Sharkovshchina in the first postwar years (on the materials of oral history)

Abstract

The article deals with the results of the research conducted in the summer of 2017 in the genre of oral history in the Sharkovshchina district of the Vitebsk region. Western Vitebsk region is a part of the modern Vitebsk region, in the interwar period it was a part of Poland. The memories of the postwar reality of the inhabitants of the West Belarusian region of the modern Belarus have their own specifics. The return to peaceful life took place against the backdrop of not only overcoming the postwar devastation, but also the continuing sovietization of the region. The attitude towards the implementation of collectivization, the religious and cultural policies of the Soviet government were reflected in the memories of the inhabitants of the region. The article is written on the basis of oral sources, which contain not a detailed linear narrative, but episodes that are most important for the life of the narrators (mostly interviewees were born in the late 1920s and 1930s).