk, Polotsk, Zaslavl, Mstislavl, Mir, Kamenets, Postavy, Shklov, Borisov, Smorgon, Khoiniki, Gantsevichi, Glubokoye, Bykhov. This year it will be held in the town of Shchuchyn, Grodno oblast.

Shchuchyn is the center of Shchuchyn District. The population is nearly 15,000 (2010).
The first known official written mention of Shchuchyn is recorded in 1436, but its foundation as a settlement dates back to 1537, when Shchuchyn was mentioned in the Book of Acts of the Lithuanian Metrica (the Book of Lithuanian vital records), kept in the Governmental archive in Lithuania.

Ownership of Shchuchyn passed from one noble family to another: the Radziwiłł family, then the Drutskiya-Liubetskis, the Scipions, and others ruled Shchuchyn in turn. In the 15th – 18th centuries, Shchuchyn became a member of the Lida council of the Vilnius office of voivode. In the first half of the 17th century, Shchuchyn was governed by the outsider marshal of the Lithuanian principality, Scipio de Campo. Shchuchyn was an average-sized privately owned village in terms of population.

A Catholic Monasterial Order was established 1726 in Shchuchyn by the resolution of the Sejm. The Board of Shchuchyn was considered to be one of the biggest in Belarus.

Shchuchyn was subject to ruin and ravage more than once in its history. The biggest was in the time of the North War, after the town was seized by the Swedish king Karl XII. After the third partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, Shchuchyn became a part of the Russian Empire. In June 1812, Shchuchyn was occupied by French troops. And again in 1915, by the German Kaiser. In 1919, the Red Army attempted to seize Belarusian land by taking and fortifying the Martinkantsy – Shchuchyn – Shchara – lake Vygonovskoe line. However, the superior defence forces of the “Land of Grodnenskaya”, together with Poland, forced the Red Army back. In 1939, Western Belarus, together with Shchuchyn, went under the control of the Soviet authorities. In World War II, Shchuchyn was occupied by German troops.

During the Nazi occupation from 25 June 1941 until 13 July 1944 the Nazi forces killed about 2180 Jews from the Shchuchyn ghetto with the majority of them killed on 10(9) May 1942. In 1962, Shchuchyn was granted town status.

Famous Belarusian poet, prose writer, actress and political activist of Belarusian national-democratic rebirth Alaiza Pashkievich (or Ciotka) was born and died in the Shchuchyn region.

Traditionally every written language day leaves tokens of respect for the people whose service to the Fatherland has left marks in the nation’s memory.

The participants and guests of the celebrations are given a unique chance to get familiar with the new books and meet national and foreign writers, poets, journalists and publishers. By tradition the Belarusian Written Language Day Festival includes an award ceremony of the winners of the best literary work contest, a science-to-practice conference, and many more interesting events.

Since its inception the Belarusian Written Language Day has become a genuine national holiday, a major event in the country’s cultural life. The celebrations are held not only in the host city but in the entire country. Those are thematic lessons, lectures, seminars, meetings with scientists, writers, and people of culture.

Every year top officials of Belarus, people of literature, culture, science, art as well as reporters, representatives of accredited diplomatic missions, foreign delegations take part in celebrations of the Belarusian Written Language Day.

The Belarusian Written Language Day celebrations in small towns contribute to building up their infrastructure, development of tourism in provinces, introduce Belarusians and foreign guests to material and spiritual monuments of Belarus.

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