Academic Onomastics in Belarus (the second half of the 20th century – the first decades of the 21st century)
Academic Onomastics in Belarus (the second half of the 20th century – the first decades of the 21st century)

Summary/Abstract: The definition “academic onomastics” refers to an onomastic scientific field, researched at Jakub Kolas Institute of Linguistics, the branch of the Center for the Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (referred to as Jakub Kolas Institute of Linguistics hereinafter). It should be noted that at Jakub Kolas Institute of Linguistics the academic onomastic school developed in the absence of an official onomastic division. The only academic institution whose activities are directly related to onomastics is the Republican Toponymic Commission under the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. This commission was established at Jakub Kolas Institute of Linguistics in 1991. It is a special science advisory centre for various problems of toponymy. The title of the founder of the Belarusian academic onomastic school is generally given to Mikalaj Biryla (1923–1992), a famous Belarusian expert in the field of anthroponymy. Another prominent representative of the Belarusian academic onomastic school is Valiancina Liemciuhova (1935–2018), whose works are mainly devoted to issues of toponymy. Since 2011, the activity of the Belarusian academic onomastic school has been connected primarily with Ihar Kapyloŭ, the current director of Jakub Kolas Institute of Linguistics. According to the collected data, the majority of candidate and doctoral dissertations on onomastics, related to the Belarusian academic onomastic school, analyse toponyms. This allows us to speak about the toponymic profile of the activity of this school. This fact is also confirmed by comparing the number of books on anthroponymy and toponymy produced by the staff of Jakub Kolas Institute of Linguistics.

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