In 1940, a new and important institution appeared on the scientific map of Belarus — the State Scientific Medical Library (SSML) at the Minsk Medical Institute (MMI). On March 10, 1940, by order of the Institute’s Director F. Schultz, I. B. Simanovsky was appointed as its first director. This day became the starting point in the history of our library.
In the spring of 1940, the newspaper Zvyazda reported on the library’s establishment. The first 5,000 books were received from the All-Union State Medical Library, including rare foreign editions. By the end of the year, the collection had grown to 15,000 volumes, and the interlibrary loan system was already providing literature to 56 medical institutions across the republic. But all plans were abruptly interrupted by the war.
With the onset of the Great Patriotic War, the library, like many institutions, found itself at the epicenter of devastation. More than 10 million books were looted, destroyed, or burned from libraries across Belarus. Countless medical publications disappeared into Germany, while private collections of doctors and scholars were consumed by fire.
Even in those dark times, however, efforts began to preserve the book heritage. As early as 1942, a special fund for the future restoration of Belarusian libraries was being formed in Moscow. Books were collected from state reserves, private collections, libraries of the USSR, as well as through patronage programs. Work began on developing strategies for locating and returning stolen literature.
After the liberation of Belarus in 1944, a new chapter began — the restoration of what had been lost. The library’s staff and administration searched for surviving books in Minsk and organized shipments of literature from Moscow, Leningrad, and other cities of the Soviet republics. Among the benefactors were prominent medical professors who donated their private collections to the library.
Thanks to the efforts of the People’s Commissariat for Health of the BSSR, the library of the Mogilev School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedic Practice, which had been taken by the occupiers, was returned to the republic in 1944. The Minsk Medical Institute, which had resumed its activities in 1943 in Yaroslavl, also began actively replenishing its library collection.
In August 1944, S. F. Sergeeva was appointed director of the library. Highly educated, fluent in several foreign languages, and well-versed in both Russian and foreign literature, she had a deep appreciation for books. Together with MMI professors, Sergeeva tackled the challenges of acquiring books and organizing the library’s operations.
By the end of 1947, the primary goal of the SSML remained the restoration of its collections and the creation of a reference and catalog system.
Step by step, the library was once again becoming the center of medical knowledge in Belarus.
