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Meeting held in Minsk in commemoration of poetess Larysa Heniyush

National revivalists held a meeting at the office of the Francisak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society (BLS) on Wednesday evening to mark 27 years since the death of prominent Belarusian poetess Larysa Heniyush (1910-1983), BelaPAN reports.

The centenary of the poetess’ birth is to be observed in August.

BLS Chairman Aleh Trusaw said in his opening address that 12 unpublished poems by Heniyush would be recited at the meeting.

“In her verses, Larysa Heniyush constantly fights for humanism and suggests that one should live a life proper of a human being and as required by God,” said poet Syarhey Zakonnikaw.

“Bureaucrats in Europe and all over the world currently try to deprive people of voice and rights,” he said. “When we read poets like Larysa Heniyush, we always think how to preserve truth, justice and humanism in this world.”

Larysa Heniyush was born in a village near Vawkavysk, Hrodna region, on August 9, 1910, and lived in Prague after graduation from a school in Vawkavysk. She worked as secretary for Vasil Zakharka (Zacharka), president-in-exile of the Belarusian National Republic from 1928 to 1943. She kept the presidential archives, supported Belarusian emigrants, political refugees and prisoners of war. Heniyush was arrested on March 5, 1948 and held in prisons in Czechoslovakia and then in Soviet prisons in Vienna, Lviv and Minsk. In 1949, she was sentenced in Minsk to 25 years for an alleged conspiracy against the Soviet Union. She served her term in Stalinist labor camps. Heniyush was released in 1956 before the end of her term, but she was never cleared of the charges against her. The poetess lived in Zelva until her death on April 7, 1983. She never accepted Soviet citizenship.

In December 2007, the then prosecutor general, Pyotr Miklashevich, rejected a petition to exonerate the poetess, which was signed by more than 70 prominent Belarusians. Mr. Miklashevich explained in his reply that he was not authorized to overrule the decisions of the Supreme Court of Belarus. The Supreme Court ruled on November 24, 1999, that Larysa Heniyush was not eligible for exoneration.

Heniyush published two collections of poetry and verses for children with the help of her friends in 1967. A book of her poetic heritage and memoirs, in which she recalls the years that she had spent in labor camps, the tragic destiny of her family and co-prisoners, was published after her death.

Heniyush`s works were removed from the general school curriculum soon after Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s election as president in 1994.