If a minute of silence for every single person killed during the Second World War will be announced today, the world will be silent for 100 years. After the Third World War, if it happens, the world will be silenced forever, Anatoly Iksanov, executive director of the Interstate Humanitarian Cooperation Fund of the CIS member states, said on the eve of international forum "The Great Victory Achieved Through Unity: Heroism of Partisans in the Great Patriotic War."
"This victory was achieved through unity of multinational people. Unfortunately, today there are a lot of talks about the possibility of a new world war. People completely forget about lessons of the Second World War. It's important for us to remember these lessons and teach them to our young citizens who live in the post-Soviet space today. We must tell them about the price we paid in order to achieve this victory and protect them from another catastrophe," Anatoly Iksanov said.
He said that during 11 years of its existence, his fund implemented over 650 international projects in the territory of the former Soviet Union, not only in the CIS, but also in the Baltic States, Ukraine and Georgia. Since 2014, this fund finances international forum dedicated to victory in the Great Patriotic, which was held in Kursk, Moscow, Minsk and Astana in different years.
This year this forum will be held in Bryansk on April 25. President of the "Eurasian Studies Institute" Development Fund Valery Tursunov said that this forum started off as a regional format, when representatives of the peoples of the North and South Caucasus gathered in the city of military glory Tuapse in 2010. Second forum was held in Vladikavkaz, and in 2014 organizers managed to gather representatives of all 15 republics of the former Soviet Union. Bryansk was chosen as a venue for this forum this year. "This year marks 75 years since liberation of the Bryansk region. We will also discuss partisan movement at the forum - how it was created, how it worked in the rear," Tursunov said.
Executive director of the North-South political center Anzhelika Trapeznikova explained that during the war years forests of the Bryansk region became center of the partisan movement: "More than 60 thousand inhabitants of the region, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, representatives of many other nationalities, united in 27 brigades and formations, 139 detachments, ruthlessly fighting against the enemy."
Speaking about the forum's program, Trapeznikova noted that representatives of national delegations will participate in the wreath-laying ceremony near the Eternal Fire at the monument to soldiers and partisans-liberators of Bryansk. They will also visit the "Partizanskaya Polyana" and "Khatsun" memorial complexes. In addition, there will be working sessions dedicated to information support of public initiatives. Final statement of the forum will be prepared based on key topics of the discussion.
Historical and documentary exhibition of archival materials will also be an important component of the forum. As Anzhelika Trapeznikova said, "a unique historical and documentary exhibition will be held in the framework of this forum for the first time. It will tell about creation and development of the partisan movement, role of government bodies, tasks that the partisan movement had, and results this movement achieved. Exhibition will present 200 documents, 30 photographs from funds of various committees of the USSR. Documents will help to tell about the scale of the partisan movement, to tell guests and forum participants about different partisan detachments and leaders of this movement, to demonstrate heroism of the partisan movement in the rear, to show multinational composition of partisan detachments."
Many young people will attend forum this year - students, journalists, activists of social movements, volunteers.
Traditionally, political and public figures, as well as scientists showed interest in this forum. One of the forum participants, academician of the Russian Academy of Social Sciences Alexander Chachia, said: "I'm a son of the Red Army officer, a veteran who participated in this war, who fought in Berlin, and it's my sacred duty to honor his memory and memory of his friends, fellow soldiers, comrades-in-arms in this terrible war that Soviet people had to wage from 1941 to 1945. I always participate in such events together with representative delegation from Georgia. Delegations from all the post-Soviet republics, including those with difficult relations, participate in such forums. All difficulties, all misunderstandings that exist in relations between peoples, resentment and grievances accumulated in recent years fade to the background during such events. People lighten up."
