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Belorussian Review
4
MUNICH
1957
The views expressed in the Review are those of their authors. They are not bound by any single political philosophy nor are they to be construed as representing the point of view of the INSTITUTE.
Material contained herein may be reproduced, provided reference is made to this publication
All comments and inquiries are most welcome and should be addressed to:
Institute ior the Study of the USSR Editor,
The Belorussian Review
Mannhardtstrasse 6
Munich, Germany
Verantwortlich fur den Inhalt; Dr. Stanislau Stankievic
Herausgeber und Verlag: Institut zur Erforschung der UdSSR, e. V., Munchen 22, Mannhardtstr. 6, Telefon 2 06 81—4. Printed in Germany by Buchdruckerei Dr. Peter Belej, Miinchen 13, Schleibheimer Strabe 71
The Belorussian Review is a publication of the Institute for the Study of the USSR. Its purpose is to present the free world an analysis of contemporary events and detailed studies of Belorussian history and culture by persons who know the system intimately.
*
The Institute for the Study of the USSR was organized on July 8, 1950. It is a free corporation of scientists and men and women of letters who have left the Soviet Union and are now engaged in research on their homeland.
Any member of the Soviet emigration, irrespective of his national origin, political affiliations or place of residence, is eligible to take part in the work of the Institute provided he is not a Communist Party member or sympathizer.
All comments and inquiries are most welcome and should be addressed to:
Institute for the Study of the USSR
Editor, Belorussian Review
Mannhardtstrasse 6
Munich, Germany
CONTENTS
St. Stankievic, Jakub Kolas
Adamovic, UZVYSSA — The Belorussian Literary Club
Jan Stankievic, The Soviet Falsification of Belorussian History
P. Urban, The Twentieth Party Congress and the National Question
S. Kabys, Belorussian Agriculture and the 6th Five Year Plan
Lebiedz, Hydraulic Engineering Works in Belorussia
U. Halubnicy, The Location of Industries in the Belorussian SSR
T. Davletshin, Labor Transfers of Youth in the Soviet Union
Reviews
Marhovic, "Belorussia—The Making of a Nation," by N. P. Vakar
J. Zaprudnik, "Komunist Bielarusi," No. 1, 1957
Chronicle of Belorussian Events
Belorussians in Poland
The Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Belorussian Komsomol Rehabilitations in the Belorussian SSR
Meeting of the Academy of Sciences of the Belorussian SSR
The Extension of the Periodical Press in the Belorussian SSR
Foundation of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Belorussian SSR
Elections in the Belorussian SSR
Jakub Kolas
(November 3, 1882 — August 13, 1956)
ST. STANKIEVIC
Jakub Kolas, whose real name was Kanstancin Mickievic, died at Minsk on August 13, 1956. Together with Janka Kupala, he was the greatest of Belorussian poets and writers. He was the last notable representative of the period of the journal Nasa Niva (Our Field) to leave the literary stage, which had already lost Janka Kupala in 1942, 2mitrok Biadula in 1941 and several of the older writers, headed by Vlast and Maksim Harecki, who were liquidated in the 1930's.
In the official announcement of Kolas' death,1 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia and the Council of Ministers of the Belorussian SSR gave a list of his posts and titles. These included member of the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party, deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR, vice-president of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR and national poet of the BSSR. Obituaries published by other organizations stated that Kolas had also been chairman of the Belorussian Committee for the Defence of Peace and member of the Presidium of the Board of the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR and BSSR and that his honors included five Orders of Lenin, an Order of the Red Banner, an Order of the Red Banner of Labor, several medals and two Stalin Prizes.2 A few days later, the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party and the Council of Ministers of the BSSR decided to name a street and a square in Minsk after Kolas, as well as several departments of the Academy of Sciences and a number of primary and secondary schools, and to institute a Jakub Kolas3 stipend at the Belorussian State University and the Pedagogic Institute at Minsk.
In view of all the responsible posts lately held by the poet and the honors and posthumous awards emanating from the Party and Government, it might at first sight appear that Kolas was an irreproachable Bolshevik who had been infinitely loyal to the cause of Communism and the Soviet system and had given them undying service. Soviet literary critics, particularly since World War II, have also been unanimous in describing Kolas as an ardent Soviet patriot and an inspired eulogist of the Soviet epoch. On the other hand, the poet and writer's true spiritual side, which comes out unmistakably, not only in his prerevolutionary works, but also in his productions during the first period of Soviet rule in Belorussia and in the 1920's, is today being assiduously concealed, and a great many of his works written at that time have been removed from the poet's literary inheritance. It is therefore the main task of this article to show what Kolas was in reality and the nature of his role in Belo-russian literature.
The Nasa Niva period of the Belorussian revival was mainly literary, like all the preceding stages of this awakening, since it began early in the XIX century. Its literature was something more than "art for art's sake" in the conception of its creators and in the appreciation of its readers, for it also fulfilled the deepest national and social functions. The national and social catchwords and ideas of this revival mostly took shape in fiction and spread in that form to the masses. Belorussian literature of the Nasa Niva period was thus a measure not only of the cultural revival of the Belorussian people, but perhaps even more so of its national, social and even political awakening.
This universal role played by Belorussian literature at this period was most widely and comprehensively apparent in the works of its two greatest representatives and founders — Janka Kupala and Jakub Kolas. Kolas' part in Belorussian literature cannot be treated independently of Kupala's, nor that of Kupala apart from the role played by Kolas. They were both born in 1882 and began to write and appear in print at about the same time—Kupala in 1905, Kolas in 1906. Both were closely linked with Nasa Niva and the ideas it professed, and for a long time both reacted almost identically to the outside political circumstances in which they were destined to live and work.
Despite this similarity and community of interests, the two poets differed greatly in the literary character of their work. Basically, they represented different literary styles and reacted differently to the manifestations of life. Kupala, although his literary legacy includes a number of short epic poems, some long and some short dramatic poems and several long dramas in prose, was in the main a lyric poet. His lyrics were noted for their spiritual depth, emotional power and immense influence. By formulating and putting into concrete form the idea of the Belorussian revival with the help of his own peculiar methods, Kupala became a spokesman of society, a universally accepted prophet of this awakening and a spiritual leader of the Belorussian people.
Kolas also began his creative work by writing poetry and was at first mainly known as a lyric poet. Throughout his literary career, he kept to the lyric poem as his constant stylistic model. However, it is not his lyrical poems, but rather his large-scale epic works,—the long poems, prose tales and narratives—which determined Kolas' place in Belorussian literature and earned him just fame.
Kolas, like Kupala, particularly in his lyric poems, also reacted with feeling to the national and social trends of the Belorussian people and urged it to fight for its future, but it is essentially as an incomparable artist of the Belorussian countryside and the psychology of Belorussian peasant types that he showed his literary talent. Reflecting in epic form the phenomena of nature and life, Kolas usually endowed them with a deep lyricism. This differed from the force and solemn tone of Kupala's work by its particular tenderness, gentleness and spiritual warmth.
Similarities and differences between these poets may be found in plenty. Those already pointed out here suffice to show that Kolas was in no w3y Kupala's replica, nor vice versa. They were two mighty creative personalities, who were different and original. With their plentiful output they were the mainstay of Belorussian literature of the Nasa Niva period and later, when this was succeeded by the period of the literary union and journal Uzvyssa (Excelsior) in 1926—1931, which, like the free creativeness of Kolas and Kupala, was mercilessly halted by the Bolsheviks at the very beginning of the 1930's.
Jakub Kolas began writing verse when he was only twelve. However, it is 1906 which should be regarded as the start of his literary career. His first poem to appear in print was published in the first issue, dated September 14, 1906, of the first legal Belorussian newspaper Nasa Dola. Thereafter, his work often appeared in Nasa Dola and, when this newspaper was suppressed by the tsarist Government, in Nasa Niva. The first collection of his poems, Piesni zalby (Songs of Sorrow), appeared in 1910.
During the first period, which coincides with the appearance of Nasa Niva, Kolas' lyrical poems may be divided by subject into two different groups. In one group, which predominates at the beginning and is mainly linked with the events of the 1905 Revolution, the poet protests in tones of sharp indignation against the social injustice suffered by the Belorussian people and urges it to fight for its rights. At the same time, no less sharply and often in satirical form, he castigates the tsarist autocracy and unmasks its anti-popular nature. The poems of the second group are mainly dedicated to the Belorussian countryside and the life and toil of the Belorussian peasant. These images are permeated with a deep patriotism, a boundless love for homeland and people and an inexpressible sorrow for their hard lot. Whereas the first group of poems resounds with the call to rebellion, the second is remarkable for its gentle feeling and deep, quiet compassion characteristic of Kolas, as reflected in the very title mentioned above. Already these early poems by Kolas showed his unusual talent as a profound and sensitive lyrical poet.
In 1911, while serving a three-year sentence in Minsk prison for taking part in an illegal congress of teachers, Kolas began his monumental work— the poem Novaja Ziamla (The New Land). On leaving prison the same year, he started on another long poem entitled Symon Muzyka (Simon the Musician); but it is not these poems, which were barely begun before work on them was interrupted for a long time, that defined Kolas' literary personality before World War I. In his literary assessment Kolas' artistic prose proved the more decisive. Apaviadanni (Tales), published in Vilna in 1912, Rodnyja zjavy (Native Images), a comprehensive collection of tales published there in 1914; Toustaje palena (The Thick Log) and Niomanau dar (The Gift of the Niemen), two short stories which came out in St. Petersburg in 1913, became Kolas' most important works during the Nasa Niva period and occupied a particularly notable place in Belorussian literature.
К. Kahaniec, and above all Jadvihin S., have usually been regarded as the founders of prose fiction in modern Belorussian literature. They started writing either before Kolas or as his contemporaries. Jakub Kolas, or Taras Husca, as he then and for some time afterwards signed his prose works, came to be a creator of Belorussian prose fiction, first of the short story and later of the novel. Kolas' earlier stories were already remarkable for their interesting subject-matter, a lively and ably-argued plot, skilful composition, pliant and colorful description, the individuality of his heroes and the deep emotions which they revealed. The day-to-day events of village life, the constant urge of the peasant to acquire his own plot of land as the mainstay of his life or the spiritual emotions of people usually served as the themes of Kolas' stories and were truthfully and realistically portrayed—sometimes embellished with genuine peasant humor. In some stories, such as U starych duboch (By the Ancient Oaks), or Zlucylisia (They Came Together), Kolas showed himself to be a skilful master in describing the deep and complicated spiritual experiences of peasant children. This ability to appreciate the world of children's inner life, acquired during many years as a schoolmaster, was to show itself later in all its breadth in the poem Novaja Ziamla. Kolas' first stories showed that the young Belorussian literature had produced a prose-writer of outstanding artistic talent.
