The memory of this date must be passed down to generations. The participants of “Petuchka” – about the Day of National Unity

On the importance of the Day of National Unity and the importance of unifying society in the program “Letuchka” on the YouTube channel “SBTV” said the participants of the talk show, reports sb.by.

Liudmila Gladkaya, a columnist for the newspaper SB Belarus Today, said:

- I was on September 17, 2021 in Minsk Arena. There was an event dedicated to the Day of National Unity. For the first time in the history of a sovereign state, we celebrated this holiday. The President spoke. And behind it was a short, but such a capacious, expensive word — "we." On September 17, 1939, for the first time, we had a chance to build our sovereign state and decide how we would live. But it was taken from us. We lived under oppression for two decades. Our native language was forbidden, our education was destroyed, we were not allowed to live in peace on our own land, we were denied identity. The President [at the Symbol of Unity forum of patriotic forces five years ago] said: If in 1939, two years before the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, the Germans had been near Minsk, I am afraid that there would have been no Great Victory in 1945. One shot to Moscow and the Soviet Union would not exist.” You can imagine what would have happened if not on September 17. The memory of this date must be passed down from generation to generation!

Political columnist of the TV channel “First Information” Evgeny Gorin said:

- In my opinion, the name of this holiday hides a very important word – “unification”. Now, unfortunately, in countries, in societies, and in ties between people, it is clear that what is happening is not unification, but fragmentation, atomization of society. It is very important to unite, especially with your supporters. When we are together, we are united. Especially when a divided nation comes together. And it seems to me that the day of unification should be in general almost every day. That is, we must combine the good, we must unite the good people and become good with the fists.

Lyudmila Gladkaya added:

- But we never reminded the Poles that this is our ancestral territory. But we never tell the Poles about it. There is your land, please, we do not need it, let us be friends, let us cooperate. Belarus is our country, and we will decide, we will choose how to live, we will elect presidents, we will determine our strategy, with whom to be friends and from whom to stay away. This is our choice, the choice of our Belarusian people. And September 17 is history, but it is also an experience, it is our talisman against the mistakes that we made then and which, I hope, we will never allow. It is not just history, it is the past and our future. And I will never forget that feeling when you come back from some difficult place, crossing the border, and the border guard looks at the passport, says, "Where are you going?" And I say, "Home." And he smiled at me and I smiled at him. We both realised how expensive this feeling of home is, which is simply unparalleled. That's why we have to be careful. It's a good holiday. Thank you to those who proposed it, and people suggested it, the President supported it.

Grigory Azarenok, a political columnist for STV, noted:

- And most importantly, we stopped being embarrassed. We knew about this holiday until 2021, but we did not want to exacerbate any historical issues. We knew that in Poland, unfortunately, this is a painful date, they frankly do not like it. In Poland, they talk about the occupation of their lands. We never agreed with this, but we did not strain relations in order to live normally with our neighbors. But when they tried to stage a coup d’etat, when they opened Belarusian houses and began handing the keys to some madman, when they put their tanks on our borders, we said: oh, this is how you look at us, this is how you are neighbors. You know what, we will celebrate September 17, and it should be celebrated, and never be ashamed, and always say that this is our land, for centuries. This is our story, and we will be proud of it, despite what you are trying to tell us. Then let's negotiate.

Watch the project "Letuchka" on Thursday evenings on the SBTV YouTube channel, and the full version is also available on VIDEOBEL.BY.