Former employee of the Academy of Sciences criticizes Maldzis' initiative: Non-professionals discredit real scientists. Matsukevich responded.

As a reminder, in the year of its existence, the Maldzis initiative acquired the Third Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Radziwill Map of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Map of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by Jan Nepretsky, the "Scepter of Governance" by Simeon Polotsky, as well as a French-language edition of "The Great Art of Artillery" by Kazimierz Siemienowicz.

Recently, the initiative also bought from a private collector in Poland the first Belarusian-language map of the country authored by Arkady Smolich — all thanks to Belarusian patrons.

But Rodion Kolos considers all these actions to be more harmful than beneficial, and even sees them as "discrediting professionals."

"Maldzis creates the illusion that the acquired artifacts were 'lost' and 'returned' thanks to public efforts. Society, especially in emigration, comes to the erroneous conclusion that professional custodians (librarians, archivists, scientists) were unable to preserve national treasures or even do not know what they have in storage. This undermines trust in institutions and their employees," argues Kolos.

In his opinion, the initiative, due to the "unprofessionalism" of its creators, propagates populism and buys dubious artifacts or duplicates instead of truly valuable things.

"The initiative uses loud and emotional, but actually inaccurate statements (for example, about the 'pinnacle of Belarusian thought' regarding Kazimierz Siemienowicz, whose Belarusian trace and uniqueness of ideas are questioned by scientists).

Every time significant funds are raised for the acquisition of a secondary duplicate, it discredits the idea of effective public funding. This money could go to real priorities identified by professionals: the acquisition of the only lost copies or the restoration of artifacts that are already in the country," the scientist believes, adding that "unique returned artifacts" were previously available to Belarusians for free, and anyone can see them in the museums of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus or the National Library of Belarus.

"If society believes in the 'heroic return' of secondary copies and does not know about the thousands of originals in the NBB and CNB NAS, then it means that scientists and librarians who have been storing these collections for years become invisible or discredited as ineffective custodians," Rodion Kolos concludes.

Pavel Matsukevich: "We do not prevent anyone from being better than us"

The creators of the Maldzis initiative consider such claims against them to be strange.

"We do not prevent anyone from being better than us. We even created a Summer School to help others through our experience and practices. By the way, Rodion Kolos was also a participant in this school," one of the Maldzis activists, former head of the Belarusian embassy in Switzerland, Pavel Matsukevich, commented to Nasha Niva.

"Our information work is aimed at returning values to the Belarusian context, to the consciousness of society — so that people know and are interested. And this work is implemented, among other things, through the physical return of artifacts, because it is the physical acquisition that creates the best information occasion."

The interlocutor emphasizes that they have never made a secret of how many copies of one or another artifact there are in Belarus or in the world.

"In addition, those specific museums in Belarus to which we plan to transfer the acquired artifacts and which are usually historically connected with them, do not have them. This applies to all the artifacts we have acquired and all the museums we have chosen. For example, in Novogrudok, the first capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, there is no Third Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, although there are copies of the same edition that we acquired in large libraries in Belarus.

Another example: the original early printed book by Simeon Polotsky "Scepter of Governance" is in the National Library, other large libraries, a corporate collection created by Babariko, but in the Simeon Polotsky Museum in Polotsk itself, to which we plan to transfer our find, there is no original edition. And this will be a very valuable acquisition for the city."

At the same time, some of the artifacts acquired with the participation of Maldzis are indeed rare.

"Like, for example, the Smolich map — it is known about the existence of literally a few copies in the world. Maybe there are actually more of them, but so far only a few are known," adds Pavel Matsukevich.

As for the criticism of the excessive praise of Siemienowicz, whose ideas Mr. Kolos, like some other scientists, does not consider original, the initiative has its own vision here.

"We have not come across critical materials regarding Siemienowicz's legacy, but we did not specifically look for them either," Pavel Matsukevich argues. "The edition of Siemienowicz we acquired is not the first, but we have not yet seen the first editions on sale. But even this one has its own interesting unique features. For example, Siemienowicz wrote a preface to it — different from the one for the first edition. This preface is the last documentary evidence of Siemienowicz's life.

And it is interesting that we acquired this artifact on the recommendation of a scientist who sent us a link to the auction."

As for the "incorrect use of funds" — that the money raised under the patronage of Maldzis could "go to real priorities identified by professionals," the initiative responds succinctly:

"In our case, it was possible to raise the money of patrons specifically for what we are doing and specifically on the terms of returning it to Belarus."

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