The time will come... And they’ll come looking for me.
Jazep Drazdovich
Jazep Drazdovich is one of the most important, original and unusual persons in Belarusian culture and art. The master’s creativity is so varied that it seems impossible to attribute him to a single flow, trend, style, or type of activity: Jazep Drazdovich was not only a talented painter and sculptor, but also an outstanding writer, poet, teacher, ethnographer, folklorist, philosopher, palmistry, archaeologists, theatrical figure, amateur astronomer, and the founder of the Belarusian theoretical astronomy. It is impossible to understand how this man, for his short and difficult life, managed to reach such a diversity, promoting the revival of the national culture, comprehending the incredible, opening the door to the future for people and allowing them to dream... That’s why the Belarusian artist and contemporary of Drazdovich, Pyotr Sergievich, called him "our little county’s Leonardo da Vinci."
Аўтапартрэт. 1943
Jazep Drazdovich lived in the time of complex historical events: the First World War, in which he was a participant, revolutionary changes, and the Second World War. More than this, the artist faced a lot of challenges: difficult living conditions, hunger and poverty, human misunderstanding and solitude.
Космас. 1943
During the life, Drazdovich’s unusual worldview, admiration for space and the planets found no response in his friends and contemporaries, which gave him the reputation of a weird and even mad artist. Until then, no one in Belarus dreamed of space travel or life on other planets, did not think of what Saturn's ring consist or how the Saturninas look like. Such a fate befalls many artists, scientists, geniuses, who are ahead of their time. Misunderstood by people, Drazdovich was gradually turning into a marginalized and lonely man, choosing the path of "eternal wanderer" with endless travel on home soil. During the years of travel, he collected and recorded folklore, compiled dialectical dictionaries, studied archeology, created a large number of graphic sketches and painted carpets.
Today it is impossible to imagine Jazep Drazdovich other than a sage, a prophet who is walking on the roads of Belarus, leaning on his cane, and thus creating a kind of archetypal image that symbolize the way forwards. The earthly journey of this extraordinary man ended on the road, 1954...
Гасцінец. 1925
For a long time, the life and work of Jazep Drazdovich, "Uncle Jazep," as he called friends, was not well known. His name became a bright opening in 1984, when the book "Eternal Wanderer" by the famous writer and scientist, Arseny Lis, was released in Belarus.
To date, Joseph Drazdovich is at the center of interest. Various exhibitions, open air events and conferences in his honor are held, monographs devoted to the artist are issued, and documentaries are released. His astronomical hypothesis and dreams of flying into space have fully embodied and continue their further development. Jazep Drazdovich believed: "The time will come... And they’ll come looking for me." The predictions of this remarkable man, the undisputed master and prophet, come true.