The deep national character of Kolas' early works comes out chiefly in his boundless love for his homeland and people, with whom the poet was organically linked. The social problems often raised in Kolas' works reflected the true situation of social inter-relationships in Belorussia at that time. They are depicted in their national Belorussian aspect, and not according to the doctrines of the Russian Social Democratic Revolutionary Party, which was preparing the ground for the October Revolution. In his lyrical poems, and even his stories, he often revealed social contradictions, but exclusively between the Belorussian peasants on the one hand and the Polish Pan or Russian landowner or official on the other. He, like other poets of the Nasa Niva period and Nasa Niva itself, found neither class distinction nor any class struggle among the Belorussian peasants themselves. The supreme and final purpose of Kolas' heroes — smallholders and landless peasants — was to acquire their own land as the only means of existence and to protect this land from encroachment so as to pass it on intact to their children. Soviet literary critics never forgave Kolas for such "national narrow-mindedness" and his lack of understanding of the "socialistic character" of the Revolution, even when the poet was exalted to the status of "inspired eulogist of the Soviet epoch" and had been finally rehabilitated for past sins. L. Fihlouskaja, author of the chapter on Kolas in the symposium entitled Outline of the History of Belorussian Soviet Literature, writes about him as follows:
The prerevolutionary works of this Belorussian writer also reveal the narrowness of his outlook. He did not rise, in those years, to an understanding of the historical role of the proletariat in the revolutionary struggle or to a comprehension of the purport of the bourgeois-democratic revolution as an essential stage in the transition to a socialist revolution.5
After an interruption of several years as a result of World War I, Kolas resumed his literary activity during the stormy and crowded events of 1917.
At the time of the October Revolution, two mutually hostile forces came into conflict and continued to clash for several years thereafter. These were the forces of the Belorussian national revolution, which aimed at setting up an independent Belorussian state, and those of alien imported Bolshevism, which received no support from the masses of the Belorussian population and sought to entrench itself with the help of nationally alien non-Belorussian army elements from the Western front.6 Jakub Kolas, like all Belorussian patriots in general, joined the Belorussian national movement and remained in it until after the establishment of Soviet rule in Belorussia, and indeed until it was liquidated by the Bolsheviks.
When in May 1917 the Belorussian weekly Volnaja Bielarus (Free Belorussia) began to appear in Minsk and became the organ of the Belorussian national revolution under the editorship of Kolas' uncle, Jasep Losik, the poet immediately arranged for it to print his works. During this period, and especially after the poet's return home to Minsk in the spring of 1921, the most fruitful period of Kolas' work began.
He wrote a number of lyric poems, which found their way into a large volume of collected works under the title Vodhulle (Repercussions), published in Minsk in 1922. The poems he wrote at that time or earlier showed even more the sharp contradiction between Kolas' national ideas and Bolshevik reality. The well-known emigre specialist in Belorussian literature, Anton Adamovic,7 has devoted a special work to Kolas" anti-Bolshevik activities and his stubborn resistance against the sovietization of his works. For this reason only a few of Kolas' poems, which are characteristic in this respect, have been chosen in this article as examples to demonstrate these activities.
At the very height of the October Revolution, toward the end of 1917, Kolas composed and published the poem Da pracy (To Work), which concludes as follows:
Help us, О God, in our venture!
Neither tsarist scourge, nor alien boor
Shall rule in our house,
But the people who own it.
Here "alien boor" aptly denotes the Bolsheviks, who wanted to be masters of Belorussia and were busy replacing the "tsarist scourge," which had already been relegated to the archives of history. Later the Bolsheviks realized that the taunt was meant for them and in subsequent Soviet editions of Kolas' works, "alien boor" was ineptly replaced by "Pan boor." This delineation harmonizes with Kupala's description of them in his poems written in 1918, Na Schod (To the Meeting) and Kryuda (The Insult) as "unfettered slaves" who had made the Belorussian people's "blood flow" and had "cut their native land to pieces."
When in 1921 Kolas returned home after a long absence, he described the Bolshevik reality he encountered there in the poem Rodnyja malunki (My Own Pictures), as follows:
The blacksmiths are different,
But not the chain:
The songs are all old,
And so is their refrain.
In 1931 the official Bolshevik critic, L. Bende, wrote as follows about this poem:
In Rodnyja malunki, Jakub Kolas depicts the victory of the working class and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship as exchanging one oppressor for another and as the continuation of an old song.8
Kolas' anti-Bolshevism is even more sharply defined in his well-known poem, Bielaruskamu ludu (To the Belorussian People), also written in 1921. He protested against the forcible partition of Belorussia between Bolsheviks and Poles under the Riga Peace Treaty of March 18, 1921, in the following cutting words:
Shall we ever forget the frontiers
Which were traced without us?
The wounds are deep and still fresh!
The fire of revenge is not yet out.
We have been divided — by whom? By strangers,
By knaves of the dark highway.
To the devil with their works! To hell with
the frontiers!
Our fields and woods are here!
We will be our own masters.
We will save our treasure.
Enough of insults! In step with our brothers,
Let us go to free our land.
We see from this poem that the poet makes no distinction whatsoever between Poles and Bolsheviks in their violation of the Belorussian people. Both are the "strangers" and "knaves of the dark highway." Moreover, Kolas does not confine himself to protesting; he calls on the people "to free their land." Elsewhere in the poem, he unequivocally urges the Belorussian people to rise m armed revolt against the occupiers of both parts of the country partitioned by them. He says: "Set yourself free, you people: rend your chains, sing a new song!" Even Kupala, who had at that time also widely shown his hostility for Bolshevism as an alien regime, was not as trenchant in his protests and did not go to the lengths of inciting armed revolt. This poem by Kolas only found its way into the Vodhulle collection thanks to the fact that the Bolshevik censorship had not yet been properly organized and could barely cope with political publications, let alone literary works.
8 L. Bende and A. Kucar, Mataryjaly da narysau pa historyi bielaruskaje literacy (Material for an Outline of the History of Belorussian Literature), Maladniak (Youth), No. 5, Minsk, 1931, p. 107.
Besides the three poems on which we have commented, negative and even hostile attitudes toward Bolshevism and a withdrawal into the so-called "internal emigration"9 to escape Soviet reality may also be detected to a lesser or greater extent in poems by Kolas such as hud stohnie (The People Are Groaning), Nie prasi (Do Not Ask), Daj zimu (Let Me See), Duby (Oaks), Poklic (The Call), Cieni-strachi (The Shadow of Dread) and Zvon sybau (The Windows Ring), etc. Most of these poems were not published in subsequent editions of Kolas' works. Those which were allowed to reappear were accompanied by tendentious interpretations favorable to Bolshevism. Soviet literary critics, particularly in the 1930's, did not miss a single chance of accusing the author of "bourgeois nationalism" on the basis of the poems we have listed. As an example, we shall cite a criticism, typical of its day, of Kolas' poems in the Vodhulle collection:
After the October Revolution, Mickievie (i.e., Kolas) wrote a number of nationalistic poems. The Vodhulle collection, published in 1922 after Mickevic's arrival in the BSSR, contains a number of hostile attacks against the Soviet Union.10
In 1921 a collection of short allegorical stories by Kolas entitled Kazki zyccia (Life's Fairy Tales) was published in Kovno. It contained Kolas' earlier works in this style, written from 1906 on, as well as those produced in 1917—1921. In works of this type, which was a particular favorite with Kolas, he described and solved, in terms of nature and the countryside, important problems in the life of society and individuals. He also dealt with national and social problems of the day and events of "World War I. As with his lyric poems, Kolas' allegories conveyed disagreement with Bolshevik doctrine. Evidently this is why Kazki zyccia were never republished in the Soviet Union. Soviet critics assiduously ignored them, and the fact that they were first published outside the BSSR was probably also not fortuitous. It was only after Kolas' death that the first article devoted to Kazki zyccia11 appeared in the BSSR. The author of this article, A. Siemianovic, noting the national character of the fairy tale Dudar, written in 1906, tries to keep in tune with the modern requirements of national policy and, without there being the slightest grounds for this in the text of the work itself, comes to the following astonishing conclusion:
Unlike nationalists of every hue, who aim at sowing enmity and mistrust between peoples, Jakub Kolas stood for the unity of peoples in their struggle for a better future, thereby reflecting the historical tendency and leaning of the Belorussia people toward its elder brother — the Russian people.12
Kolas showed his high esteem for this style in his work by returning to it not long before his death. He wrote three new "fairy tales from real life" that year and had them published — Jak ptuski dub ratavali (How the Birds Saved the Oak Tree),13 Cvirkun (The Grasshopper)14 and Adzinoki Kurhan (The Solitary Burial Mound).15
The allegorical Kazki zyccia and the short stories which Kolas wrote during the whole of his literary career do not exhaust his works in prose. He also turned his hand to more ambitious projects. In 1921—1922 he wrote his first novel, called U paleskaj hlusy (In the Heart of Polesie), the first part of the "Polesie" trilogy which he had planned. This was followed in 1927 by the second part, entitled U hlybi Polessia (In the Depths of Polesie). In 1948—1954 he wrote the last part, called Na rostaniach (At the Cross-roads), from which the whole trilogy took its name. It is characteristic, and perhaps not fortuitous, that the novel U paleskaj hlusy, first published in 1923, also came out, not in the BSSR, but in Vilna.
Na rostaniach is an autobiographical trilogy. Its action covers the period from 1902, when Kolas became a state schoolteacher, until 1911, when he was discharged from Minsk prison after serving a three-year sentence for revolutionary activities. The main theme of this work is provided by the problem of the Belorussian intelligentsia, of which one section, having been educated to believe in "the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland," had become the mainstay of the anti-popular regime of tsarist autocracy; a second section, as the author himself stated in his preface, was "sinking to the bottom and becoming covered in slime," while a third section, which was morally sound and strong, had established spiritual bonds with the peasant masses and was conducting revolutionary activity among them. The action of the novel unfolds very slowly. Because of its autobiographical nature, it often becomes interwoven with descriptive and reflective matter. Artistically, the first part, U paleskaj hlusy, is particularly outstanding and is a remarkable literary achievement. Despite the revolutionary tendency of the work, official Soviet critics did not take to it kindly, while the Soviet Encyclopedia wrote about it in 1934 as follows:
The themes and ideologies of several novels (e. g., 17 paleskaj hlusy and U hlybi Palessia) treat of the past, which is idealized [by Kolas] and contrasted with the present. In these novels, Mickievic retrospectively creates the image of the ideal Nasa Niva contributor, Labanovic, as a champion of the "Belorussian revival."16
With the completion and publication of his great monumental poems Novaja Ziamla in 1923 and Symon Muzyka in 1925, which the author had begun as far back as 1911 and on which he had later worked intermittently, Kolas' poetic talent reached its zenith.
Against the background of the perenially rich natural scenery of the Niemen valley, Novaja Ziamla depicts the daily life of a village family of the XIX century and a vivid tableau of Belorussian peasant customs. The simple subject of the poems and the slow development of its action merge into descriptions of peasant types, customs, modes of life and work on the land and, particularly, of nature and its phenomena — descriptions which in themselves are remarkable for their artistic qualities and are of documentary importance as a realistic and typical portrayal of the life of the Belorussian village of the time.
The poem clearly brings out the social injustice of the landlessness of the Belorussian peasants and their exploitation by the landlords. To escape dependence, Kolas thinks, the peasant must acquire his own land and this is what the principal hero — Michal — tries to do through the action of the poem. Michal's urge "to buy some land and acquire a hearth of his own, in order to escape the Pan's chains" is set out by the author as follows in the poem:
Where is the way out? Where is the salvation
From grievous bondage and imprisonment?
One only: land, land,
Your own hearth, your own fields;
This is the firmest basis
And life's first condition.
Land will not betray you,
Land will help you and advise you,
Land will give freedom and strength as well,
Land will serve you until your grave,
Land will not abandon your children,
Land is the mainstay of your whole motherland.
