Jauhien Kulik (October 31, 1937 – January 12, 2002) was a

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

ian artist and graphic designer. He is the designer of the 1991–1995

Coat of Arms of Belarus A coat is typically an outer garment for the upper body, worn by any gender for warmth or fashion. Coats typically have long sleeves and are open down the front, and closing by means of buttons, zippers, hook-and-loop fasteners (AKA velcro), to ...

, which was a version of the medieval symbol Pahonia. Jauhien Kulik was born in

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

. In 1957 he graduated from the Minsk State Arts College, and in 1963 from the

Belarusian State Academy of Arts The Belarusian State Academy of Arts (; ) is a state-owned institution of higher education in Minsk, Belarus. The Belarusian State Academy of Arts has status as a leading institution of the national system of art and cultural education alongside ...

. After graduation, he worked as a designer and illustrator of books, and participated in numerous personal exhibitions. In the 1960s, he became a leader of an informal group of Belarusian-speaking dissident artists in Minsk. In 1980, he created a

Samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

postcard dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of Belarusian statehood. Kulik illustrated the first Anatol Titou’s book about the coats of arms of Belarusian towns (1983). Titou’s work of reconstructing the Belarusian heraldic tradition was not welcomed by the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

authorities: none of 1,000 copies of the book reached the state-controlled distribution and almost all copies rotted away in a warehouse. In the late 1980s, he became an active member of the

Belarusian Popular Front The Belarusian Popular Front "Revival" (BPF, ; ''Biełaruski Narodny Front "Adradžeńnie"'', ''BNF'') was a social and political movement in Belarus in the late 1980s and 1990s whose goals were national revival of Belarus, its democratization a ...

. In 1991, after the restoration of the independence of Belarus, Jauhien Kulik was the main designer of the new Coat of Arms of Belarus—the Pahonia. Jauhien Kulik died in 2002. He is buried in Kalvaryja cemetery in Minsk.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kulik Belarusian dissidents Artists from Minsk Belarusian designers BPF Party politicians 1937 births 2002 deaths Belarusian State Academy of Arts alumni