On the example of works of the classic of Belarusian literature Maksim Bogdanovich, there is studied the role of literary canon in aesthetic selfidentification of national literature. It is noted that the literary canon acts as a strategy of cultural identity, one of the effective forms, and important condition of formation of the cultural symbolic world of meanings funded by the general cultural values of humankind. It is stated that historical, cultural, artistic, ontological, existential values and meanings explicated in the poetic canon of Maksim Bogdanovich became an important part of spiritual dimension, cultural integration, harmonization of social relations. A distinctive feature of the poet’s appeal to the canonical art form is securing for it the role of a symbolic consolidating referential sign designed to form a “cultural consciousness”, to instill the sense of general aesthetized ethnocultural unity, to serve as a means of spiritual integration and national consolidation of society.