In Michal's cherished aspiration, as the dominant idea of the poem, Soviet critics of the 1930's saw, in contrast to Bolshevik doctrine, the apotheosis of private ownership as the only remedy of the peasant's social problems. Later, however, when Kolas was fully rehabilitated, the same critics justified him on the grounds that under the conditions prevailing when the action in the poem took place, the peasants' desire for "land and freedom" was, according to Lenin's precepts, progressive, the more so as Kolas had seemingly shown this urge for private ownership, not as the aim, but as the means — "in order to escape the Pan's chains."17
The main idea of the poem is not alone in being at variance with Communist doctrine. Although the action of the poem takes place before the Revolution, in the chapters written under Soviet rule there are many lyrical digressions. In these lyrical episodes the poet does not conceal his negative and hostile attitude to Bolshevik conditions of the time as being alien to himself and as having been forcibly imposed on the Belorussian people. Thus, in the thirtieth and last chapter, written in 1922—23, Kolas describes the stages through which Novaja Ziamla passed during the course of its composition. Soviet conditions obtaining during the period of Kolas' residence in Soviet Russia (i.e., up to the end of 1921) are here, therefore, presented in a light that is far from favorable.
Parting from one's homeland, the alarm
And involuntary roaming as a vagabond,
The tedious struggle
For the necessities of life
And once again the enemy's heel,..
With its specifically Belorussian problems, its documentary description of Belorussian types in real life, and above all its patriotism, expressed in the poet's sincere love for his native land and people, Novaja Ziamla is one of the most national works which the whole of Belorussian literature has produced. R. Sklut has very accurately defined the importance of the poem and its particular role in Belorussian literature in the following words:
Novaja Ziamla represents to the fullest and most characteristic extent Belorussian literature during the period of the Nasa Niva revival (and even the period immediately preceding) and Kolas' creative work of the time. Since the work was completed and appeared toward the very end of this period, its imposing and monumental character served to round off a whole epoch of Belorussian literature and even of the Belorussian community. Novaja Ziamla, more than any other work, has every right to be considered as a crowning memorial to the Belorussian literary and, in general, national revival.18
As Novaja Ziamla, in all its artistic aspects, is a realistic work, so Symon Muzyka is a poem in the romantic style, and it is as such that it has been unanimously appraised by all Belorussian critics.19 In its present form, Symon Muzyka is the third version of a poem of which the first version was published only in parts before and after World War II. Kolas revised it in 1924, but according to an official announcement the unpublished manuscript of this second version was lost. Kolas then wrote the third version, which greatly differed from the first and second, this time because of the censorship. This final version appeared in 1925.
The first version of Symon Muzyka has the sub-title Kazka zyccia. It was thus included by Kolas in his series of allegorical stories already known to us under the general heading of Kazki zyccia. Although the last version of the poem does not include this sub-title, its original description as Kazka zyccia "provides the key to an understanding of this poem, by means of which it is not only possible to open the door to its treasury of artistic values, but also to find an approach to the secret of its creative history."21
The poem is about a native artist, unfavored and without an artistic education, who makes his way in the world by his own efforts and reveals his inborn talent — a common subject in popular Belorussian and world literature. Symon is the son of a Belorussian village, "unrecognized and unappreciated by anyone," who has even been expelled from home by his own father. He wanders about with his violin as a beggar musician and meets a village girl called Hanna. They fall deeply in love, but their happiness is thwarted by a new personage, introduced at the end of the poem, called Daminik, who causes Hanna to fall incurably ill, physically and mentally. Symon then appears and with his wonderful violin playing makes Hanna well. Together they go into the wide world, never to part from each other again.
The last words of the poem, which are full of deep meaning, prophesy that Symon will be called upon to fulfill a great popular mission and that this role is not yet ended.
I shall say goodbye to Symon:
One circle has been completed here,
And there, taking their usual course,
New circles will begin.
The shore is still far ahead,
The tale about them will be told,
Not by me, but by someone else.
The well-known critic of Symon Muzyka, the literary critic Adam Babareka, who died in exile in 1937, was the first to decipher the allegorical meaning of the poem in his article, published in the BSSR in 1927, called "Jakub Kolas' poem Symon Muzyka."22 This article was reprinted in 1955 in Munich, as a preface to Kolas' poem, by the newspaper Backauscyna (The Fatherland).23 According to his interpretation, which was later universally accepted by free Belorussian literary critics, Symon is the personification of a renascent Belorussian poet, who dedicates his poetic energy to the struggle for the national and social consciousness of the toiling Belorussian people,24 while the "lily-Hanna" is the "symbolic image of Young Belorussia."25 However, Babareka, in providing the allegorical key to the characters of Symon and Hanna, does not say a word about the third personality in the "love triangle" — Daminik. This is quite understandable under Bolshevik conditions, because, according to witnesses on the spot, in intimate literary circles in Minsk, the role of Daminik was then regarded and discussed as the allegorical image of Bolshevism.26
Anti-popular Bolshevism (Daminik) thus seizes Young Belorussia (Hanna) by force and reduces her to a state of unconsciousness. But the poetry of revival (Symon) brings its revitalizing influence into play to restore her to life and to open up the prospects of a bright future. Such is the allegorical meaning of Kolas' poem. The deep national, and concurrently anti-Bolshevik, slant of Symon Muzyka is not only expressed in the subject and its leading characters, but pervades the whole poem and is at its most vivid in its frequent lyrical interpolations and asides. As a literary and artistic work of a profoundly spiritual nature, remarkable for its compositional structure, fine imagery and descriptions, emotional saturation and perfection of rhyme, Symon Muzyka is considered by literary critics to be a veritable gem, not only of Kolas' poetry, but of Belorussian literature as a whole. The aforementioned Adam Babareka, in his article on the poem, came to the following conclusion:
Symon Muzyka is Jakub Kolas' best and most valuable gift to the young renascent Belorussian literature, a gift which will never die in the hearts of a poetic people.27
On the other hand, Bolshevik literary criticism, which did not come into being in Belorussia until early in the 1930's, took a negative view of Symon' Muzyka as a national work at odds with Soviet reality. The two pioneer reviewers, L. Bende and A. Kucar, wrote as follows about the poem in a joint article:
The poem Symon Muzyka symbolically expresses, thanks to some mystical and secret force, the revival of Belorussia in the person of a girl. In this work, Jakub Kolas, drifting far from the life of the peasant masses into realms of unearthly beauty and mystery, allots the task of reviving Belorussia to the artist — Symon the Musician (that is, to the intelligentsia as being capable of reviving the country). Only the artist can awaken and revive the country from a cruel and nightmarish illness. In this work, as in previous work by J. Kolas, the typically idealistic traits of his creations are apparent. The attribution of exceptional mysterious powers to the artist and to art also betrays such idealistic traits.28
After this verdict, which was echoed by other Soviet reviewers, the poem was withdrawn from the school curriculum in Belorussian literature, ignored by literary critics and not reprinted in the BSSR for 21 years. It was reprinted for the first time only in 1946 and was included in 1952 in volume four of the complete edition, in seven volumes, of Kolas' works. In reviews of this publication by V. V. Ivasyn and A. A. Siemianovic, we unexpectedly discover that "the main problem of the poem was the situation of popular art in capitalist society" and that Kolas had argued "the impossibility of the free development of talent in a capitalist society."29 Falsifying the real ideological meaning of the poem and ignoring the "typically idealistic traits" ascribed to it by L. Bende and A. Kucar, both commentators of Symon Muzyka reach astonishing conclusions:
Therefore, in order that intellectual ability should develop freely and art should reach its heyday, it is essential to destroy capitalist society. This is the revolutionary conclusion which Jakub Kolas makes in his poem Symon Muzyka.so
Symon Muzyka was the last work written by Kolas while his conscience was still free. In it, Kolas, although he was hampered by the censorship and had to resort to the allegorical form, nevertheless succeeded in conveying his national and revivalist ideas in all their breadth and in completely ignoring Bolshevik pressure exerted on literature to extol the Soviet regime and its achievements. However, in 1925 — the year when Symon Muzyka was published — he wrote another novel entitled Na prastorach zyccia (The Expanses of Life), which came out in 1926. The action of this story coincides with the time of its writing. This novel was the first significant sign of a breakdown in the writer's conscience and the start of his sovietization. in it young Belorussian peasants, educated in the Bolshevik spirit, break with old traditions and plunge enthusiastically into the whirlpool of the new Soviet life. Attention is mainly focused on the athestic role of these bolshevized young people, as when a group of Komsomol members demolishes a "miraculous sacred well" and destroys the crucifix at a spot where the local Orthodox priest is about to officiate at a traditional service. Doubtless, it was easiest of all for Kolas to demonstrate his positive attitude toward the Soviet regime by stressing the antireligious side of his work, because even in the Nasa Niva period Kolas, among all the Belorussian writers, deeply felt the hurt which a nationally alien clergy was inflicting. He trenchantly asserted that most Orthodox priests were weapons of russification, and Catholic priests vehicles of polonization.
As for other changes, which were begun under Bolshevism but for which it did not necessarily deserve the credit, the poet deals at length in his novel with innovations which were truly beneficial. These were chiefly the considerable opportunities for obtaining an education, which the young people seized, and the initiative and enthusiasm displayed by them in working for the common good, of which the book instances the drainage, through the efforts of the young, of the Hniloje Balota and its transformation into arable land.
All this gives grounds for supposing that in describing the positive achievements of Bolshevism while ignoring its negative sides, Kolas had not yet taken the road to Communism in Va prastorach zyccia, but only that of so-called national Communism. He had not as yet broken with the traditions of the past, rooted in him since Nasa Niva days. This novel did not receive proper acknowledgement by the Bolsheviks, as may be seen, for example, from what the Soviet Encyclopedia said about it:
Even in the novel Na prastorach zyccia, which deals with young people at the workers' faculties, Mickievic looks upon them as the continuers of Nasa Niva ideas and traditions.31
Bolshevik pressure on Kolas in the later 1920's and his resultant spiritual collapse is even more strikingly reflected in his poem Na slachoch voli (On the Road to Freedom). Begun in 1926 and gradually developed into an epic based on World War I materials, this work is conceived in a national and anti-Bolshevik vein. This is particularly apparent in its lyrical episodes and apt remarks regarding Soviet conditions. Thus, in the lyrical introduction to the poem, printed in Polymia revalucyi (Flame of the Revolution), no. 3, 1927, the poet expresses profound alarm at the thought that "storm clouds would arise like a black host" to cross his creative path and "meet him with a dreadful noise in his solitary wanderings." This prospect, however, of "solitary wanderings" does not frighten the poet, who firmly declares:
The road, I know, is hard,
But on this road
I will write a poem to the country
Which in the darkness seeks an exit...
Throughout the years 1926—29 the poem continued to be written in a similar vein. Even in the twelfth chapter, printed in Polymia revalucyi, no. 6, 1929, and in its lyrical introduction, the poet freely acknowledges that he cannot and will not write in accordance with the demands of the Soviet critics, notwithstanding such accusations levelled at him by these critics as that he is "far removed from life," that he is "incapable of striking the proper note in his poems" or that he "has not the strength to refrain from deviation and depict the man of our day." In the following chapter, however, written in the early part of 1930, we find repentance, an acceptance of the demands of the Soviet critics and a declaration of his willingness to make his contribution to socialist construction. Here Kolas brings in a "man of our day" — the Bolshevik Skund — and abandons his Belorussian theme in order to portray the Bolshevik Revolution in the army and the capitals of Russia Publication of the poem was interrupted in 1936, but the poet did not abandon his intention of completing it. World War II found the poet still at work, but during the Minsk fire the poet's house was destroyed and with it the unfinished manuscript of the poem.32 A year before his death, the poet rewrote parts XXVII and XXVIII,33 which appeared in Polymia (The Flame), together with the author's explanation of what had happened to the earlier manuscript and the announcement that he was about "to undertake the completion of the poem."34
1929—1930 saw the beginning of an open and resolute onslaught by Bolshevism on national life in the Belorussian SSR, and above all against Belorussian literature. Kupala and Kolas, as the leading representatives of this literature and its national poets, attracted the sharpest attacks of all. Under the weight of Bolshevik moral and physical terror, they were completely deprived of their freedom of creative work. For Kolas, the beginning of this new period was marked by his official, and of course compulsory, repentance, which appeared in the newspaper Sovetskaya Belorussiya (Soviet Belorussia) on December 14, 1930. In it he condemned his own errors and declared that he was "categorically breaking with national democracy."35 The same lot befell both Kolas and Kupala, but individually they reacted differently to the new political circumstances.
