An Ugly Monument to a Woman Was Erected in Bykhov. Together with the Sculpture in Kastryukovichy, It Could Become a Symbol of Belarus's Cultural Degradation Under Lukashenka

In Bykhov, in the park named after the 60th anniversary of the district's liberation from Nazi invaders, a sculptural composition "Woman-Mother" was installed, dedicated to the Year of the Belarusian Woman announced by the authorities. This was reported by the local district newspaper "Mayak Pridneprovya".

The project was initiated by public organizations and the Youth Council under the District Council of Deputies, with funds allocated by the Mogilev Regional Association of Local Councils of Deputies. Schoolchildren and public sector employees with red-green flags were gathered for the unveiling, while officials removed covers from the figures to lyrical music.

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At first glance, the Bykhov sculpture could be mistaken for another example of communal anti-restoration of old Soviet plaster or concrete figures, which regularly appear in thematic publics dedicated to the most inappropriate and unprofessional restorations.

However, this work has a fully official author — 45-year-old Mogilev sculptor, member of the Belarusian Union of Artists Aliaksandr Minkoŭ. As the master himself stated, he carved two figures from a single block of very hard Pakostava granite, brought from a quarry.

The result of this work raises questions from the perspective of basic plastic anatomy. The composition is very strangely built: the boy lifts his head upwards, but sees before him only his mother's unnaturally twisted, as if broken, neck, whose gaze is senselessly directed nowhere.

The figures themselves are absolutely static and devoid of any hint of contrapposto or other classical achievements of sculptural plasticity. The characters' legs are positioned perfectly straight, as if aligned with a ruler, which harks back to the archaic tradition of ancient Greek kouroi and korai from the second half of the 1st millennium BCE or even to earlier funerary sculpture of Ancient Egypt. But while for ancient masters this was backed by a strict canon and their own aesthetics, in Bykhov, viewers see only professional helplessness.

Despite its low artistic value, the project passed all approvals and checks without problems, and state media greeted it with enthusiasm. In a comment for the district newspaper's Instagram, Aliaksandr Minkoŭ stated:

"The work on the monument was very laborious and painstaking. A great journey has been made to create this object for the residents of Bykhov. I am confident that the result of my work will delight many generations of Bykhov residents for not just one hundred years."

Local female residents also thanked on camera for "the recognition of maternal labor" and quoted Aliaksandr Lukashenka's words about women.

Sausage Plasticity

As it turns out, the Bykhov monument is not an isolated case, but part of a whole series of works by Aliaksandr Minkoŭ that have filled the Mogilev region this year. Two months ago, on September 5, in Kastryukovichy, during the celebration of the Day of Belarusian Written Language, his sculptural composition "Ales and Alesia" was unveiled, based on Arkadz Kulyashoŭ's poem "Goodbye...", which became the basis for the famous Pesnyary song.

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While in Bykhov the sculptor worked with granite, for the central square of Kastryukovichy in front of the district executive committee, he used modern polymer materials painted to resemble bronze.

Due to the specific color texture of the material and crude modeling, the two-meter figures bear the strongest resemblance to the work of a famous folk craftsman from Yakutia.

Here, too, the author failed to convey the human body in motion. Besides the dead static postures, the detailing is particularly striking: the girl's waist is embraced by gigantic sausage-like fingers, while similarly shapeless fingers of the other hand hold an open book behind the heroine's back. It looks as if the boy is reading the text right through his beloved's body.

One gets the impression that the sculptor has never held a book in such a way or embraced anyone by the waist — so unrealistic and wooden is the pose, whose level is at most that of a children's art school graduation project.

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Minkoŭ himself in August explained his idea quite differently. According to him, he listened to the song "Alesia" daily in his car, and sculpted the faces of the characters after his wife and elder son, Andrei. The sculptor specifically emphasized that he tried to avoid the effect of "two static dolls," because "figures should breathe."

The author explained the anomalous proportions of faces and bodies as a legacy of the Soviet school:

"In street sculpture, elements of grotesque are always used. We deliberately make the brow ridges more massive, set the eyes deeper — facial features should be clearly readable both from ten meters away and up close. This is the legacy of the classical Soviet school, the traditions of monumentalism in their best manifestation."

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This polymer monument was unveiled at the highest state level. As reported by BelTA, the veil was ceremoniously removed from the sculpture by Anatoli Isachenka, Chairman of the Mogilev Regional Executive Committee, and Deputy Prime Minister Natallia Piatkevich — an official known in Lukashenka's vertical for her refined taste and love for luxury brands. State media do not specify whether the painted polymer figures with sausage-like fingers pleased the aesthetic Piatkevich, but from the stage, the Vice-Premier spoke inspiredly about the uniqueness of the region and the opportunity to hear the Belarusian word anew. Along with her, the Minister of Information, Metropolitan Veniamin, and the First Deputy Secretary General of the CIS, Igor Petrishenko, observed the unveiling of the art object.

An Accidental Figure in Figurative Sculpture

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As reported by BelTA, the head of the Presidential Administration, Dzmitry Kruty, and Vice-Premier Viktar Karankevich, attended the ceremony, and the project was financed by businessman Andrei Balabin and his company "Patsio".

This work turned out to be the most tolerable of the author's entire autumn trilogy — obviously, only because the lower part of the human body, which the sculptor struggles with, was replaced here by a high granite pedestal.

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The paradox of the situation is that Aliaksandr Minkoŭ has a full specialized education. He was born in Vitebsk in 1981, graduated from the art and graphic faculty of Mogilev Pedagogical College in 2000, and from the famous art and graphic faculty of Vitebsk State University named after P. M. Masherov in 2007, after which he immediately joined the Union of Artists.

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For a long time, Minkoŭ specialized in memorial signs and abstract-symbolic stone plasticity: he created a memorial sign for military journalists in Klichaw in 2017, the composition "Bell of Silence" at the site of the Cathedral Cemetery in Mogilev in 2019, "Heart on Palms" near the Mogilev Cardiac Center in 2022, "Bahach" in Khotsimsk in 2023.

When the sculptor worked with simple stone forms and symbols, his works looked quite decent. However, it seems he is now forced to work in a style that appeals to the country's current leadership. In modern Belarus, such works pass art councils without obstacles, receive budget funding, and are installed in the main squares of cities to the applause of the vertical power structure. At all levels, no one notices that "the king is naked."

Meanwhile, dozens of outstanding masters remain on blacklists, without work and forbidden from receiving commissions for public spaces.

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