"The 1914–1917 war memoranda" of a sub-lieutenant Vladislav Pavliukovsky as a documentary evidence of World War I (based on the materials of the Manuscript Fonds of the CSL of the NAS of Belarus)

The article covers the unique complex of documents of World War I times, which are deposited in the Manuscript Fonds of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the Yakub Kolas Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. This refers to the pictures made in the territory of Belarus on the Smarhon land (former Vilen province) by a sub-lieutenant Vladislav Pavliukovsky (1895–1955), deposited in the personal fonds of a cultural and public figure of Western Belarus Ianka (Ivan Iosifovich) Shutovich (1904–1973). The photographic documents complex is a unique evidence of the cruelty and meaninglessness of the war as it is and a chronicle of the 530th Vasilsursk infantry regiment with its heroic daily routine and simple but necessary everyday life attributes. Some photographs are private which is shown through the donative inscriptions of V. Pavliukovsky comrades and the fellow soldiers group photographs. The photographs constitute two small albums: «The 1914–1917 war memoranda» (67 photographs on 34 sheets) and the second untitled album, which comprises World War I photographs, V. Pavliukovsky and his family private photographs and postwar photographs (46 pictures, 1917–1939). V. Pavliukovsky photographs of World War I times are important historical documents visualizing both the war negative consequences and everyday life during the war.