Kupala's unsuccessful attempt to kill himself in 1930 in protest against Bolshevik coercion and his suicide in 1942 are the best evidence of how the national tragedy of the Belorussian people was equally the private tragedy of Kupala.36 During this period Kupala wrote little and badly. If he wrote poems in a pro-Soviet vein, he did so to order and almost exclusively about day-to-day Soviet life. He concentrated his talent on translating into Belorussian the works of foreign — mostly prerevolutionary — writers. All this clearly demonstrates that in fact the poet boycotted contemporary Soviet life.37
Jakub Kolas, unlike Kupala, continued after 1930 to write much and well, describing Soviet reality favorably and with undisguised enthusiasm. In Kalhasnaje (Collective Farms), a series of poems written in 1930, and Adscapieniec (The Renegade), published in 1931, he extolled the kolkhoz system and justified the "destitution of the kulaks" and the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class." New lyrical poems by Kolas, which appeared in the collections Nasy dni (Our Days) (1937) and Pod stalinskim soncam (Under Stalin's Sun) (1940), are dedicated to various achievements of growing socialism. In 1933 a big novel, Dryhva (Quagmire), came out as part of the "Polesie" series. This novel calls for comment.
Despite its political tendentiousness, Dryhva is in our view artistically the best work in prose that Kolas wrote. The subject is based on materials concerning peasant uprisings against the Poles during the Soviet-Polish war of 1920. It is shown in constant action and movement and unfolds against a background of short but vivid and artistically executed sketches of the lush countryside of Polesie. The main theme of the narrative is the fight waged against Polish legionaries by the partisan detachment of Talas. It is skilfully interwoven with the love of Martyn Ryl for Auhinia. The author describes their love with profound lyricism. The sketches of some of the negative characters are somewhat unrealistic and smack of commonplace caricature. On the other hand, some of the positive types — the peasants, and above all Talas himself — are truly and realistically drawn. Possibly this is because the Bolshevism of these characters is shown to be still superficial and because outwardly it does not greatly affect their personal experiences.
The author shows the Poles in Dryhva to be the sworn enemies of the Belorussian people and the Bolsheviks, by contrast, in the best possible light as the Belorussians' sincere friends and protectors. Kolas, obedient to the Communist thesis, splits his peasant up into two mutually hostile classes. Evidence that in Dryhva the author has overreached himself in his desire to keep in line with Bolshevik national policy of the time may be found in his sketch of the completely fortuitous and, for the book, unnecessary Belorussian nationalist Halynic in the role of agent of the Polish bourgeoisie. The author even tries to discredit the historical role of the first Belorussian journals Nasa Dola and Nasa Niva. Putting the words into Halynic's mouth, he attributes to these journals veiled service in the interests of the Polish bourgeoisie and Catholicism. Kolas was to repeat this tendentious and irresponsible charge against the leading organs of the Belorussian revival in Na rostaniach, completed in 1954. What leaves a bad impression is the circumstance that Kolas was, during the period described in Dryhva, as much a nationalist as Halynic, only without the stigma, ineptly ascribed to the latter, of being a Polish agent. Moreover, it was the ideas of Nasa Dola and Nasa Niva that helped the poet to form the basic outlines of his world outlook.
Kolas also wrote drama, but this style did not play a serious role in his creative work. Already before World War I, he had written two short dramatic works, Antos Lata and Na darozie zyccia (On the Road of Life) and later Zabastouscyki (The Strikers). After this, some time elapsed before he wrote anything more in this genre. He then dramatized the novel Dryhva and called it U puscach Palessia. In 1937 he published a long drama called Vajna vajnie (War Against War). As with the poem Na slachoch voli, Kolas began to write this drama in 1926 on the basis of historical material taken from World War I and the transition from imperialistic to civil war. Possibly it was the author's intention that it should be simply a dramatic version of Na slachoch voli. As in the case of the poems Symon Muzyka and Na slachoch voli, the poet revised the play several times along Bolshevik and Soviet lines.
Thus, the first part of the play appeared in the second issue for 1926 of the periodical Polymia revalucyi, while the complete text was prinfed under the same title in Polymia, Nos. 11—12 for 1931. Further, in Polymia, No. 10, 1936, there appeared a new version of the play under the title Vajna vajnie. As is indicated by the date given at the end of the Russian translation of this work in volume four of the complete edition of Kolas' works (Moscow, 1952), the final version of the play was made or completed in 1938. In all four versions the tendency is toward the play's sovietization. The chief character, who at first was a teacher of a type usual for Kolas and reminiscent of Labanovic in the story U paleskaj hlusy, turned more and more into an unthinking and even a deliberate Bolshevik. The author even bolshevized the peasants and removed from his text their completely realistic sayings and expressions of a religious character and in general passages that were inadequately "worked out ideologically." These repeated revisions of the play provide the most convincing proof that the writer was compelled by Bolshevik pressure to accommodate himself to the official Soviet line.
The period of World War II, which he spent in Uzbekistan after being evacuated from Belorussia, was also fairly fruitful in Kolas' literary career. During the war, Kolas wrote many poems on political and military subjects of the day. They were published in separate collections entitled Radzimie-Pravadyru (To Homeland and Leader) (1941), Vybranyja viersy (Selected Poems) (1942), and Holas ziamli (The Voice of the Land). At the same time he wrote two poems about the partisan war in Belorussia called Sud и lesie (Trial in the Forest) (1943) and Adplata (Retribution) (1495).
Of all the works written by Kolas after Dryhva, Soviet literary critics give first place to his poem Chata rybaka (The Fisherman's Hut). It took him seven years (1940—1947) to compose this work, which is devoted to the life of Belorussians in West Belorussia and its incorporation in the BSSR in 1939.38
Kolas' last big work was the novel Na rostaniach, which we have already mentioned. It was completed in 1954 and became part three of the Polesie trilogy bearing the same name. Kolas ended his fifty years of literary activity by trying to complete Na slachoch voli, which nevertheless remained unfinished.
*
From this brief chronological review of Kolas' literary heritage we can clearly see that the turning point in the creative work of the poet was 1930, a tragic year for the Belorussian people as a whole. All but a few works written by Kolas and his literary contemporaries before 1930 are an organic and inalienable part of Belorussian national literature. The works of this first period are of immense importance in this literature, in which Kolas, equally with Kupala, played a leading role. On the other hand, Kolas' post-1930 works were, by force of political circumstances, in tune with Soviet demands, which called for the fulfilment of certain social requirements advanced by the Party. In assessing the artistic merit of Kolas' literary production, it becomes apparent that it is only in this first period that the poet, when he was still spiritually free, produced truly artistic works and rendered immortal service to the development of Belorussian literature. The works of the first period bear no comparison with those of the second period, when the poet had to write in accordance with Party directives and became a prisoner of so-called socialist realism.
The high Soviet honors and posts held by the poet, mentioned at the beginning of this article, seem out of proportion to his services to Bolshevism. The services themselves bear the heavy burden of the national character of Kolas' creative work during the Nasa Niva period and of its undisguisedly anti-Bolshevik nature in the 1920's. This anomaly provides grounds for supposing that the honors and high positions enjoyed by the Belorussian poet were not conferred for his services to Bolshevism, but were only tactical moves to exploit his great popularity with the Belorussian people for the purposes of Bolshevik propaganda and politics. If, for example, before he had become completely sovietized, Kolas had not written the works which earned him his popularity and universal recognition as the greatest Belorussian national poet after Kupala, the Bolsheviks would have seen no need to exaggerate his services to Communism.
UZVYSSA — The Belorussian Literary Club
A. ADAMOVIC
Last year marked the thirtieth anniversary of the founding in March-May 1926 of the Belorussian literary club Uzvyssa (Excelsior), and the twenty-fifth anniversary of its dissolution in December 1931. The years immediately preceding the founding of Uzvyssa and the six years in which it was active are among the most interesting in the history of Belorussian literature. They are at the same time years of the most deliberate, persistent and bold opposition under the leadership of Uzvyssa to the forcible sovietization of Belorussian literature.
In the official Soviet history of Belorussian literature, these years are a conspicious blank. Uzvyssa is rarely alluded to and factual detail is avoided, merely in order to condemn it. For the first time a voice arguing for a remedy to this situation was raised recently, during the destalinization campaign, in the Soviet Belorussian newspaper Litaratura г Mastactva (Literature and Art):
At one time crude sociological criticism declared Uzvyssa a counterrevolutionary nationalistic organization and all the writers belonging to it bourgeois nationalists. We cannot rid ourselves of this cliche... and at every opportunity we consider a writer's belonging to Uzvyssa as his great sin. How long are we to reproach Kuzma Corny, Kandrat Krapiva, Zmitrok Biadula, Piatro Hlebka and others with this? It is extremely difficult for us, researchers of the younger generation, to gain an understanding of everything said before, especially since we have long been accustomed to pronounce the names of many writers with contempt, wrongfully calling them enemies of the people. I appeal to our older writers to speak up in the press and to state their views as to what represents the facts and what is the result of pure invention.1
It is highly doubtful whether anyone could have given a full answer to the question asked, an answer that "represents the facts." It is therefore incumbent on those of us living in the free world who are able to furnish an answer to tell the whole truth. This year's anniversaries provide a fine occasion for doing so.
Until 1923 Belorussian literature was dominated by a single literary-movement, the Belorussian New Renaissance, which originated in 1906—1909 and which is associated chiefly with the names of the Belorussian classical poets and writers Janka Kupala, Jakub Kolas, Maksim Bahdanovic, Ales Harun and Maksim Harecki. In 1920 the consummation of the New Renaissance began bringing to its conclusion the whole epoch it had dominated. A new literary generation had begun to bestir itself and its initial efforts gave promise of new trends in Belorussian literature. As early as 1920 this new movement appeared in Polish-occupied Western Belorussia, in the first poetic experiments of Uladzimier Zylka and also in the poetry of Natalia Arsiennieva, who began writing in 1921.
The situation in Soviet Belorussia, then the center of the New Renaissance movement, was somewhat different. Here, too, there was an occasional young writer of the same pioneering type, but literature was dominated by New Renaissance writers. Young writers were forced to seek an outlet outside the BSSR and were most successful in "Western Belorussia. In 1921, for example, the young poet Uladzimier Dubouka, who later was to play in the new movement a role analogous to that of Kupala and Bahdanovic in the New Renaissance, was vainly trying to place his first works in Minsk periodicals. It was not until 1922 that he managed to get some of them printed in the literary journal Maladaja Bielarus (Young Belorussia), published in Moscow, where the young poet was then studying under Valeri Bryusov. Dubouka finally succeeded in having his first collection of poems, Stroma (Stream), published in 1923 by one of the Belorussian publishing companies in Vilna, having smuggled the manuscript across the Soviet frontier. Thus Dubouka actually contributed to the literature of Western Belorussia, remaining virtually unknown on his own side of the frontier.
