The new building of the National Library of Belarus is so beautiful, original and unique that it rightfully serves as a visiting card of the country. Any capital of the world can be proud of such a book depository - the richest funds are combined not only with the unique design and extraordinary architecture of the building, which was built by the Republic of Belarus. The National Library is a multifunctional specialized scientific center that meets the latest science and technology in this field.
First library
In the tsarist province, there was no national library at all, and although the republic continued to form territorially until 1926, already in 1922 the first national library of the Republic of Belarus was created at the State University, which was first called the “Belarusian State and University Library” (the republic itself had the abbreviation BSSR). The initial fund amounted to 60 thousand volumes. But he quickly replenished with the efforts of the whole country and from private libraries.
First room
The history of the National Library of Belarus began in the Jubilee House - a building built in 1913 to mark the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, which previously housed the church and archaeological museum as part of the bishop’s compound. This building was erected in a rare for the city retrospective-Russian style. It should be noted that the main library of the republic has always been located in the original conspicuous buildings.
In 1926, the storage fund grew to 300 thousand, and the number of readers increased 5 times. The library becomes an independent institution, and for its needs they decide to build a special building, which also went down in the history of the republic with its uniqueness, originality and purposeful purpose - the library becomes the center of not only scientific thought, but also cultural and national construction.
Purpose built building
From the presented works, the project of George Lavrov was selected. He proposed a completely new building for Minsk, in which he wanted to implement the mathematical coordinate system - to emphasize the contrast between the length of the reading rooms and the height of the book depository located in the depths. The main building was ready for the 10th anniversary of the republic - it received readers in 1932. The project was so good that in our time in the restored architectural monument of the era of constructivism, of which there are very few, especially in Belarus, the Council of the Republic of National Education is located.
Funds are growing
Belarus has always paid great attention to the main book depository of the republic. By 1941, the National Library had about 2 million books in its storerooms. The loss was even worse - Belarus lost about 83% of its funds. Priceless old manuscripts and scrolls were stolen, much burned out along with the building.
But already in 1943, with the joint efforts of the country, the funds of the Belarusian library began to recover. By the mid-50s, the building of George Lavrov ceases to cope with the influx of readers. But only in 1989 a competition was held for the projects of the new building.
The appearance of the National Library of Belarus
After the “sovereignty parade”, the BSSR became officially called the Republic of Belarus. The National Library could and should have become the hallmark of a renewed country. They approached the “construction of the century” more than seriously (5, 000 people and 200 organizations were involved in the construction), although the country had quite different problems. The project of architects Viktor Kramarenko and Mikhail Vinogradov, who won in 1989, was launched only in 2002. They worked with great enthusiasm, because the Belarusian Diamond project, symbolizing its pricelessness, wealth and inexhaustible knowledge, conquered everyone.
Unique project
Everyone was fascinated by the ultra-modern design of the building, the central building of which is a complex geometric figure - a rhombocubo-octahedron, and its faces are represented by 18 squares and 8 triangles. This extraordinary structure is covered with reflective mirror glass, placed on a stylobate, a kind of stand-podium.
Construction progressed at an accelerated pace — they worked around the clock, and often up to 3, 000 people were at the construction site at one time. The building, the opening of which with a grandiose, quite justifiable pomp, with the participation of the president, was held on June 16, 2006, justified all costs, satisfied all ambitions. This is a masterpiece that all Belarus is rightfully proud of. The National Library is not only unusually beautiful, it is one of the few modern world book depositories that are both a research, information, sociopolitical and sociocultural center.
National Library - National Symbol
The sculpture of Francis Skorina, the Belarusian first printer, stands in the foreground, in front of the main entrance, made in the form of an open book. It depicts stories on the development of writing, a statement by Francis Skorina himself about the human desire for perfection, to the likeness of God, translated into 19 languages of the world. The best artists and sculptors of the republic worked on the design of the main entrance. The whole complex is located in the central park of the capital. The National Library of Belarus (photo attached) is a real diamond. Of modern, equally unusual, but beautiful buildings, the Opera House in Sydney immediately comes to mind. You look and take your breath away.
Some sizes of amazing structure
Such data speak about the structure and size of the library - 20 reading rooms provide an opportunity to join the knowledge of 2000 people at the same time. In addition, they have 1, 500 workstations designed to work with the electronic catalog. The storage facility is designed for 14 million copies, and the total area of the entire library is 113, 669 square meters. m. The figure is impressive without comparisons with the area of the entire Vatican, the fourth part of which it is equal. The library is a national treasure of the republic, in order to popularize knowledge, excursions are constantly made here.
Belarusian Diamond Today
The “Diamond of Knowledge”, as the Minsk library is also called, currently has about 9 million copies of books, manuscripts, microcopies of documents in 80 languages of the world in its collections. And although everything exported by the invaders has not yet returned to the vault funds (the search is ongoing, at all levels), the catalog of rare manuscripts, old printed books, and unique old editions is more than 70 thousand copies. Only newspapers are stored here 4.7 thousand titles, and magazines and other periodicals - 3 million copies. All this is located on 10 floors of the store. Of the huge fund, about 500, 000 units are freely available - reading rooms and a subscription.
In special places equipped with modern equipment, you can access digital storage. The electronic library of Belarus has a catalog, which is the main information retrieval system of the entire national book depository. Replenishment is carried out constantly, in normal mode.
