Artykuł traktuje o białoruskiej prasie religijnej (prawosławnej, katolickiej, protestanckiej) wydawanej w trzech zachodnich strefach okupacyjnych Niemiec w pierwszych latach powojennych. Wówczas w Niemczech Zachodnich mieszkała największa liczba białoruskich uchodźców wojennych. Ważnym elementem życia emigrantów była działalność religijna, w tym wydawnicza. Działalność ta wynikała z przyczyn społecznych, politycznych i narodowych. Była to niemal powszechna reakcja uchodźców na niepewną przyszłość. Ci ludzie zostali pozbawieni swojej ojczyzny, znaleźli się w obcym środowisku kulturowym, bez możliwości wpływania na własny los, całkowicie na łasce innych. W tej sytuacji ich smutki, zmartwienia i obawy wyrażano na papierze. Tym czasem spory polityczne między powojennymi białoruskimi emigrantami przyczyniły się do intensyfi kacji działalności wydawniczej. Działalność wydawnicza służyła również zachowaniu tożsamości narodowej emigrantów i szerzeniu wśród nich wartości narodowych i patriotycznych (zwłaszcza wśród młodzieży).
EN
The article is about the Belarusian religious press (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) published in the three Western German occupation zones in the fi rst post-war years. At that time, the largest number of Belarusian war refugees lived in West Germany. An important element of the emigrants’ life was religious activity, which included publishing. This activity had three main causes: social, political and national. It was an almost universal response by refugees in the face of an uncertain future. These people were deprived of their homeland, found themselves in an alien cultural environment without the possibility of influencing their own fate, completely at the mercy of others. In this situation, their sorrows, worries and anxieties were expressed on paper. Political dissension between post-war Belarusian emigrants contributed to the intensification of publishing activity. It initiated a heated polemic between supporters of two opposing camps: the Council of the Belarusian Democratic Republic and the Belarusian Central Council. Publishing activities also served to preserve the national identity of emigrants and propagate national and patriotic values among them (especially among young people).
After World War II the United States was one of the largest centres of Belarusian emigrants in the West. Belarusian Orthodox emigration, which composed the majority among emigrants of Belarusian nationality (80%) was divided internally. Belarusian emigrants of the Orthodox faith were within the jurisdiction of two church organizations: the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Belarusian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The largest Belarusian parish in the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was the parish of St Eufrozyna Polocka in South River (New Jersey), where Nicholas Lapicki was the parish priest. There were conducted organizational, religious, cultural and educational activities, including publishing one. In 1951–1988 the journal ‘Carkoŭny Svetač’ was issued, at first by pr. Nicholas apicki and since 1976 by pr. Sviataslav Kovš, the next parish priest of St Eufrozyna Polocka in South River. It belonged to one of the longest published religious periodicals of the Belarusian diaspora in the 20th century. In the journal the texts with religious, social, historical and cultural content were published. Thanks to the ‘Carkoŭny Svetač’ it is possible to reconstruct in detail the history of the Orthodox life of Belarusian emigrants in America.