Almost until 1924 only those young writers who followed both the artistic and ideological principles of the New Renaissance movement thrived in Soviet Belorussia. They combined these principles, sometimes rather fancifully, with revolutionary and Communistic phraseology. At first this phraseology seemed to differ only superficially from the work of the older poets, but it soon became the source of another new trend in Belorussian literature. The initiators of this trend were Michas Carot, who had made his literary debut in 1919 as a poet of the New Renaissance under his real name Kudzielka, and the poets Ales Dudar and Andrej Aleksandrovic, both of whom had begun publishing in 1921.
Thus, the men who were to initiate new trends in Belorussian literature were already active in the concluding period of the New Renaissance, and during the year 1922—23 the distinctive traits of these trends became clearly defined. The pioneers of the new literary movement in Western Belorussia accepted the basic idea of the New Renaissance, treating it, however, not as a goal but as a starting point for further development. They apparently felt that the Belorussian nation and its literature had already been "reborn" and were now ready to take the next step—to begin actually living. The idea of life and vitality was the keynote and appeared in all attempts to give this movement a name. In May 1923 Jazep Pusca, Adam Babareka and Nicypar Carnusevic suggested the name "Vitaism" (from the Latin vita) for the new movement.2 Later Babareka proposed Ujaulennie (Revival),3 which will be used in this article.
The principle of motion was fundamental to this idea of life and vitality. Uladzimier Dubouka frequently quoted the words, "Whatever is without motion dies,"4 while Zylka felt that he was "intoxicated with movement." At times it seemed as if the early Revivalists valued motion for its own sake; in one of his early poems Dubouka wrote: "run, run, not for any goal as yet."5 However, consciousness of a goal appeared early in the works of the Revivalists and was most brilliantly formulated in the following lines by Dubouka, which became part of the program for the whole movement:
O, Belorussia! I pray for thee, By thy path I shall come to the wide world, Among peoples and nations I shall spread Like the bold wind in the rye, in the oats.
Thus, the goal of the Revivalists was the emergence of the Belorussian nation in the international arena—a goal which Maksim Bahdanovic had already marked out in 1915 for the post-Renaissance literature of Belorussia.6
The new Belorussian literary movement which was developing at the same time on Soviet territory had no goals beyond the ideas of the New Renaissance. To those who initiated this movement, the Renaissance still seemed far from fulfillment, even in its early humanistic goal of restoring human dignity. For example, in a poem written on April 27, 1922, Michas Carot was still exclaiming, "We shall suffer countless misfortunes in order to be called human."-7 At this time Carot felt that he differed from the New Renaissance writers only in the "rebelliousness" evinced by his use of revolutionary and Communistic phraseology. It was this "rebelliousness" which led Aleksandrovic to create the neologism burapiena (Storm-foam), which became the nickname for the movement.8
These new movements were fostered by new literary journals. The first to appear was the monthly Polymia (Flame), which initially appeared in December 1922 under the editorship of Zmitro Zylunovic. The early numbers of this journal devoted much attention to the "burapienists," giving considerably less space to the young poets of the Revival. These numbers carried only one or two poems by Dubouka and by Pusca, who published his initial works there under his real name, Plascynski, and also under his first pseudonym, "Lasun," which he soon abandoned.
In 1923, however, another Belorussian journal, Kryvic, appeared; this was published in Kovno, in Lithuania. Although none of the Belorussian writers on Soviet soil contributed to this periodical, its editor, Vaclau tastouski, foreshadowed in his own poetry the ideology and style that the Revivalists were to develop. Kryvic influenced and stimulated Revivalists in Soviet Belorussia, for at that time it was still possible to get copies across the frontier. Being published in democratic Lithuania, Kryvic freely voiced anti-Bolshevik views, which the Revivalists tried later to express by those means open to them.
Also in 1923, a third Belorussian literary journal, Maladniak (Youth), was published in Minsk. Destined for a time to be the focal point of the new Belorussian literary movements, it was modelled on the Russian periodical Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard), first published in Moscow in April 1922. Like the latter, Maladniak was inspired by the Komsomol. Edited by Carot, it immediately became the center for all "burapienist" activities and the organ of that movement. In addition, this new periodical proved to be more disposed than Polymia to accept the work of young poets of the Revival. Toward the end of its first year of publication, the editors of Maladniak and the Revivalists decided to organize around the periodical an "all-Belorussian union of poets and writers," which was to bear the same name. Actually, the only pure Revivalists in the organizing group were Pusca and Babareka; most members were "burapienists": Carot, Aleksandrovic, Dudar and Volny.9 Soon, however, Dubouka joined the group, and then, although still dominated by the "burapienists," the club began to represent a definite union of the two new Belorussian literary trends. Carot was both president of the union and editor of the journal.
The common basis for the two movements was evidently their rejection of past literary tendencies and their search for a new means of poetic expression. However, their differences had already been definitely formulated and were bound to produce conflicts, so that the union lasted somewhat less than two years. Its initial strength and effectiveness is demonstrated by the amazing rapidity of its growth: the number of members is said to have risen as high as five hundred and even a thousand.10 Either figure is truly astronomical for a Belorussian literary union, even though the majority of members were only embryonic poets and writers, many of whom never went beyond the beginner stage. These figures show the mass attraction of literature in Belorussia at that time.
The mass impulse toward literature was only part of a larger movement created by the territorial expansion of the BSSR which occurred at this time. This change resulted from the adoption by the Bolsheviks of a new policy toward the nationality question, a policy popularly nicknamed the "Nationality NEP." This dated from April 1923, when the nationality question was given priority at the Twelfth Congress of the All-Union Communist Party. A month earlier the Twelfth All-Belorussian Communist Conference had adopted a resolution stating:
The age-old oppression of nationalities and the russifying policy of the tsarist Government have not given Belorussian culture an opportunity for normal development. The Communist Party, in complete agreement with its policy in relation to the question of nationalities, must take all measures for facilitating work in the Belorussian language and creating normal conditions for the development of Belorussian culture.11
Subsequent Party congresses and conferences implemented this resolution by calling for practical measures; the program of the "Nationality NEP" was being pushed through on an "all-Union scale." Although these resolutions called more for the encouragement of national languages than for the development of national culture, some revealed a purely NEP liberalism. For example, a resolution of the Sixth ("Nationality") Session of the Central Committee of the АН-Union Communist Party (June 9—12, 1923), stated that a Communist in remote areas should remember that he must make certain concessions to national elements, which can work loyally within the framework of the Soviet system.12
The success of the Belorussian national movement in the first elections to the Polish parliament in 1922 caught the attention of the Bolsheviks, and they began to explore the possibility of attracting the Western (Polish) Belorussians to their side. The Western Belorussian press pointed out, however, that the problem of Belorussia could never be settled so long as the Soviets continued to consider a large part of Belorussian ethnic territory in the RSFSR as "purely Russian soil." This problem had been cautiously and unsuccessfully raised more than once by the National Communists in Soviet Belorussia. Now, however, the Twelfth Belorussian Party Conference of March 1923 included in the resolution quoted above a clause calling for the assimilation of "neighboring related areas" into the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.13 Thus, on February 4, 1924, "the first enlargement of Belorussia" was made by the addition of most of the districts of the former Vitebsk and Mogilev Provinces. Although an even larger area of Belorussian territory remained part of the RSFSR, the move had great significance for the further national development of Belorussia.
These events could not help but impress nationally-minded Belorussians. This was especially true of those on the Polish side, who were least experienced in dealing with the Bolsheviks. With the aim of preparing and carrying through an uprising in Western Belorussia, the Belorussian Hramada (Union of Peasants and Workers) was founded in June 1924 and rapidly grew to a size unprecedented for Belorussian political parties. In Soviet Belorussia, also, national leaders were strongly impressed by the measures taken and progress made by the Bolsheviks and were ready to work for national independence even at the cost of doing so within the Soviet system. Even the leaders of the New Renaissance began to return from their "inner emigration" and to accept the Nationality NEP.
II
During the last quarter of 1925 and the whole of 1926 uninterrupted activity and growth was to be observed in Belorussian literature and in Belorussian cultural development generally. This period was the high point of the "Nationality NEP" in the BSSR. The two plenary sessions of the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party held in January and October 1925 urged that belorussification and the creation of a national culture be encouraged.14 The plenary sessions of March and July 1926 approved participation of the -Belorussian intelligentsia in the process of national development, with the idea of bringing it closer "to the views of the working class." The July session gave special attention to literature as "a means of exerting cultural and political influence on the masses." It recommended "giving more attention to the political education of Maladniak and other organizations and also recommended working to bring writers and literary men in general closer to the Soviet regime, while carefully and tactfully correcting their errors and deviations."15 The next plenary session of the Central Committee, held in October, declared that nationalistic deviations in Belorussia "had lost their keenness."16 This unique declaration marks the point of greatest liberalism in the Soviet treatment of nationalism in Belorussia. The same session resolved to belorussify the Communist Party itself: "The entire Belorussian Communist Party must use the Belorussian language."17 Finally, on December 6, 1926, the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was enlarged for the second time by the addition of two districts of the Gomel Province.18 Although this addition was much smaller than that of 1924 and still left a large part of Belorussian ethnic territory in the RSFSR, it testified to the continued interest of Soviet leaders in the Belorussian national problem.
In October 1926 an "academic conference" on the Belorussian language was held in Minsk. To it were invited almost all the Belorussian national leaders outside the Soviet borders. Behind the scenes at the conference these national leaders were strongly propagandized about the success of Belorussian national development in the BSSR and its prospects for the future. At the same time national leaders took advantage of this opportunity to work out a unified course of action for the national movement. Some of them, notably the "Revivalists" Zylka and Lastouski, decided to remain in the BSSR. Belorussian literature was further encouraged and stimulated at this time by the .evidence, provided by the "Trotsky-Zinovev bloc," that opposition within the Party could exist.
These political events were matched on the literary front by the "special liveliness" and "rich dynamics" which one of the most critical observers of "the literary events of 1926," 2mitro Eylunovic, acknowledged as characteristic of that front.19 The group of younger writers in Maladniak, the "Revivalists," were especially active during this period, a fact which was outwardly manifested largely by the split which occurred within Maladniak. In the spring of 1926 the adherents of the Revivalist movement broke away and formed their own literary club, which they called Uzvyssa (Excelsior). This split was to be expected in view of the different trends of the two groups comprising Maladniak: the Revivalists and the "burapienists." Official Bolshevik critics have overlooked this fact and have attributed the split to the process of "differentiation" going on within the club. The National-Communist critic Ales Siankievic was right, however, in his supposition that the first sign of "differentiation" in the ranks of Maladniak was the appearance of Dubouka's book of poems Tryscio (The Reed), published in Minsk in the summer of 1925.20
In Nia dzivisia (Do Not Be Surprised), the opening poem of this collection, the second to be published by Dubouka, he formulates and develops the basic idea of "revival." The idea of life and vitality as motion Dubouka now deepens to include the concepts of struggle and progress: "Do not be surprised: never in the world does life move without struggle." The writers of the New Renaissance had also believed that life consists of motion and struggle, but they conceived the process as cyclic, the motion and struggle continually recurring in one and the same place. Dubouka's concept, on the other hand, is based on the idea of gradual progress—not always, perhaps, in a straight line but still, unchangeably and inevitably, progress, higher and ever higher—"excelsior":
Descend ye to the dale from Excelsior
To ascend again and excelsior!21
Hence the word Uzvyssa was adopted as the name of the new literary club, and the Revivalist movement itself soon became known as uzvysenstva (Excelsiorism).22
The "burapienists" meanwhile had completely accepted the official view of literature as "a means of exerting cultural and political influence on the masses." Thus, while the Revivalists were striving upward, "excelsior," the "burapienists" were carrying out Party directives, bringing political education and propaganda down to the masses. The differences between the two movements had crystallized, and a split within Maladniak had become inevitable.
