Stsiapan Stureika (Vilnius): Heritage Preservation in Belarus: Crossroads and Challenges

During the short span of the 20^th century the territory of what is today the Republic of Belarus belonged to the Russian Empire, the Second Polish Republic, the Belarusian People Republic, the Belarusian-Lithuanian Republic and the Soviet Union. Thus heritage protection policies varied accordingly. Dr. Stsiapan Stureika guides us along the entangled passes of the Belarusian history, focusing on its Soviet and Post-Soviet parts. He explores the background and practices of Soviet cultural heritage protection and its interdependencies with international proceedings and gives insights into their transition into policies of a new national state, which the Belarusian Republic became in 1991.

Dr. Stsiapan Stureika is a Historian and Cultural Anthropologist. He received his PhD in Ethnology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Mr Stureika holds the Chair of ICOMOS Belarus, and is an Associate Member of the International Committee on Theory and Philosophy of Conservation and Restoration. He is the author of numerous publications, including the book “Magic Stones: 9 Essays on a New Dimension of Architectural Heritage in Belarus”. He is currently a lecturer at the European Humanities University (Vilnius).