Staff of the Brest underground regional newspaper ‘Zarya’ in memoirs and materials of state, departmental and family archives

Abstract

The article is devoted to the staff of the underground newspaper ‘Zarya’, the organ of the Brest regional committee of the Communist Party of Byelorussia, which was published during the Great Patriotic War on the territory of the Brest region temporarily occupied by Nazi invaders. Biographical information about all the staff of the newspaper: editor V.F. Kaliberov and correspondents A.M. Pripotnev and A.I. Sirotin, typesetters N.K. Logvina and G.N. Zhuravlev, and typist M.N. Ponomareva. It is shown that the underground newspaper was published under difficult and dangerous conditions: the staff of ‘Zari’ often had to change their location because of bombing and shelling by the Nazi occupants of the partisan zone where the editorial office was located. All the printing equipment was carried by the Zarya workers, and upon arrival at the new place, they immediately started producing the next issue of the newspaper. The newspaper was published without violation of the issue schedule. It is shown that all the staff of the underground ‘Zarya’ not only published the newspaper, but also took an active part in the partisan fighting. The information about the government awards they were honoured with is given. The article provides information about the participation in the Great Patriotic War of the closest family members of four ‘Zarya’ workers – V.F. Kaliberov, A.M. Pripotnev, N.K. Logvina and M.N. Ponomarenko. The data on the participation in the Great Patriotic War of the family members of A.I. Sirotin and G.N. Zhuravlev are currently unknown to the authors. The post-war activity of the ‘Zarya’ staff is revealed, and it is shown that five out of six members of this team connected their life with journalism or printing, and two – A.M. Pripotnev and N.K. Logvina – devoted their whole life to work in the Brest regional newspaper ‘Zarya’.