10 Roubles Adam Mickiewicz

Issued the year Belarus was navigating its deepening political alignment with Russia under Lukashenko, this coin honoring Adam Mickiewicz carries a quiet irony — Mickiewicz was born near Nowogródek, in what is now Belarus, but is claimed as a national poet by Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus simultaneously. The Belarusian state's decision to mint him reflects a deliberate effort to anchor territorial and cultural legitimacy through a figure whose national identity was never straightforwardly resolved in his own lifetime.

He died in Constantinople in 1855, reportedly organizing Polish legions to fight Russia in the Crimean War.