English

Ninety years since Vasil Bykaw’s birth

It is been 90 years since the birth of Vasil Bykaw (1924-2003), Belarus’ literary great who is world-famous for his novels about World War II.

A number of events will be held across Belarus to celebrate this date and commemorate the 11th anniversary of Bykaw’s death (June 22).

On Thursday evening, the “Ў” art gallery in Minsk will host a launch event for the 10th volume of the complete works of Bykaw, which will be attended by his widow, Iryna, and prominent Belarusian authors Anatol Vyartsinski, Syarhey Zakonnikaw, Viktar Kazko, Ales Pashkevich, Barys Pyatrovich, and Mikhas Tychyna.

Also on Thursday, the State Museum of the History of Belarusian Literature will open a subsidiary at Bykaw’s summer house in the village of Zhdanovichy-6 near Minsk.

Representatives of the pro-government Union of Writers of Belarus and the State Museum of the History of Belarusian Literature will visit the Ushachy district, Vitsyebsk region, where Bykaw was born and grew up.

On June 22, members of the Union of Belarusian Writers will lay flowers at the grave of Bykaw in Minsk.

In one of the few grassroots projects honoring Bykaw, a group of graffiti artists attempted to paint his portrait on a utility building at the center of the city earlier this week. However, they were arrested by police, charged with deliberately inflicting damage to property and sentenced to a fine of 4.5 million rubels ($443) each.

Vasil Bykaw is the best-known representative of modern Belarusian literature. His talent and moral courage that permeates his writings earned him endorsements for the Nobel Prize nomination from, among others, Nobel Prize winners Joseph Brodsky and Czeslaw Milosz.

A campaign of vilification launched against him by Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s government, of which he was an outspoken critic, forced Bykaw into emigration in the late 1990s. Bykaw lived in Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic and returned to his home country just a month before his death.