The State Museum of the History of Belarusian Literature is one of the largest literary museums in Minsk, and the only literary museum that documents the literary process in Belarus in a broad historical context from the time of the emergence of writing to the present day. It was established in 1987 by order of the Ministry of Culture in the Bahrain Society for Research and Resuscitation, and it was opened to the public in 1991. The museum includes rare editions of ancient printed antiquities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, manuscripts, documents, photographs, personal belongings of Belarusian writers, signed books, rare items of icons and illustrations.