Aleś Razanaŭ

In his last years he lived mostly in Germany. He also wrote and published many of his short poems in German. He died in Minsk in August 2021, at the age of 73.

His father had also written poems as a former concentration camp prisoner in Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen concentration camp. Razanaŭ began writing poems at an early age. When he was in the 6th grade (around 13 y.o.), his poems were printed in the district magazine "Biarozka" (Belarusian: Бярозка,"Little Birch Tree").

In 2003 he lived in Graz as a scholarship holder of this network, in 2007, as in 2001, he was a guest at the International Literature Festival Berlin and a Fellow in the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.

In the 1990s he became head of the Belarusian Roerich Foundation and in 1992 a research assistant at the national Franсysk Skaryna Centre. From 1994 he was Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the magazine "Krynica" ("Source"), which he had founded with like-minded people. He left this position in 1999 due to political pressure and increasingly accepted invitations from abroad, from Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Slovenia. In 2001, for example, he lived in Hanover at the invitation of the International Writers' Parliament (IPW), which had joined the cities network for threatened and censored writers ("International Cities of Refuge Network") in 2000, and was the first to receive the Hannah Arendt One-Year Scholarship established for this purpose.

He has translated from many languages, including the comedy Сон у Іванаву ноч ("A Midsummer Night's Dream") and two other comedies by William Shakespeare (1989), from Lithuanian the novel Час, калі пусцеюць сядзібы ("Time of the Desolate Courtyards") by Jonas Avyžius (1989) and poems selected from Latvian by Uldis Bērziņš (2013). Translated into Belarusian the haiku (then called hokku) poetry of Matsuo Bashō. On the centenary of Janka Kupala's birthday in 1982, he published the book of poems Выйду з сэрцам, як з паходняй!.. ("I will go out with my heart as a blazing torch!").

From 1974 to 1990 Razanaŭ worked for the editorial department of the literary criticism of the publishing house "Schöngeistige Literatur". From 1989 he was elected vice-president of the Belarusian P.E.N. Centre [be-tarask].

The publication of this book gave Razanaŭ the opportunity to become a member of the Belarusian section of the Writers' Union of the USSR in 1972, returning to Minsk, to the creative community in the capital. He got a job at the newspaper “Litaratura i Mastactva [be-tarask]” ("Literature and Art"). However, his reputation as a nationalist did not keep him long with the then only intellectual Belarusian newspaper. He moved to the newspaper “Rodnaya Pryroda“ ("Native Nature").

In 1971–1972 he did his military service in Valdai.

In 1970 Razanaŭ published his first book entitled Renaissance (Belarusian: Адраджэнне). Although many poems that had been published earlier did not appear in this collection, and others were ruthlessly censored, the book received a wide public response.

In addition to his studies, he worked in a Minsk Radiator Plant as a foundryman. In his spare time he was an active member of both the literary circle and the circle concerned about the general socio-political situation in Belarus. In October 1968, BSU philology students, led by Ales Razanaŭ, Viktar Yarac and Leu Bartash, sent a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus addressed to Piotr Masherau (the letter was signed by several hundred students) demanding the return of teaching in Belarusian. As a result, the three initiators of the appeal were branded as "nationalists". And when Ales Razanaŭ, Viktar Yarac and Valyantsina Koutun visited Zelva to see Larysa Hienijuš, the first two were expelled from the Belarusian State University in the winter of 1969 (allegedly, due to failure to pass the military training test; before that they were excellent students). Thanks to the support of Siarhei Husak, Rector of the Maksim Tank Belarusian State Pedagogical University and Uladzimer Kaliesnik, Head of the Belarusian Language and Literature Department of this university, Ales Razanaŭ continued his studies at the Faculty of Philology of the Brest Pedagogical Institute, graduating in 1970. After graduating there in 1970, Razanaŭ worked as a teacher of Belarusian language and literature at the middle school in the village of Kruhel of Kamianeс district.

In the secondary school, Razanaŭ often attended the meetings of the literary association of the magazine "Biarozka". He also attended the meetings of the literary association at the district newspaper "Zaria" in Brest. When he was in the 9th grade, he attended a young writers workshop in Karalishchavichy. In January 1966, the newspaper "Literature and Art" published a collection of poems by Razanaŭ. He graduated from school in 1966. He then passed the entrance examination for the Philological Faculty of the Belarusian State University in Minsk. His essay, written in poetry, was later published in the university newspaper.

Aleś Razanaŭ (Belarusian: Алесь Разанаў; 5 December 1947 – 26 August 2021) was a Belarusian writer, poet and translator.

Aleś Razanaŭ was born in 1947 in Sialiec (Biaroza district, Belarusian SSR), one of the oldest settlements in Belarus. His father, Stepan Ryazanov, was from Tambov Oblast. He had come to Belarus before the Second World War as a participant in a geodetic expedition and had settled there.