On September, 4th, 2009 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of Bronislav Ignatovich Epimah-Shipila, the famous person of Belarusian national revival at the beginning of the 20th century. He was the professor of St. Petersburg University, the scholar – linguist, the philologist, the active publisher and the propagandist of the Belarusian
book, the educator, after the activity of Francisck Scoryna Bronislav Ignatovich was the creator of the first Belarusian publishing house “The sun will glance in our window” (1906). He was the honorary member of the
Vitebsk scientific archival commission, the specialist in folklore, the creator of the unique “Belarusian handwritten chrestomathy” which includes the works of famous Belarusian writers. B.I. Epimah-Shipila was the polyglot, who could speak more than 20 languages of the world, including Sanskrit. It was the person without whom there would be no
creative formation of Yanka Kupala. The scientific collaborators of the Museum of study of local lore couldn’t ignore such an important event and visited the native places of the scientist under the invitation of the regional specialist V. R. Karasev.
Bronislav Ignatovich was born on September, 4th, 1859 in the manor Budzkowschina of Lepel district of Vitebsk province. After Bronislav’s birth his family had moved to the manor Zalesye of Vitebsk volost (now it’s Polotsk area). The future scholar spent his childhood here. After graduating from Riga Aleksandrovsk grammar school and St. Petersburg University, Bronislav Ignatovich remained to live and work in St.Petersburg, he worked a little in Inbelcult in Minsk. During the short period of summer holiday he visited his native Zalesye.
On the native land of the renowned scholar – Vetrinschina – people are proud of the fellow countryman, carefully keeping memory of him. In 1998 the Museum of B.I. Epimah-Shipila was opened in Vetrino school. The initiator of the creation of the museum was the teacher Alla Konstantinovna Krasnowa. The information on a life and the public work
of the scholar, his relations with the best representatives of national revival at the beginning of the 20th century is stored in the museum.
Documents and photos, memoirs and evidences of old residents are collected there; even the ambar key from the country house and grounds of “pans Shipila”is there – in such a way locals, always with warmth and respect, remember these people. Now the school museum is complex.
During 11 years of its existence the museum has extended, enriched with new exhibits and now it consists of four rooms, which are devoted not only to the famous countryman B.I. Epimah-Shipila, but to the history, ethnography of Vetrino, the history of the native school.
The estate in Zalesye, where there was the manor of Epimah-Shipila, was not saved. Due to the active work of the regional specialist Victor Romanovicha Karasev in 2006 on a place of the former entail of B.I.Epimah-Shipila the memorial sign - a stone-boulder, the weight of which is 16t.100kg, was established. And on the birthday of Bronislav
Ignatovich, on September, 4th, 2009, in honor of his 150th anniversary in Zalesye was the celebratory meeting with the laying of flowers upon the memorial sign. Teachers and pupils of high school together with Vetrino School of arts had prepared a celebratory concert, devoted to anniversary of the known fellow countryman. We would like to hope, that
the manor of the well-known polyglot and literary critic Bronislava Ignatovicha Epimah-Shipila will be restored, and grateful inhabitants of Vetrinschina will receive a new museum. This is all a problem for a new generation.