Through personal contact with those involved, the author is well familiar with the behind-the-scenes story of the split between the Revivalists and the burapienists." Since that story has never appeared in print, it will be described here in some detail. In the autumn of 1925, shortly after the publication of Tryscio, Dubouka realized the need for a break and for the formation of a separate organization that would unite the literary forces of the Revivalist movement. The first to join him was the prose writer Michas Zarecki, who, a little later, had independently come to the same conclusion. The two writers began to look for sympathizers and at once found them in Jazep Pusca and Nicypar Carnusevic. Soon after the matter came to the attention of the Party leadership, which attempted to embroil the dissidents among themselves. This attempt was partly successful, but Dubouka and Pusca not only remained friends but even drew closer together and did not give up their idea. They succeeded in attracting the critic Adam Babareka to their side, though he had been trying to heal the breach between the two factions.
Dubouka, Pusca and Babareka advanced more cautiously than the first "conspirators." They were also helped by the precedent of a similar Ukrainian literary group, Vaplite (Vilna akademiya proletarsky literatury, Free Academy of Proletarian Literature), which was organized in December 1925 after a similar split and which resembled the Revivalist movement in its op-positional and nationalist tendencies as well as in certain artistic objectives. The example of this group proved an encouraging influence, and more and more writers joined the three. Among these were the prose writer Kuzma Corny, the satirist Kandrat Krapiva, the playwright Vasil Sasalevic and also several younger Maladniak poets who were still students at that time, including Trus, Hlebka, Luzanin and Darozny. On March 25, 1956 (the anniversary of Belorussia's national independence), the group made its final decision to break away. Two days later, in order not to attract attention by the "counterrevolutionary" nature of the date chosen, it declared its intention to leave Maladniak and to set up a new literary club. Its declaration was supported by appropriately long-winded "Theses" worked out during the days of "tactical" delay.
Although the split occurred during a relatively liberal period, putting such a decision into effect was no simple matter. The affair was taken all the way up to the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party, where it was studied for some two months. The chief obstacle was that the new club did not contain a single Party member and only one Komsomol member, Pauluk Trus, who had not been sufficiently active and did not have sufficient seniority in the Komsomol to be considered reliable. It must have seemed undesirable to have this group leave Maladniak, which was permeated, controlled and even headed by Party and Komsomol members, and to let it form its own organization without the supervision of some vigilant Party "eye" or "ear." Agents were again set to work to create provocations and to use persuasion and threats—but this time to no avail. Finally, at the end of May 1926, the Revivalists were allowed to leave Maladniak and to form their own literary club, Uzvyssa, in accordance with the "Theses" presented by the group. For security's sake, the Central Committee attached one of its officials to the new organization as a kind of "political commissar"—Ales Siankievic, who later became a literary critic.
While the Central Committee was still "studying the question," a New Renaissance writer, Zmitrok Biadula, announced his desire to join the new group and was joyously welcomed among its founders. Efforts were made to attract Janka Kupala to the new group, since to a large extent the entire movement had evolved from his work. Kupala had a very high opinion of Dubouka. He even told the latter when they first met, "I am only Derzhavin; you are Pushkin," implying that he was merely Dubouka's predecessor and that Dubouka would be the classic poet of Belorussian literature. Other young poets were jealous and some tried to turn Kupala against Dubouka. They did not succeed in doing so but did manage to turn Kupala's wife against Dubouka. Since her influence on her husband in questions of practical policy was decisive, she was able to keep Kupala from joining the new group.
The newspapers announcing the official founding of the new club also carried a letter of withdrawal from its only Komsomol member, Trus, on whom pressure had been exerted. At the same time letters were published by the poets Nicypar Carnusevic and Anatol Volny announcing their withdrawal from Maladniak. Carnusevic did not join Uzvyssa, because the machinations of the agents who had tried to break up the "conspiracy" had resulted in disagreements between him and the Uzvyssa leaders; Volny tried to join the new group to serve as an intelligence agent, but he was not admitted.
Before Uzvyssa succeeded in publishing its "Theses," it had to come out with a special lengthy "communique" stating its position and clearing up doubts and suspicions about the schism. The "communique," which was also delayed for a fairly long time for official examination, appeared on December 15, 1926, in the newspaper Savieckaja Bielarus (Soviet Belorussia).23 One of the basic points of this "communique" was the distinction it made between the mass tendencies of "burapienism" (which followed the official line) and true artistic creation. "Political enlightenment for political enlightenment," the "communique" stated, "and literary clubs for the development of literature."-4 "Create the journalists, the men of Maladmak, if you are not capable of creating art. Perhaps journalistic writings will be a substitute for artistic works. In this case we shall not be your fellow-travelers."25 Critics of the "communique" declared at once that the slogan meant "art for art's sake," and it is true that both tormuias demand a certain independence for art. The "communique," however, also stated that the primary duty of literature was "the development of a new kind of citizen and human being."26 This slogan was also attacked, and not without justice, as a manifestation of "classless literature." There can be no question that the slogan is oppositional when compared with the official slogan for literature: "political education of the masses." This point, however, was an important one for the authors of the "communique," as in their minds it was related to the basic idea of progress—"Excelsior." The Tezisy da pytannia ab utvarenni Uzvyssa (Theses on the1 Formation of Uzvyssa), although written earlier, could not be published until the beginning of 1927, when they appeared in the first issue of the movement's own organ, Uzvyssa. They were written in a more or less academic style, but in places were equally polemic in tone. They began with a detailed historical and literary analysis of the New Renaissance movement, then went on to analyze the contemporary situation in Belorussian literature. This analysis emphasized for the first time the existence of two opposing literary move merits—"burapienism" and Revivalism—and formulated their basic differences. The Fifth Thesis contrasted the didactic, banal literature of the "burapienists" with the artistic aims of the new group, which sought to create its own art, based on a rich cultural heritage and the study of contemporary life. The "burapienists," it maintained, produced only literary sweets or threats in order to solve day-to-day assignments and to secure the interests of the writer by following the official line. It need hardly be said that this was directed at the powers behind the "burapienists"—the Bolsheviks. The Sixth Thesis declared that "art must attain excelsior heights." This idea of "excelsiorism"—"not to compose odes and hymns about `excelsior heights' but to create them"—runs through all the following theses. Thesis Eight lists the methods by which this is to be achieved:
(a) cultural development of the Belorussian language; (b) symbolism of social value; (c) concentration of imagery; (d) dynamism of composition; (e) cultivation of typically Belorussian genres; (f) unity of the creative literary idea; (g) variety of formal realities;27 (h) akvityzm.28
The Ninth Thesis gave the final slogan for the creation of a Belorussian literature, as "excelsior heights that will be seen by centuries and nations." Thus, the new group continued and developed the ideas of the New Renaissance as they had been outlined by Bahdanovic and developed by Kupala.
It would be incorrect to consider Uzvyssa as a phenomenon peculiar to Belorussian literature. During the NEP similar movements arose all over the Soviet Union in Russian as well as non-Russian literature. The Vaplite movement in the Ukraine has already been mentioned. The Russian literary club Pereval (The Turning Point) was close to Uzvyssa in aim and spirit; the special "declaration" that it issued in 1927 contained the same idea of "excelsior heights," or progress, and the same opposition to the standardization and primitivism of official "pro-mass" literature.29 The Pereval declaration could not have influenced Uzvyssa's "Theses," since it came out later; the two represent a similar reaction to the official attitude toward literature, a reaction developing under similar circumstances. The kinship of the two groups was later demonstrated by the fact that the Pereval poet Eduard Bagritsky translated poems by Dubouka and Pusca.
Uzvyssa writers were boycotted by the only existing Belorussian literary journals, Maladniak and Polymia, and even by newspapers. Only Cyrvony Siejbit (Red Sower), the literary supplement to the peasant newspaper Biela-ruskaja Vioska (Belorussian Countryside), was receptive. However, it did not give them much scope for development because of its specialized audience and because it was extremely limited in both the size and number of its issues. Finally, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Belo-russia allocated a small subsidy from his own fund so that the movement could set up its own journal, Uzvyssa, the first issue of which came out in January 1927. Because of limited funds, the editors worked without compensation and for the entire first year also refused fees for their works published in Uzvyssa. However, the number of suscribers rose so rapidly that circulation soon exceeded that of the well-established Maladniak and Polymia. Uzvyssa became financially independent, a fact which demonstrates the interest of readers in a journal published by an organization free of Party ties and independent of, or even opposed to, official policy.
III
At the end of 1926 and beginning of 1927 the first signs of a new reactionary trend toward the restriction of Belorussian national development appeared. Of course, these signs were not so obvious at the time as they now seem in retrospect; then, undoubtedly, the sudden crushing of Hramada in January 1927 by the Polish authorities in Western Belorussia made a greater impression. The provocative and treasonable role of the Bolsheviks in this debacle was also not immediately apparent. At the time, it was clear only that this disaster meant the end of all hopes placed on the national movement in Western Belorussia.
Signs of the trend toward the restriction of national development may be found as early as 1926, when the resolution of the Tenth Congress of the Belorussian Communist Party subordinated the development of a national culture to economic development; in the economic field the resolution called for "the closest cooperation and coordination with the development of the entire USSR."30 Particularly significant was the emphasis on taking "into special account the movement of National Democratic elements of the intelligentsia to positions of aggressive Belorussian nationalism."31 This statement did not reflect any real change in the "aggressiveness" of Belorussian opposition; rather did it indicate a change in the attitude of the Bolsheviks, who now planned to take the offensive. Their attack on national development m the guise of "Belorussian nationalism" proceeded slowly during the period 1927—28 and did not fully develop until 1929—30.
The first objective of the new offensive was the theater, which the Bolsheviks considered "the most powerful weapon for influencing the masses" and hence particularly important. They spared no funds for developing the quarter in the direction they desired, of course. During the winter season of 1926-27 Kupala's Tutejsyja (Natives) and his translation of Zulawski's bros and Psyche, Euripides' Bacchae and the first work by a young Uzvyssa playwright, Vasil Sasalevic, entitled Apramietnaja (Lower Regions) were withdrawn from Belorussian theaters, an action which had never been taken before. Most of these plays had been produced by the Second Belorussian ate Theater, which had been organized in 1926 under the auspices of the Moscow Arts Theater and which was comparable in the sphere of drama to Uzvyssa in literature. The plays withdrawn show that the offensive was not merely directed at manifestations of opposition and nationalism but also at genuine works of art that were not designed to "influence the masses" in the desired direction. Euripides' play, for example, certainly cannot be suspected of "counterrevolutionary" tendencies.
