On October 16, 2018, a meeting with Professor Ernst M. Babenko, the first rector of Polotsk State University and Doctor of Engineering, was held at Polotsk National Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve. The meeting was dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Classical University on Polotsk Land.
In the lecture “Returning the University Status to Polotsk”, Ernst Babenko told the students specializing in “History” and their lecturers about the main events and prominent persons who had taken part in the process of university education revival in Polotsk.
Special attention was paid to the formation of Faculty of History and Philology, the predecessor of today’s Faculty of Humanities, and the beginning of a scientific school formation at the Department of History and Sociology (later “National and World History” and “History and Tourism”) for the study of history, archeology, ethnography and anthropology of Dvina river region.
There is no doubt that the improvised lesson of the modern alma mater’s history given by E. M. Babenko will remain in the memory of young people and that their love and loyalty to Polotsk State University can become an excellent example to follow.
Vladimir Filipenko
Photos by the author