Russia and Belgium have fascinating pages of history together. There have been several periods when our countries were closely connected, and when people from both countries interacted a lot. One of these was the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and the period of the First World War, which began exactly 110 years ago.
We’re so excited to announce that the famous historian professor Vladimir Ronin will be giving three lectures on this dramatic and fateful period! These lectures are a must-listen for anyone interested in history.
We invite you to join us at the History Club, a new project of the Russian House in Brussels, for these discussions.
Here’s the schedule:
15 November 2024
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. And on the Eastern one?
the second lecture-meeting, Russian/French simultaneous translation
Belgium was one of the hardest hit – and one of the most heroic – countries in the Great War, which ended exactly 106 years ago.
Novels and studies, poems and music have been written about its role.
For many, including Russia at the time, it became a model of strength and courage, a symbol of freedom.
But much less is known about Russia and its participation in this war. Not only because the Western Front was, of course, more important to the Europeans than the Eastern one.
But also because in Russia itself, which the war plunged into the greatest social catastrophe in its history, the gravity of subsequent events has tried to rob this heroic page of our past of its meaning, or even to destroy the memory of it.
And today we want to remember what our country was like during the Great War, to pay tribute to the thousands of soldiers and officers of the Russian army who fought on the expanse of Europe and who are buried on the war memorials of Brussels, Liège and Antwerp, to tell of the ties and cooperation between Russia and Belgium, which were unusually intense at that time – before and during the war which ended exactly 106 years ago.
Next lecture: 10 December 2024
Émile Verhaeren and the Russians: Que reste-t-il de nos amours?
the third lecture-meeting, Russian/French simultaneous translation