The fact that Sasalevic's Apramietnaja was among the plays withdrawn is worthy of note. Sasalevic dramatized the basic idea of Uzvyssa—progress— which he interpreted as an "excelsior" movement of the national spirit, liberated from the "lower regions" of denationalization. In the play the national spirit overcomes the evil plots of the crafty Wizard of the East, doing so with the help of the Black Lily of the West,32 which sympathizes with the people. Naturally, the whole concept of the play and the brilliant allegory of its presentation (the Bolsheviks were always particularly suspicious of allegory) could not be acceptable to the Bolsheviks. Although its high artistic value was admitted even by the most hostile critics,33 Apramietnaja was attacked as a "pseudo-fairy tale, stuffed with allegory and symbolism," as embodying "symbols of the nationalistic intelligentsia" and "equivocal ideas."34 Certain specific points in the play also aroused the indignation of the Communists; for example, denationalization (i. e., russification) was allegorically depicted as "turning into dogs." This play was the first work of Uzvyssa to become a victim of Bolshevik censorship: it was withdrawn after the third performance and it never appeared in print.
It was at the beginning of this new official reactionary trend that publication of Uzvyssa began. The first four issues (December 1926—September 1927) carried Zmitrok Biadula's novel Salaviej (Nighingale),35 which represents the first reaction of Uzvyssa to the new trend. In it Biadula uses an historical narrative of the feudal era to "re-clothe" contemporary events: episodes from the history of a serf theater are employed to depict the Bolsheviks' change of attitude toward the Belorussian theater, art and national development in general. Babareka noted this "re-clothing" in his review of Salaviej and cautiously called its historical aspect "somewhat decorative."36 A critic of the hostile Maladniak camp found the novel not authentically historical and declared there had been no effort to make it so.37
Biadula extended the method of historical "re-clothing" to include portraits of contemporary personages in the guise of historical figures (as in the roman a clef). Thus, for example, in the feudal landlord Vasamirski the reader could recognize Krinitski, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party; in the Catholic priest Kurackovic, Professor piotuchovic, one of the most brilliant and opportunistic Marxist scholars; in tSe merchant Volski, the Maladniak poet Volny, who was trying to break into the circle of "court" panegyrists and ode-writers; in the representative of the petty gentry, Zavisa, Sypila, editor of the official newspaper Savieckaja Bielarus. In respect of both biographical detail and personal appearance these "portraits" were painted with great accuracy and vividness; they supplied the reader with clues to the "historical" interpretation of the narrative.
A full analysis of Salaviej would undoubtedly be rewarding but would be too lengthy and complex for this study. Biadula describes how, frightened by signs of revolt in his theater, the feudal landlord Vasamirski decides to close it and to occupy himself with the more peaceful work of breeding horses; so Biadula pictures the new trend in Belorussian national development. The novel's message is disclosed by the hero, Symon Salaviej (Simon the Nightingale): "I do not wish to be the master's nightingale."88 In his review Babareka worded this message more concretely: "The destiny of art is to be a weapon in the struggle with the ruling class, not a toy for the latter."39 Readers interpreted Salaviej as a colorful pamphlet resisting, and urging others to resist, the attack being made on artistic freedom and independence by the "ruling class." The work was never fully examined or "exposed" in the Soviet press, as it was not in the interests of the Soviet hierarchy to call public attention to the attacks upon them and to Biadula's "re-clothing" methods and their results.
The early issues of Uzvyssa (until no. 4/10 for 1928) also published fables and other satirical works by Kandrat Krapiva, an extremely biting satirist who had moved into the front ranks of Uzvyssa writers. In the fables Hanarysty parsiuk (Proud Piglet) and Saromlivy (Shamefaced),40 Krapiva attacked the intolerance to all criticism characteristic of the totalitarian Bolshevik regime. In Saromlivy he compared Soviet society to the victim of a shameful disease, who is on the way to complete disintegration because he will not admit his disease. Krapiva's third fable, Sava, asiol i sonca (The Owl, the Ass and the Sun)41 is especially biting. It unequivocally portrays Bolshevism as the Owl who, using the darkness of night to prey on birds, "tears them apart herself, weeps for them herself," but cannot do her work in the daytime, in the light of the sun. The Ass (Belorussian National Communism) diligently but unsuccessfully tries to hide the light of the sun with his ears so that the Owl can carry on her work in the daytime as well. Krapiva facilitated interpretation of the fable by drawing, in the Ass, a precise and vivid portrait of the ideological leader of the National Communists, Zrnitro Zylunovic. Most boldly written, this fable is one of the most scathing °Ppositional attacks made by Krapiva, or by any Uzvyssa writer. An interesting point is that when Sava, asiol i sonca was included in Krapiva's Vybranyja bajki (Selected Fables), published in Minsk in 1932, after the first wave of attacks on the "Belorussian National-Democratic counterrevolution," the author was obliged to "insure" it by adding an ending which directed the satire against capitalism and fascism.
Each of Krapiva's works attacks some detail of the Soviet system. In Cort (Devil)42 he bitingly ridicules the Soviet fear of imagined difficulties; in Samadziejny Kon (Presumptuous Horse),43 the arrogant boasting of the Bolsheviks; in Figa na talercy (Fig on the Plate)44 their policy of making false and empty promises; in Gramafon (Record Player)45 the totalitarian drive for uniformity; in Dekret (Decree)46 the stupidity and senselessness of mass terrorism. This was a well-aimed oppositional barrage, and although the points attacked may sometimes seem relatively unimportant, it covered the entire front.
Uzvyssa's publication of its own literary organ made it possible to use these new prose forms (the novel and the satire), the larger canvasses of which fostered the development of new methods for voicing opposition. The chief guiding influence of Uzvyssa, however, was still lyric poetry, specifically that of its two great poets Dubouka and Pusca. Toward the middle of the summer of 1927 poems of theirs that had been published in the first issues of Uzvyssa came out in book form, together with earlier poems, some of which had not appeared in print before. These collections—Dubouka's Nala47 and Pusca's Dni viasny (Days of Spring)48—transmit the quintessence of the early Uzvyssa spirit, including its spirit of opposition, and therefore deserve attention here.
Nala, which was destined to be the last of Dubouka's collected poems to appear in print, like his first book, Stroma (Stream), had to be published outside the BSSR. The Belorussian State Publishing House in Minsk rejected it as completely unacceptable, politically and ideologically. It was accepted, however, by the Central Publishing House of the Peoples of the USSR in Moscow, a rather poor and unproductive establishment with little knowledge of the Belorussian language or politics. Their edition of the book was primitive and considerably delayed, so that the poems in Nala cover the period from the autumn of 1925 to April 1926, before the actual formation of Uzvyssa.
In Nala Dubouka attacks the very ideal of the Communist future, the materialism of which, with its emphasis on industrial and technical progress, seems to him to leave no place for art, culture or purely human values. In My usie й bolsasci ranety (Most of Us Are Rennets)49 Dubouka ironically predicts that "the song of catalytic chemistry will blossom in the Commune of the World," so that "our dreams, our pains,... our sorrows" will be as nothing compared to "any cyanamides." Dubouka questions the bliss this technological progress would bring: "Should we envy those rhythms, those harmonies, or should we pray?" This is immediately followed by a caustic evaluation of the Communist system, which has already brutalized man and deprived him of human values and of art and culture: "Swimming in infusorial spite, people shelve their souls" so that "we no longer hear so many songs, whether sad or happy, because we cannot."
Appearing at the same time as Dubouka's Nala, Pusca's collected poems, Dni viasny, did not contain such direct attacks on official ideology and were therefore published in Minsk by the Belorussian State Publishing House in a fairly lavish "NEP" edition. Nevertheless, Pusca is particularly indignant at spiritual terrorism. In Na sercy rany josc (There Are Wounds in My Heart) he writes, "Let them scorch my back, but why should they crucify my soul...?"50 This feeling of discontent and this minor key run through the entire book. In Viecna viecar (Ever in the Evening)51 Pusca even declares that he "does not believe in the major." The reason for this mood is given in the lyric cycle Piesnia junactva (Song to Youth),52 in which Pusca expresses his sorrow at the bitter historical fate of Belorussia: "O Belorussia! Thy past is not fixed in marble and does not ring in bronze or brass... It is entombed in deep burial mounds... Yearly they have celebrated thy crucifixion, yearly history's curse had been imposed upon thee." The present appears to him in the same gloomy light, but he has faith in a better future: "Thy genius, outraged in the past, thy free sons will rise to fame." Pusca's attitude was immediately attacked by hostile critics; Todar Hlybocki and 2mitro Zylunovic (under the pseudonym Janka Pilny) censured him for not recognizing the progress of "socialist construction" in Belorussia.53
Pusca developed the same theme, but with a new slant, in one of the most powerful poems of this collection, Rabindranat Tagoru (To Rabindranath Tagore). This poem was written for a special issue of Uzvyssa in honor of the noted Bengalese poet, who was to stop off in Minsk in the autumn of 1926 on his way to visit the USSR.54 Pusca warmly greets the awaited guest "far away in miles but close in songs," even addressing him as "father." He ends with a bitter complaint:
Foreigners have sought to deprive my people of glory And to stain their hearts with bloody wounds. О Pride of Bengal, Glory of Bengal! О Genius of annexed peoples! Through the elements I pray in my song to thee, And bend my knee on a wild burial mound. Flowers of blood have sprung up in Belorussia, My dear poet, my beloved poet!
This appeal was Pusca's first attempt to attract the attention of the non-Soviet world to the tragic situation of Belorussia—his first attempt to send an SOS to the world. Zylunovic-Pilny indignantly denounced Pusca for calling the attention of the Hindu poet to the fact that `flowers of blood nave sprung up in Belorussia.' Let the champion for the national liberation of his people draw his own conclusions on the condition of Belorussia under Soviet rule."55
Another group of poems in Dni Viasny celebrates the organization of Uzvyssa. One of these, Vysicca, vysicca arka (The Arch Goes Higher, Higher) (March 27, 1926), written after the decision to form the organization, stands out from the other poems in the book because of its lively, major tone. "Today my spirit is not fettered," Pusca declares, "there will be joy and happiness; flowers of beauty will grow." In another poem, dated May 26, 1926, the official date of the founding of Uzvyssa, Pusca foresees the undoubted triumph of Uzvyssa in Belorussian literature and regards it as a triumph of Belorussians over their foreign oppressors.56 Pusca cloaks the meaning of this poem by ascribing it to a cycle entitled Zachodniaja Bielarus (Western Belorussia).
After publishing these volumes of poetry in the summer of 1927, Dubouka and Pusca continued and developed their opposition in new works published in the autumn issues of Uzvyssa. Dubouka uses ambiguity to cloak opposition in Da dziasiataha Kastrycnika (To the Tenth October), a poem written on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Revolution.57 Here he writes of "the happiness of greeting the sunrise," i. e., the October Revolution, and immediately after of the equally great "happiness of seeing the sunset"; officially, the "sunset" could be interpreted as referring to the culminating effects of the Revolution. Dubouka's greeting to the Revolution ends with an epitaph for it (openly so entitled in the poem), which makes this work one of the boldest and most skillful of oppositional attacks.
The same issue of Uzvyssa also contained the beginning of Dubouka's first long poem, Kruhi (Circles).58 The title refers to Dubouka's concept of progress as moving in concentric, ever widening circles, a concept he expressed in the image of circles formed upon the surface of water. Despite the abundance of oppositional attacks in Dubouka's Kruhi, the poem went almost unnoticed by official critics, partly because of its intellectual level and partly because of the furor created in "Soviet society" by poems that Pusca published in the same issue. In this issue, the one that coincided with the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, Pusca published two cycles of poems, Asiennija piesni (Autumn Songs) and Listy da sabaki (Letters to a Dog).59
The first cycle conveys Pusca's reaction to the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution and is a sort of greeting to October that is even less kindly than Dubouka's. In the first of the Asiennija piesni Pusca compares Leningrad, with its technical achievements and its progress in art, to his own land, which he likens to a tattered field worker. Again Pusca addresses a bitter complaint to the outside world, sending out an SOS as he had in Rabindranat Tagoru:
O earth, О planet, and brother nations!
