Беларускi сенатар Польшчы Вячаслаў Багдановiч

Abstract

The article discusses life and work of Vyacheslav Bogdanovich (1878–1939/1940?), an outstanding figure of Belarusian national movement, a senator of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The son of a Belarusian Orthodox priest, he became one of the most recognized intellectual leaders of his nation, a talented writer, a skilled polemicist and a politician. V. Bogdanovich is the author of many different works. Special attention is paid to his articles devoted to the poetry of Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas as well as hagiographic studies related to the mission of the Orthodox patrons of Belarus – Anthony, John and Eustafij. The problem of autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland, which became disastrous for V. Bogdanovich, affected all aspects of his multilateral activities. It also had a direct impact on his description of such topics as “Belarusian spiritual heritage”, “languages of the Orthodox Church”, “the people and the intelligentsia”, “the church and the state”. The last days of V. Bogdanovich’s life were tragic. He was released from Polish detention in September 1939, less than a month later he was arrested in Vilnus by the NKVD and went missing.