{"id":551488,"date":"2026-06-16T20:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=551488"},"modified":"2026-06-17T07:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T04:40:19","slug":"yakub-kolos-and-no-resemblance-at-all-national-library-of-belarus-unveils-bizarre-merchandise-collection-for-its-20th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/yakub-kolos-and-no-resemblance-at-all-national-library-of-belarus-unveils-bizarre-merchandise-collection-for-its-20th-anniversary","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Yakub Kolos\u2019 and No Resemblance at All: National Library of Belarus Unveils Bizarre Merchandise Collection for Its 20th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>The National Library of Belarus has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DZhl14XjpZE\/?img_index=6\">released<\/a> a merchandise collection to mark its 20th anniversary. The collection was highlighted on Threads by user ilivehereggg. In the comments under the post, users criticized tote bags featuring Belarusian literary classics whose names and even pen names were written in Russian: <b>Yanka Kupala, Francysk Skaryna, Maksim Bahdanovich<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the pen name of the People&#8217;s Poet of Belarus was rendered as Yakub Kolos instead of <b>Yakub Kolas<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>Commenters expressed outrage over the design, arguing that it would have been more logical to write the names of Belarusian literary classics in the Belarusian language.<\/p>\n<p>There were also questions about the image of Yakub Kolas, which many felt bore little resemblance to the writer.<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cWhy not Ivan Kupalo?\u201d<\/i> commenters asked regarding the tote bag featuring another literary classic.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, this is not an isolated case. In May, the website of the Yakub Kolas Central Scientific Library published an article about <b>Vasil Vitka<\/b> in which the writer\u2019s pen name was translated as \u201cVasiliy Vitka,\u201d even though names in pen names are never translated. Even on the covers of Russian-language translations, the author is identified as \u201cVasil Vitka.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"info\"><p><strong>Subscribe to <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/cult_front\">Reform.news cultural news<\/a> on Telegram<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Library of Belarus has released a merchandise collection to mark its 20th anniversary. The collection was highlighted on Threads by user ilivehereggg. In the comments under the post, users criticized tote bags featuring Belarusian literary classics whose names and even pen names were written in Russian: Yanka Kupala, Francysk Skaryna, Maksim Bahdanovich. Moreover, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":551487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6a322536445e8.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"\u2018Yakub Kolos\u2019 and No Resemblance at All: National Library of Belarus Unveils Bizarre Merchandise Collection for Its 20th Anniversary"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142375,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-551488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}