BGAMLI at the unveiling ceremony of Zmitrok Byadulya’s gravestone

On November 3, 2025, staff of the Belarusian State Archives and Museum of Literature and Art (hereinafter referred to as BGAMLI), led by Director E.A.Makarenko, took part in the unveiling ceremony of the gravestone of Belarusian writer and public figure Zmitrok Byadulya at the Eastern Cemetery in Minsk.

The event was organized by the State Museum of the History of Belarusian Literature, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Union of Writers of Belarus, Zmitrok Byadulya’s relatives, and the support of hundreds of caring Belarusians who participated in the charity fundraiser.

Zmitrok Byadulya (Samuel (Shmuel-Nohim) Plavnik) was a regular contributor to the Vilnius newspaper «Nasha Niva» in 1910. He published under the pseudonyms Sasha Pl-ik and Yasakar. From 1912, he worked with Yanka Kupala on the editorial board of the aforementioned newspaper in Vilnius, but in 1915 he returned to his parents in Posadets. He then lived in Minsk, working for the Belarusian Society for Assistance to War Victims. From 1920, he worked for several years at the newspaper «Savetskaya Belarus» and edited the children’s magazine «Zorki». He worked at the Institute of Belarusian Culture and was the first editor of the local history and ethnographic journal «Nash Krai». He was a member of the literary association «Maladnyak», then «Uzvyshsha». He has been a member of the USSR Writers’ Union since 1934.

His best-known works in poetry are «Polesie Fables» (1922) and the poem «Yarilo» (1922). His prose works include the novella «The Nightingale» (1927), the collection of short stories «Extraordinary Stories» (1931), and the novel «Yazep Krushinsky» (1929-1932). In 1939, his autobiographical novella «In the Dense Forests» was published.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War in June 1941, the writer was evacuated from Minsk. During the evacuation, he lived first in Pizhma in the Gorky Region, then, until the end of October 1941, in the village of Novye Burasy in the Saratov Region, where he was reunited with his family. During the subsequent evacuation to the east, he died suddenly of a myocardial infarction on a train near Uralsk, Kazakhstan, where he was buried. During the Soviet era, six attempts were made to return the remains of the classic Belarusian writer to the republic, but for various reasons, each attempt failed. In February 2020, Zmitser Byadulya’s remains were exhumed and returned to Belarus. At the request of his relatives, the remains were kept, with the blessing of the Metropolitan, at the Church of St.Elias in Babruisk. On November 3 of that year, the remains were reburied at the Eastern Cemetery in Minsk. On November 3, 2025, a stone monument with an inscription in Belarusian by the team of artists—sculptor S.L.Gumilevsky and architect V.I.Karak — was erected.

Today, as always, the Belarusian State Museum of Literature (BSAMLI) preserves the memory of these figures of Belarusian literature and supports important initiatives related to honoring them.

1. BGAMLI employees led by Director E.A.Makarenko at the event

2. During E.A.Makarenko’s speech at the unveiling of the monument

3. Unveiling of the monument to Z.Byadulya

4. Participants in the event

5. During the speech by E.S.Plavnik (son of Z.Byadulya)