Who was he really? A Pole? A Belarusian? An admirer of the simple Belarusian people and rural life or a naive khlopoman? Vincent “Vincuk” Dunin-Marcinkiewicz was probably a bit of each, which characterised many representatives of the borderland intelligentsia in the mid-19th century. Although few people know it today, he was the author of the first translation of “Pan Tadeusz” into Belarusian. It was he who wrote, among other things, the librettos to four operas by Stanisław Moniuszko, including fragments of one – to the opera “Sielanka” (“Pastoral”) – in Belarusian. His work was particularly demanding: the Belarusian literary language did not yet exist, so in order to convey the richness of Mickiewicz’s work, or to add a visual description to Moniuszko’s musical output – many words had yet to be created. Although most of his work was written in Polish, he is regarded as one of the fathers of the Belarusian literary language. In Poland, he is a virtually unknown figure. (…)

The full article in Englihs we will publish soon.