Orenburg state university

CIS scientists about the Great Patriotic War

On May 22, scientists from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan joined together to hold an International video conference "Historical memory as the basis for strengthening humanitarian cooperation in the Eurasia" (to mark the 75th anniversary of the great Victory).

OSU Research Institute of History and Ethnography of the Southern Urals and the Commonwealth of Peoples of Eurasia acted as the event’s organizers and Tashkent State Pedagogical University Nizami (Uzbekistan) and Utemisov West Kazakhstan State University named after M. (Kazakhstan) supported the initiative and acted as co-organizers.

The conference demonstrated that in spite of isolation caused by COVID-19, all nationalities in the former USSR republics put forth efforts to perpetuate the memory about the war heroes and veterans.

For example, the Orenburg office of the Russian Voluntary Searching Groups, under the supervision of Sergei and Natalia Yelchaninov, studied 350 personal files copied from the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Now a book about all 21 Orenburg divisions and brigades is being prepared for publication that is scheduled for the Day of Unknown Soldier.

Professor Laila Akhmetova from Kazakhstan presented her new book "Panfilovites: our pride, our glory". The book tells about the 316th (8th guards) Panfilov division.

Professor Larisa Khoperskaya from Kyrgyzstan noted that during the quarantine, the number of participants in the traditional "Immortal Regiment" campaign in Kyrgyzstan has even expanded. Thus in 2019 more than 60,000 Kyrgyz citizens came out in person, but this year more than 140 thousand applications were submitted for the online campaign.

Botir Abdullayev, a historian from Uzbekistan introduced the conference members to a unique Victory Park. It was opened in the capital of the country, Tashkent, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Victory. Its monuments and a museum exhibitions displays the heroes and victims of the republic’s multi-ethnic population who struggled against fascism

Closing the conference, Vinaliy Amelin, Director of the OSU Institute of History and Ethnography of the Southern Urals appealed to CIS communities to stand against the history falsification so popular in the West. The countries must further join efforts in developing public knowledge, awareness and memory to preserve and defend the truth about the Great Patriotic War as the common spiritual basis for national identity, brotherhood and cooperation.