Project development

Larisa Lapkovskaya, a teacher of Russian literature, decided to take part in an international literary competition. She chose the following topic for her project: “The War of 1812 in our region in the literary works of Russian writers”. For help, she turned to the head of the “Heritage of the Miory Region” initiative, Ermalenka Witold, and the consultant of the initiative, Maxim Filipovich. A trip to the places related to the events of the war of 1812 was developed and conducted. The main points of the route are witnesses of the events of that war: the Lopatinsky estate in Leonpol, the Church of St.Trinity in this village and a column in honor of the Constitution of 1791. The most significant place is the Drisen fortified camp, which Lev Tolstoy writes about in his famous work “War and Peace”. Despite the fact that its main fortifications were destroyed, there were several fortifications near the village of Sloboda, which we found during the trip.

In Verkhnedvinsk, the participants of the project development visited the museum, where a meeting was held with the museum’s researcher Anton Bubolo and other interested persons. An acquaintance with the exposition of the museum dedicated to the sections of the war of 1812 took place. Then there was a trip to the former Belkovshchyna estate, where a military council was held, where the fate of the Drisen camp was decided in the presence of Emperor Alexander I. At the end of the trip, its participants visited the former estate of Justinianovo, where there is a witness to the war of 1812 – a three-hundred-year-old oak tree. Thus, familiarity with the main objects showed the possibilities of implementing the conceived project.