Suchergebnisse

Cultural life of people of Belarus, based on the analysis of the periodicals first World War, is studied in the article. The sources of the research are as follows: "Nasha Niva", "Belarus", "Goman", "Vilenskije gubernskije vedomosti", "Orshanskij vestnik", "Minskaja gazeta-kopeika", "Minskij golos", "Beloruskij kalendar". The author accentuates that cultural life of the population of Belarus during the World War I was polyethnic due to the fact that there were more than thirty nationalities within relatively small Belarusian and Lithuanian region.The abstracts from descriptions of cultural events provided by the witnesses, their opinions on these or those issues in culture, having been published in the newspapers of the period of research, are provided to indentify the of tendencies and peculiarities of cultural development of the population on the territory of Belarus. It is stated that cultural life in its various forms is often used as a tool for gaining material source to support the army, refugees and other categories of people suffering during the World War I.

The condition and development of the Jewish libraries on the territory of Belarus before the World War I is researched. The author emphasizes that the Jews were one of the biggest ethnic groups in the region; therefore, they influenced cultural and educational processes on the Belarusian territories, including the development of librarianship. Special attention is paid to the quantity of the Jewish population on the Belarusian territories before the World War I (1897– 1914). It is also stressed that the Jews used the oral and written language at a sufficient level: this is an important condition for the development of nation-based libraries. The author analyses the state of the Jewish libraries in Vilno, Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk and Mogilev provinces. The positive points are as follows: a good number of readers, free access to books outside the libraries as a stimulating measure to increase some interest among visitors, and periodicals reading rooms in some Jewish libraries in Belarus. Some obstacles on the way to the active development of the already existing and newly appearing Jewish libraries are revealed. They are as follows: weak state financial support, untimely book fund renewal, narrow target groups (mostly children and teenagers), non-qualified staff, low level of record management and local authorities' bans for the registration of new libraries.