{"id":584821,"date":"2026-10-03T16:53:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T13:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=584821"},"modified":"2026-10-04T09:05:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T06:05:45","slug":"veha-archive-collects-photographs-for-second-volume-of-ruins-of-belarus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/veha-archive-collects-photographs-for-second-volume-of-ruins-of-belarus","title":{"rendered":"VEHA Archive Collects Photographs for Second Volume of \u201cRuins of Belarus\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The independent digital archive of vernacular photography VEHA has begun work<\/a> on the second volume of the book “Ruins of Belarus” and is inviting people to share 20th-century photographs from family archives depicting ruins and historic buildings in Belarus.<\/p>\n

A year has passed since the first volume of “Ruins of Belarus” was published. During that time, the book has made its way into libraries around the world and received an award in Najpi\u0119kniejsze Polskie Ksi\u0105\u017cki 2025, one of Poland’s most prestigious cultural competitions, organized by the Polish Society of Book Publishers since 1957. The book was also shortlisted for Fotograficzna Publikacja Roku and presented at exhibitions at Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, Instytut Fotografii Fort and \u0141\u00f3d\u017a Fotofestiwal 2026. This is not so much a list of accolades as confirmation that stories preserved in family albums can have significance far beyond a single family.<\/p>\n

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1944\u20131949, Sianno, Vitsebsk Region. Church of the Holy Trinity (closed by the Soviet authorities in 1937, damaged during World War II and finally demolished in 1962; a new church was built on the surviving foundations in the 2010s). Photo from the VEHA digital archive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why a Second Volume?<\/h2>\n

The first volume of “Ruins of Belarus” explored how photography can preserve the memory of places that are disappearing. During work on the project, it became clear that there was far more material than could fit into a single publication. This is why VEHA has begun work on the second volume of “Ruins of Belarus.” Once again, the selection of architectural sites will be made in direct collaboration with the people who submit their photographs.<\/p>\n

As in the first volume, the photographs will be accompanied by a body of research texts on history and architecture. The texts will be written from a Belarusian perspective and published in three languages \u2014 Belarusian, Polish and English. In this way, the book will once again bring together family photography, visual history and research into Belarus’s architectural heritage.<\/p>\n

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The first volume of “Ruins of Belarus.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How to Submit a Photograph?<\/h2>\n

VEHA invites submissions of photographs taken on the territory of present-day Belarus before 1990 that show the ruins of historic buildings. These may include castles, manor houses, Orthodox and Catholic churches, synagogues, mills, railway stations and other buildings. Photographs showing people posing against the backdrop of ruins are particularly valuable. Shifting the focus from architecture to people has been one of the project’s defining features.<\/p>\n

The VEHA archive collects only digital copies; the originals remain with the family.<\/p>\n

Copies can be sent by email to: archive.veha@gmail.com<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

VEHA is an independent digital archive of 20th-century vernacular photography that collects and researches the visual history of Belarus through family photo archives. Today, its online archive contains more than 3,000 unique photographs from hundreds of different sources and is regularly expanded with new materials.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Reform.news cultural news<\/a> on Telegram<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The independent digital archive of vernacular photography VEHA has begun work on the second volume of the book “Ruins of Belarus” and is inviting people to share 20th-century photographs from family archives depicting ruins and historic buildings in Belarus. A year has passed since the first volume of “Ruins of Belarus” was published. During that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":584820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6ac1ecbc496b8.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"VEHA Archive Collects Photographs for Second Volume of \u201cRuins of Belarus\u201d"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142375,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-584821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":584822,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584821\/revisions\/584822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}