Aleś Razanaŭ

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Aleś Razanaŭ
Алесь Разанаў
Born(1948-12-05)5 December 1948
Sialec, Byaroza District, Belarus
Died26 August 2021(2021-08-26) (aged 73)
Minsk, Belarus
Occupation(s)writer, poet and translator
OrganizationBelarusian P.E.N. Centre

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

Life

Aleś Razanaŭ was born in 1947 in Sialiec (Biaroza district, Belarusian SSR),[1] 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.

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 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.

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

Kamianeс district.[2]

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.

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").

From then on he worked as a translator, translating works from Bulgarian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, German, Polish, Czech, Latvian and many other languages.

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].[1]

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.[3]

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.[4][3]

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.[5]

Work

Ales Razanaŭ was one of the world's best-known Belarusian poets of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. He was considered a master of landscape poetry with deep philosophical and psychological content, a classic of free verse and one of the founders of Belarusian haiku. Despite his independent way of thinking and  writing independently, the poet's career developed quite smoothly. He was known in Belarusian literature as the author of new poetic forms.

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!").[1]

His works have been translated into English by the American writer Justin Rawley of North Carolina.[6]

Works

Recognition

  • 1990: Janka Kupala Literature Prize (Літаратурная прэмія імя Янкі Купалы) for the book Вастрыё стралы (Tip of the Arrow)
  • 2003: Herder Prize of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S.
  • 2012: Залаты апостраф (Golden Apostrophe)
  • 2017: Natallia Arsiennieva Poetry Prize (Прэмія імя Натальлі Арсеньневай) for the book Перавыбранае (Selected Once Again)

References

  1. ^ a b c "Разанаў Алесь" [Razanaŭ Aleś]. slounik.org (in Belarusian). Archived from the original on 15 May 2005. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  2. ^ Карней, Ігар (5 December 2017). "Крутыя віражы Алеся Разанава. Паэту-наватару — 70" [Sharp turns of Aleś Razanaŭ. The innovator poet turns 70]. Радыё Свабода (in Belarusian). Archived from the original on 8 May 2020. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  3. ^ a b Ilma Rakusa. "Weissrussland: Nachruf auf den grossen Dichter Ales Rasanau" [Life always leads man to the edge of life – to the death of the great Belarusian poet Aleś Razanaŭ]. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  4. ^ "Ales Rasanau — internationales literaturfestival berlin". www.literaturfestival.com. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  5. ^ "Belarusian poet Ales Razanau passes away". belsat.eu. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  6. ^ "Амерыканская пісьменніца: беларуская мова самая прыгожая ў свеце" [American writer: Belarusian language is the most beautiful in the world]. zbsb.org (in Belarusian). Archived from the original on 12 September 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2021.

External links

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