By Galina Gromova
The collection includes such poems as Slutsk Weavers, Pursuit, and Romance — translated into Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, German, Ukrainian, French and English. They were recited by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to Belarus — H.E. Ms. Rosemary Thomas, by the Head of the Lithuanian diplomatic mission — Edminas Bagdonas, by the Deputy Ambassador of Germany — Peter Dettmar, by the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the CIS — Ivan Bunechko, and by the Deputy Chair of the Belarus-Bulgaria Society — Oksana Bekasova-Bubnova.
Belarus’ Deputy Culture Minister, Tadeush Struzhetsky, believes the publishing of this edition is an extraordinary event. He notes that Maxim Bogdanovich was not merely a lyrical poet but a man of high civil status, who defended the interests of his native Belarus.
The Chairman of the Belarusian Foundation of Culture, Vladimir Gilep, helped collate the edition and stresses that Bogdanovich’s works are popular both in Belarus and abroad. The author of the foreword, writer Anatoly Butevich, emphasises that the poet always praised Belarus — although he did not attend a Belarusian school and did not live among Belarusians. Maxim Bogdanovich knew many European languages and translated foreign books into Belarusian, praising the merits of the language.
Artistes from the Znich One Actor Theatre, Vyacheslav Statkevich and Sergey Sorokin, gave a musical accompaniment to the party, reciting poems and singing songs by the Belarusian classical writer. Ms. Thomas told the media that people in the UK know of Maxim Bogdanovich’s works but that his brilliant poetry and the Belarusian language should be more popularised. She stressed that she had enjoyed the party at the House of Friendship.
