On February 22, 2024, the National Library of Belarus hosted a bibliographic lesson dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan for students of the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts, within the framework of bilateral cooperation between the educational institution and the main library of the country.
The most common form of information education is bibliographic lessons, which are based on theoretical training followed by practical actions aimed at consolidating theoretical material. The advantage of the lessons is that they allow you to reach a large number of readers at the same time and contribute to the acquisition of a knowledge system in the field of information culture.
The lesson contributed to the formation through library and bibliographic knowledge - ideas about military duty and loyalty to the Homeland, honour, courage, self–sacrifice, instilling a sense of respect for participants in the Afghan events, awareness of the value of peace, education of patriotic feelings and expansion of bibliographic knowledge of students about the war in Afghanistan.
The students got acquainted with the algorithms for searching information about the Afghan war (1978-1992), the types of sorting of thematic search results in an electronic catalog, the features of collections of documents and elements of bibliographic records depending on the type of document (monograph, calendar, set of posters, photo album, sheet music, sound recording, dissertation and abstract of dissertation, articles from newspapers, magazines, collections).
During the lesson, such methodological techniques were used as – an excursion, an information message, a presentation, an exhibition-viewing, a bibliographic review of literature, handouts for independent work. The bibliographic lesson also involved documents from the specialized funds service department (records, discs, sheet music, posters, calendars, etc.), the thematic selection of which was carried out by employees of the halls of visual and audiovisual documents. The practical part was aimed at deepening knowledge about the elements of the book by studying the title page, the structure of publications, the book bibliography, and the reference apparatus of books.
The bibliographic review of literature included works of nonfiction (N.N. Prokudin "Raid Battalion" and "Battle of Talukan"), novels (N.Cherginets "Sons") and novellas (N. Ivanov "Thunderstorm over the Hindukush"), small forms of epic literature – essays (A.Chaika "Among the Afghan Mountains", O.Peresyatnik and G.Anufriev "I was a "Stuntman") and short stories (B.Nalivaiko "War-torn souls"), collections of poems (N.Yumashev "Echo of distant Mountains", G.Sokolovsky "Afghan Notebook", N.Santarovich "Undeclared", A.Shekh "Afghan Square", G.Shevmer "The Cross of Fate", V. Osipenko "My Afghan").
Great interest was aroused by the works about the tragic fate of young Soviet paratroopers "Sons" of Nikolai Cherginets (participant in the Afghan War of 1984-1987) and "Thunderstorm over the Hindukush" by Nikolai Ivanov, who introduced the Vitebsk Airborne Division into Afghanistan in December 1979. The events of the April Revolution and the service of our soldiers in the units of the Red Banner Belarusian Military District, upon their return to their homeland, are described in Arkady Chaika's essay "Among the Afghan Mountains".
The combat routine of the super elite units "Cascade", "Zenit" and "Thunder" (later "Pennant" and Alpha") are presented in the essays by Oleg Peresyatnik and Gennady Anufriev "I was a "Stuntman". Small forms of epic literature reveal some of the secrets of the brilliant operations of the special forces unit of the KGB of the USSR, which have no analogues in military history. Publications on conducting special operations of various types of intelligence (radio, border, airborne) and counterintelligence support for army units, combat exploits of army aviation pilots and helicopter pilots in the Afghan war were considered separately.
The consolidation of the acquired knowledge was facilitated by work with reference books, manuals on the history of military-political conflicts and the study of combat experience, diaries and memoirs, literary, journalistic and informational collections, materials of historical and journalistic research, scientific and practical conferences and interregional meetings of internationalist soldiers.
The students were so imbued with the theme of the Afghan war that they impromptu organized a poetic part. The poems were performed by Ekaterina Yakovenko, Angelina Dyzhova, Milena Novichenok (students of the 302 group of specialization "Management of international cultural relations"): "On the island of tears and sadness", "Who were you in Kabul, a correspondent?", "We all went to serve the Motherland ...", "My heart doesn't hurt anymore". Everyone was deeply touched by "Dedication to those who did not return from the long–suffering land and the fiery sky of Afghanistan" and poems full of pain – "The Road to Bagram", "The Last Battle", "Afghan Slopes", "Silence for us in Afghanistan" - crew commander Yuri Karpov, performed by an experienced reader Elizaveta Zharnenko.
Our soldiers, in the most difficult conditions, courageously and professionally performed their duty, showed fortitude and nobility, and remained faithful to the military oath. The bibliographic lesson dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan contributed to the acquisition of new knowledge and the formation of competencies in the field of thematic search and work with different types of documents.
The meeting ended with a visit to the art exhibition "Belarus Liberated: the Commandment of 1944", during which the granddaughter of the stormtrooper pilot Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Ivanovich Dolzhansky - Valeria Viktorovna Filippenko (senior lecturer at the Department of Intercultural Communications and Advertising of the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts) focused the children's attention on – The feat of the Belarusian people, the price of the Great Victory, the importance of preventing the falsification of the history of the Great Patriotic War, the need to preserve and popularize historical memory in various types of art and scientific and practical activities.
The topics of the training sessions of the National Library of Belarus on the formation of the information culture of users are diverse: "Search for scientific information on the Internet", "Acquired databases", "Electronic resources created by the National Library", "Basics of search: catalogs, bibliography, reference publications", "Search for information on electronic and card catalogs", "Resources and library services: briefly about the main thing", "Design of a bibliography for scientific work", "How to use resources without leaving home". You can order a lesson by phone: (+375 17) 293 27 39, E-mail: osio@nlb.by .
The material was provided by the Department of Reference and Information Services.
