On Sunday, all Belarusians living at home and abroad celebrate the national holiday – Freedom Day – a symbol of the Belarusians’ aspiration for independence and sovereignty.
On the eve of March 25, members of the “Young Belarus” movement and Belarusians of Smolensk held a number of events dedicated to this holiday.
The activists visited memorial sites in Smolensk associated with the Belarusian movement. Not everyone knows that at the location where the Smolensk Philharmonic Hall now stands (3 Glinka Street), a congress was held in December 1918 at which the creation of the BSSR was announced. Those who gathered on March 19 near this memorial site recalled the historical events of those years, and decorated the memorial plaque with white-red-white ribbons.
On March 20, the youth visited the cemetery near the Catholic church, where one of the founders of the Belarusian Catholic movement – Bishop Fr. Stepan (Danisevich) (1836–1913), a native of the Mogilev region – is buried. The participants lit candles, tied national ribbons, and recalled the life path of this religious figure who worked fruitfully for the Glory of God and for his native Smolensk. At the end of the tribute, the prayer “Our Father” was read collectively for the repose of the soul of this Belarusian patriot and Christian.
On March 23, the national flag majestically waved under the Smolensk sky in honor of the approaching holiday and as a sign of solidarity with the Vitebsk political prisoner Sergei Kovalenko.
Symbolically, the national white-red-white flag that waved in the Smolensk sky had been given to the youth for display by Sergei himself, shortly before his unlawful arrest.