10 Roubles Stanislav Monyushko. 200 years

Stanisław Moniuszko was born in 1819 in what is now Belarus, though his career unfolded almost entirely in Vilnius and Warsaw. He is claimed with particular pride by both Poland and Belarus — Poland treats him as the father of Polish national opera, while Belarus emphasizes his birth on Belarusian soil. The 200th anniversary issue sits squarely in that contested cultural ownership, a diplomatic exercise in soft power as much as a commemorative coin.

His opera Halka, premiered in full form in Vilnius in 1848, became the defining work of Polish Romantic opera. He died in Warsaw in 1872, mid-rehearsal.