A copy of the ancient Belarusian banner will be handed over to the Polotsk Cadet School

A copy of the old Belarusian military banner of the 1844 model (banner of the Polotsk Cadet Corps) will arrive in Polotsk and on September 5 will be handed over to the cadet school, the press service of the Polotsk District Executive Committee reported.

The solemn ceremony will take place in Polotsk on Freedom Square. It is planned that until the creation of a house church at the school, the copy of the relic will be kept in the Epiphany Cathedral.

The banner of the Polotsk cadets of the 1844 model was taken out of the country in 1920. Since 1957, it has been kept in the Synodal Znamensky Cathedral in New York (USA). For the past few years, the public association "Belarusian Union of Suvorovets and Cadets" has been negotiating with the chairmen of the New York Association of Cadets and the Presidium of Cadets Abroad on the issue of returning the relic to its homeland. A combined delegation of Belarusian cadet schools and the Belarusian Union of Suvorovets and Cadets, representatives of the country's ministries of defense and education, transported a casket with particles (several small fragments of worn fabric) of the oldest banner to Belarus on September 23, 2013. On May 4, 2014, in the city of Bela Crkva (Serbia), a ceremony was held to hand over a recreated copy of the banner (with sewn-in fragments of the original) to the Belarusians. The copy was temporarily stored at the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War, and now it will arrive in Polotsk.

"The banner of the Polotsk Cadet Corps is unique and has immense spiritual value. It is the only surviving banner of that time. In fact, it is the oldest Belarusian military banner. A copy of the highest symbol of honor, valor, and glory, a shrine worshipped by more than one generation of cadets, before which oaths were taken, will arrive in Polotsk. Thus, the relay of loyalty to the Motherland, military calling, officer's duty, and officer's honor will continue," the press service noted.

The Polotsk Cadet Corps was a primary military educational institution of the Russian Imperial Army, which prepared children and adolescents for military service. The corps was opened in 1835 by the decree of Nicholas I, and it was housed in the buildings of the Jesuit Academy and monastery, built in the 18th century. Cadets were recruited from among the children of nobles from the Vitebsk, Minsk, Mogilev, Vilnius, Grodno, and Smolensk provinces, aged 12 to 14 years. Each province sent candidates for enrollment in the corps depending on the amount of the contribution paid. The staff of the Polotsk Cadet Corps was designed for 400 cadets, divided into four companies: one grenadier, two musketeer, and one unranked. The first graduation of officers took place in 1857.

In 2006, the first cadet class began operating in Polotsk on the basis of Secondary School No. 4, and on September 1, 2010 (in the year of the 175th anniversary of the Polotsk Cadet Corps), the Polotsk Cadet School was opened.

Alena Tikhonova, BELTA.