Archivists Discover: Marshal Rokossovsky Was Born Not In Warsaw, But In Tseliakhany, Belarus

The information was discovered by a resident of the Brest region, who researched his own genealogy.

In the National Historical Archives of Belarus (NHAB), they found a record of the birth of Marshal of the Soviet Union and Marshal of Poland Konstantin Rokossovsky, reports nn.by.

The record was found by Uladzimir Abramchuk, a native of the village of Somina, Ivatsevichi district, Brest region, while he was working in the reading room of the NHAB while researching his own genealogy.

According to the documents found, Konstantin Rokossovsky was born on the Belarusian land - in the town of Tseliakhany, Pinsk district, Minsk region (now the urban village of Ivatsevichy district, Brest region).

The marshal himself at different times indicated different places and even dates of his birth. According to some information, he was born on December 9 (21), 1894, according to others, on December 9 (21), 1896. He called his birthplace either Warsaw or Velikiye Luki of the Pskov region. Since biographers could not find an entry in the registers of births, the question of the exact place and time of birth remained open.

According to the discovered record, Konstantin, the son of the nobleman Xavier Rokossovsky, of the Roman Catholic faith, and his wife Antonina, of the Orthodox faith, was born on September 3 (15), 1889, and on September 4 (16) 1889, and was baptized in Holy Trinity Tseliakhany Church.

It turns out that Konstantin Rokossovsky was five or even seven years older than it was recorded in his documents. The researchers knew that the mother of the future Marshal Antonina Ovsyannikova, who died in 1911, was from Tseliakhany. However, no one could have thought that Konstantin himself was born in the same place.

As the archivists have established, the family of Rokossovsky's mother comes from the Tulyatsichy estate of the neighboring Kobryn district of the Hrodna region (now - the Ivatsevichy district of the Brest region).

For genealogists and all history lovers, the genealogy of Konstantin Rokossovsky promises many discoveries. Nevertheless, it is very important that one of the Victory Marshals, the commander of the 1st Byelorussian Front, the commander of the 1945 Victory Parade, was born on the Belarusian land, and had Belarusian roots, the NHAB said.