Laryssa Henijusch

Laryssa Henijusch

Laryssa Antonauna Henijusch , ( Belarusian Ларыса Антонаўна Геніюш , born August 9, 1910 in Schlobauzy, today Hrodsenskaja Woblasz ; † April 7, 1983 in Selwa , Hrodsenskaja Woblasz) was a Belarusian poet and writer .

Life

After her family had to leave their hometown while fleeing the turmoil of the First World War, Laryssa Henijusch, b. Miklaschewitsch, did not return there with her parents until 1919. In 1928 she finished the Polish grammar school in Waukawysk . In 1937 she moved to Prague to live with her husband , who was already living there and studying medicine at the university there.

There she took an active part in the life of the Belarusian emigration, especially she worked for the government-in-exile of the then de facto defunct independent Belarusian People's Republic (Belarus .: Беларуская Народная Рэспубліка , BNR), which in 1918 was about half a Had existed for years, but was occupied by the Red Army after the November Revolution in Germany and was finally divided up as a result of the Polish-Russian war, with the western part of the country becoming Poland , while the eastern part became the Belarusian Soviet Republic . The government-in-exile initially continued to work from Lithuania and later moved to Prague , where Laryssa Henijusch also joined it.

During the German occupation of Prague, the first poems appeared in various Belarusian émigré newspapers, for example in the Berlin newspaper Ranica (German: Der Morgen ). In 1942 her first volume of poetry was published, Ад родных ніў (German: From homely corridors ). In those years she was also entrusted with sifting through the archives of the BNR, which had gone abroad with the government-in-exile, and later also hiding it from access, initially by German secret services and, after the war, also by the Soviet secret service.

In March 1948, Henijusch and her husband were arrested by agents of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR in Prague and transferred to Minsk , where they were sentenced in February 1949 by the Supreme Court of the BSSR to 25 years in a camp in the Komi Republic . In 1956 the conviction was confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, but the sentence was reduced to eight years, so that the Henijuschs were released from camp detention in the same year and returned to their homeland. Laryssa Henijusch lived there until her death in the small town of Selwa near Hrodna , but refused to accept Soviet citizenship until the end of her life.

From 1963 onwards, volumes of her poetry could appear again and again, but often severely shortened by the censorship. Henijusch also wrote poetic fairy tales for children. Her letters are also published.

In 1990 her memoirs appeared for the first time under the title Споведзь (English: confession). In this book, the manuscript of which she left to a confidante shortly before her death, who was only available for publication during perestroika , Henijusch describes her childhood, the difficult years for Belarusians in the interwar period in Poland , the time in Prague before and during War and, above all, the martyrdom of camp imprisonment. In Belarus, the book is one of the most important historical testimonies of the 20th century.

Rehabilitation

In 1999 the Belarusian Helsinki Committee applied for the posthumous rehabilitation of Laryssa Henijusch. The country's Supreme Court in its response letter denied the request, stating that she could not be rehabilitated. A reason was not given, however, as this, as it was said, could only be communicated to the person concerned.

Web links

• Short biography on slounik.org (Belarusian)
• Belarusian Anthology - A Reading Book (Belarusian / German)