Places of memory: Khatyn in Belarus

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of creation and conceptual comprehension of the important for Belarus “place of memory” of the Second World War — the ensemble of the burned villages of Khatyn. The artistic and architectural solution of the ensemble made it possible to create an image, and later a concept of understanding and emotional experience of the feat of civilians, which did not previously exist in the memory of the war. The suffering of the innocently dead people became distinct as the Christian feat of the first Russian Saints Boris and Gleb.