Daily I offer a fearful prayer:
I chant the psalms of my native country,
I chant in the evening, kneeling.
Yet Pusca foresees a better future to be brought by a second revolution, a national revolution, which he envisages as a rather .mystical "second coming1 of Belorussia, the "Mother," with her "Son," the people.
There will be a day of celebration, a day of the Second Coming,
The Mother will come with her Son, they will sit on a bench.
……
With a song will come those who have not lied to themselves,
Who have shed tears on the damp burial mound...
One Soviet critic wrote of this passage: "He (Pusca) is expecting the Coming of a National-Democratic Messiah who will bring joy to the poet who has not lied, i. e., who has been hostile to the proletariat and to socialist construction and has not concealed his hostility."60
Sorrow over the oppression of his native land and the liberation motif recur in the second "Autumn Song." "Who will take the crucified land down from the cross?" Pusca exclaims and, feeling that in airing this sentiment he is sinning against the official "religion," goes on:
I am a sinner today—O, a great sinner:
I mock in my soul at holy gifts,
I meet, I pass by Judas' stains,
I do not bow down in the temple, in the sanctuary.
The third and last "Autumn Song" is filled with gloomy and ominous allegory, a sort of autumnal danse macabre which ends with the death of "October" and a scornful reference to its corpse.
Pusca's second lyrical cycle, Listy da sabaki, reflects fundamentally the same moods, and in a way is a continuation of the previous cycle. The Listy da sabaki are written from the same "noisy capital," Leningrad, where Pu§6a feels himself "homeless" and is haunted by the same sorrow but remains true to his native land despite the dreariness and dejection of his mood: "If a poet hangs his head on his breast, is he then not the son of his motherland?" And,
A poet who knows no agony
Could not glorify Belorussia.
O, that word, that dear word!
Ah, dear friend, it always breaks the rhythm!
I had wanted to write something quite different.
Actually, however, that is just what Pusea does want to write about, having Promised in the very beginning of his Listy da sabaki to state openly and boldly his determined and unbending opposition:
As long as the spring of living water gushes,
And the wave of creative force pulsates ardently,
Why should I be a sycophant, smile sweetly,
And cut into the clouds like a red stork?
It is better to span the skies like a free bird,
And to spread one's wings against the wind.
Who wishes may mock at the poet's fate
And shame, revile him at the huckster's shop.
This conscious opposition sets the prevailing tone in all the Listy da sabaki.
Nationalistic vigilance is the basic motif of Listy da sabaki and at the beginning and end of the poem Pusca calls on his "correspondent" to stand "on guard." This motif develops to its climax when the solitary, "homeless" poet vainly hopes that someone from his distant native land will knock on his door:
No one, no one! Throttled by chains ...
Someone has wrung his hands in the blue distances...
Guard, guard, my friend, your own front porch—
I write to you of this from Russia.
The picture of the suffering in his native land is clear enough to require no comment, but attention should be called to the last line as pointing to the source of the evil against which nationalists must "guard."
Pusca makes one more attack on the Soviet system at the end of his Listy da sabaki. He explains the difficulties that have prevented him from inviting his correspondent, as he would like to do, to visit him in the capital:
They would not let you live in the capital.
You would not be dressed in parade uniform,
You would not have honors and medals,
Dog-catchers would come running and surround you,
And there would be many of them, wherever you went,
wherever you looked.
Live, live at home; there, you know, it's better.
Not everyone had the right to live in the wealthy city of the masters.
The Listy da sabaki is supplemented by a List ad sabaki (Letter from a Dog). "The addressee could not receive your letters"; he has broken his chain and run away, so that "the son writes instead of the father." He is as lonely and homeless as his poet but promises to stand resolutely on guard and is confident that his poet will do the same. "I know, I know you are alive, no one shall harness you." These lines emphasizing the independence of the poet conclude the whole cycle.
Even before publication of these two cycles, Asiennija piesni and Listy da sabaki, Pusca had been advised by one of the critics—Zyhmovic—to go through a "disinfection chamber" to rid himself of oppositional tendencies. In Listy da sakabi Pusca conclusively rejects such a course: "perhaps today I am terribly sick, still I need no prescriptions for my soul." Nor is he perturbed by the prospect of new attacks:
Let them,, let them say this and that,
But I am already writing you my third letter;
Let them go revile me in the papers,
Perhaps someone will remember some time.
Publication of the two cycles (which critics lumped together under the title Listy da sabaki) aroused a storm of hostile criticism. The campaign of newspaper abuse was begun by the "political commissar" of Uzvyssa, A. Siankevic; responsible to the Central Committee for Uzvyssa writers and their work, he now was forced to save his own skin.61 Siankevic accused Pusca of kulakism, a charge just coming into fashion, and reproached him for displaying opposition tendencies while he held a Government scholarship.62 (Pusca did not lose the scholarship despite this attack.) From then on Listy da sabaki became the favorite "whipping boy" of Soviet critics; down to 1933—34 not a single criticism of opposition in Belorussian literature omitted mention of it, although Pusca himself was exiled in 1930.
The critic L. Bende quotes an interesting private letter commenting on this affair. This letter, which had somehow fallen into his hands, was written by one of the younger poets of Uzvyssa, evidently Piatro Hlebka:
In my opinion there is nothing terrible in Pusca's poems, [nothing] more terrible than in his previous ones. There is only a great sincerity, a sensitivity, which was lacking in the earlier poems. All of us Belorussian writers have the same national feeling as Pusca, but we are silent and Pusca has voiced it. It seems to me Siankievic is wrong, and what is more, is tactless; when he speaks of a scholarship it looks as if all writers are bribed thus by the Government.63
This passage demonstrates the solidarity of Uzvyssa. Neither the organization nor the journal made any attempt to disown Pusca or his poetry, although this practice was already becoming common. "Confessions of errors" were also becoming customary, but Pusca evinced no desire to repent. Such actions were customary but not yet compulsory in the comparative freedom of the NEP, and this freedom was exploited to its fullest extent by Uzvyssa.
IV
Despite its awareness of the growing trend towards literary dictatorship, Uzvyssa firmly maintained its oppositional policy. At the end of 1927 its real leader, Uladzimier Dubouka, declared that Uzvyssa would follow the leadership of the Communist Party only "in a direction and in forms possible for it."64 The boldness of this declaration appeared incredible to the Bolsheviks, who even recalled it in 1931 in an attack on Uzvyssa.65 For a long time, however, Uzvyssa writers remained true to the principle Dubouka had stated.
In 1928 the power of the GPU began to be felt most strongly in the literary field. As was widely known at the time, it was at the request of the GPU that Andrej Aleksandrovic wrote his poem Cieni na soncy (Shadows on the Sun).66 Using the livre a clef technique, introduced by Uzvyssa writers, of painting "portraits" of contemporaries, Aleksandrovic composed a series of versified denunciations based on GPU material. The "Belorussian National Democrats," that is, BeLorussian national activists, whom he attacked belonged for the most part to the older generation. These included Sciapan Niekrasevic, founder of the Institute of Belorussian Culture (later the Belorussian Academy of Sciences); Ivan Sierada, first President of the Belorussian People's Republic; and several writers who had returned from Western Belorussia and Czechoslovakia, including Krasinski, Kraskouski and Uladzimier Zylka. The obviously denunciatory character of the poem distressed all intelligent readers, and Aleksandrovic was answered at once by the boldest of the opposition poets, Jazep Pusca.
When Aleksandrovic's Cieni na soncy appeared, Pusca had just finished his longest poem, Piesnia Vajny (Song of the War), devoted to the more neutral historical period of the early years of World War I. He chose the period following this, the German occupation of Belorussia in 1918, for a new long poem, which was almost completed at a single sitting. In it he reacted to Aleksandrovic's work, clearly using the method of historical "re-clothing." Pus6a entitled his work Cien Konsula (Shadow of the Consul), but it was published in Uzvyssa under the title Piesnia okupacyji (Song of the Occupation).67 The change in title was made by Babareka, editor of that particular issue of Uzvyssa, who wished to mask the attack on Aleksandrovic by eliminating the obvious similarity of titles. Moreover, Babareka added a note saying that the poem was the second part of a trilogy, the first part of which had been "Song of the War," and the third, as yet uncompleted, would be "Song of the Revolution." Pusca, then in Leningrad, protested against the change of title and the idea of a trilogy, but his letter did not reach Babareka in time. When he republished the poem in Piesni na ruinach (Songs on the Ruins), Pusca restored the original title.68 The title was important not only as a statement of the central image of the poem but as a key to its allegorical significance: its initial letters are the same as those of the Central Committee. It was the Central Committee that Pusca described as the "shadow of the Consul" ruling Belorussia as an occupied colony.
At the end of 1928 the tenth anniversary of the formation of the BSSR was celebrated in Soviet Belorussia. The poets of Uzvyssa greeted this anniversary much as they had the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, a little over a year before. Both Dubouka and Pugca produced poems for the occasion, but this time Pusca extended the special greeting in his Hymn69 which opened the issue of Uzvyssa devoted to the anniversary. This "Hymn," however, abounded in prosaisms which expressed the writer's opposition by underlining the insincerity of the officially required sentiments. Moreover, in the same issue of Uzvyssa Pusca published two cycles of poems, Hrachi maje dusy (Sins of My Soul) and Novyja listy (New Letters), both obviously linked with Asiennija piesni and Listy da sabaki, with which Pusca had greeted the anniversary of the Revolution.
In the first cycle he recalls his moods of the preceding year: "Though I have become a poet for dogs, yet for my native Belorussia I would remain a poet." In the second cycle, Novyja listy, Pusca no longer addresses a "dog," but writes to his own parents. Especially powerful is the second poem, addressed to Pusca's mother:
Together with my younger brother
I carry thy blood-stained banner.
Let the north wind ruffle it,
Let it tear it and blow it into the ravine.
My mother, the sorrow and pain
In thy son's soul has not yet died.
These lines, especially in an anniversary issue, could not be taken as referring to anything but "Mother Belorussia." The poem ends on a gloomy note, following an ironic sally against the Bolshevik censors, who do not permit the poet to express what is torturing him:
My mother, the moon is shedding
Silver hoar-frost by the river.
I am permitted by Glavlit70
To catch it in green dreams.
I am very glad—I do not live in vain—
They will place a wreath upon my grave.
I have nothing more to write,
My pen is scratching the palms of my hands.
My poetic path
Will lead me to no good.
There is no way to heal my soul.
Dubouka devoted a special poem to the anniversary, entitled Uracystaja data (Solemn Date).71 This is full of prosaisms whose irony is more clearly evident than Pusca's in his "Hymn": "A song cannot apprehend all contemporary enlightenment, and one cannot tell in a song the miracles of the collective will, with which we shall mark the improvements of our fate."72 In the lyrical parts of the poem, however, Dubouka's mood and evaluation of all the official clamor about "achievements" are totally different: "Silence... Silence ... Silence ... As if sleep were friendly with this frost..."73 Thus, the total picture given by the poem is of a dead frost which has locked the nation in sleep and silence, under cover of the official clamor.
Of particular interest are Dukouka's satirical and ironic attacks on the Belorussian national movements which had contributed, he felt, to the establishment of the BSSR. First of all, he attacks the National-Democratic movement for its excessive preoccupation with nationalist phraseology and its lack