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Belarusian Written Language Day holiday
The Belarusian Written Language Day is a
Belarusian national holiday and is usually celebrated once a year on the
first Sunday of September.
The primary objective of the holiday is to
show the inviolable unanimity of the Belarusian written language and the
history of the Belarusian people, its close ties with the Slavic origins as
well as understanding the historical track of the Belarusian written
language and book publishing.
Traditionally, the holiday is held in the
cities that have been the historical centres of Belarusian culture, science,
literature and book publishing. The first holiday was held in 1994 in an
ancient city of Polotsk. Later on, such historically significant centres of
the country as Turov, Novogrudok, Nesvij, Orsha, Pinsk, Zaslavl, Mstislavl,
Mir, Kamenets, and Postavi were the "capitals" of the holiday.
An integral part of the holiday, besides
the festive events, is a Republican Scientific Enlightening Expedition "A
Road from Dominical Tomb to Sacred Places with Blessed Fire". Usually, the
representatives of creative and scientific intelligentsia, clergy take part
in the expedition, which traditionally goes through towns and villages of
several Belarusian regions and ends in the "capital" of the holiday. The
National Academy of Sciences of Belarus organizes a scientific conference,
which is held annually on the eve of the holiday. Among the most important
events of the Belarusian Written Language Day is the solemn ceremony of
rewarding the winners of the National "Book Art" contest.
Each year chief executive officers of the
Republic of Belarus, heads of ministries, cultural workers, writers and
poets, scientists, reporters, foreign embassy representatives, and
international delegations take part in the celebration of the holiday.
This year the Belarusian Written Language Day will be held on
September 2, 2007 in the city of Shklov, Mogilev region. |
