On November 24, 2022, the VIII Scientific and Practical conference «Vitebsk land: on the Year of Historical Memory» began its work in the city of Vitebsk.

The organizers of the scientific forum were the V. I. Lenin Vitebsk Regional Library, the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, the Vitebsk Regional Local Studies Museum. More than 90 historians, archaeologists, archivists, teachers, museum and library staff, local historians from Beshenkovichi, Braslav, Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Minsk, Miory, Orsha, Polotsk, Abakan and St. Petersburg take part in the conference in full-time and correspondence formats.

Tatiana Adamyan, Director of the V. I. Lenin Vitebsk Regional Library, Denis Yurchak, Chief Specialist of the Department of Culture of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, Pavel Trubchik, Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Tatiana Starinskaya, Director of the Vitebsk Regional Local Studies Museum, addressed the participants of the scientific forum with a welcoming speech. Pavel Trubchik handed over to the funds of the V. I. Lenin Vitebsk Regional Library book editions prepared by the staff of the Institute. The plenary session heard reports: by the head of the Center of History of Belarus of the end of XVIII–XXI centuries of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor Nikolai Smekhovich on the origins of Belarusian statehood; by researcher of the Department of Scientific and Information Work of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Marina Zinchenko on the concept of historical memory and historical politics in modern socio-political discourse. The plenary session was concluded with the presentation of the monograph «The Upper Castle of Vitebsk (IX–XVIII centuries)» by Leonid Kolyadinsky, a doctoral student of the Center for the Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature Researches of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor.

The work of the scientific forum continues within the framework of three sections: «Historical local studies. Vitebsk land from antiquity to 1917», «Historical local studies. Vitebsk land from 1918 to the present», «Local studies in the system of humanities».