Youth commemorated Kastus Kalinousky (Photo) :: Charter'97 :: News

10 February the Byarestse (Brest) youth made a trip to a small town of Damachava to commemorate rebel Kastus Kalinousky. In Belarus on this date the democratic public celebrates 169th anniversary of Kastus Kalinousky, organizer of the national liberating movement in the Belarusian land in 1863.

The Byarestse (Brest) region actively participated in the upraising: hundreds of the local gentry and peasants joint the upraising movement, dozens of battles and confrontations with Russian regiments took place in the Byarestse land.

But those days’ event has been persistently erased from the Belarusians’ memory. The only monument, which commemorates the anti-Russian upraising at the Byarestse region, has been erected at the premises of the St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Damachava location, which is 40 kilometers from the regional center. Here, near Chursk village, the battle was held between the rebels of Kastus Kalinousky and Russian regular regiments. The rebels were defeated .To commemorate the event the Polish authorities erected the monument in the form of a cross in 1920s.

The democratic youth, representatives of a number of organizations of Byarestse (Brest) visited the honored place. According to a trip participant Pavel Dailid, the major aim of the trip was introduction of the youth into the history of the Kalinousky’s upraising in the Byarestse region.

In the St. Anthony’s Catholic Church the mess was celebrated in intention of the Belarusian people by the Greek Catholic priest Father Andrey; historian Nastya Illina made a short excursion into the history of the upraising in the Byarestse region, and chairman of the committee of the Damachava congregation Mr. Yaugen Gamazyuk dwelt on the history of the cross rescue from the soviet authorities in 1960s.

At the honored cross the youth lighted the icon lamps and laid white-red-white flowers.

Pictures by Andrei Sharenda, dzedzich.org