Aleś Dudar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
24 December 1904
Navasiolki, Mazyr county, Minsk province, Russian Empire (now Pyetrykaw District, Homiel Region, Belarus)
Minsk, Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Belarus)
Aleś Dudar | |
|---|---|
 Dudar in the 1930s | |
| Native name | Алесь Дудар |
| Born | Aliaksandr Dajlidovič 24 December 1904 Navasiolki, Mazyr county, Minsk province, Russian Empire (now Pyetrykaw District, Homiel Region, Belarus) |
| Died | October 29, 1937 (aged 32) Minsk, Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Belarus) |
| Resting place | unknown |
| Occupation | poet, critic, translator |
| Language | Belarusian |
Aleś Dudar (Belarusian: Алесь Дудар) was the pen name of Aliaksandr Dajlidovič (Belarusian: Аляксандр Дайлідовіч; 24 December 1904 – 29 October 1937), a Belarusian poet, critic, translator and a victim of Stalin's purges.
Dudar was born into the family of a farm labourer in the village of Navasiolki, Mazyr county, Minsk province, Russian Empire (now Pyetrykaw District in Homiel region of Belarus). During World War I, the family took refuge in the Tambov region of Russia but returned to Belarus in the spring of 1917.[1]
After finishing school in 1921, Dudar joined a theatre troupe and published his first poem. He was also engaged in literary criticism and translations from Russian, German and French and in 1923 became a member of “Maladniak” (the “Young Growth”), an association of young Belarusian poets.[1][2]
In 1927-28 Dudar studied Literature and Linguistics at the Belarusian State University.[1]
Persecution by the Soviet authorities
In 1928 Dudar was forced to leave the university and the following year was arrested and deported to Smolensk for three years for his poem "They cut our land" (“Пасеклі наш край”) in which he criticised the partition of the Belarusian lands between the Soviet Union and the Second Polish Republic.[1][3]
He was rearrested in 1930 and interrogated in connection with the Case of the Union for the Liberation of Belarus.[1][3] Upon the expiration of his exile, he returned to Minsk.
In 1935-36 Dudar was mainly engaged in translations but was arrested for the third time in October 1936.[1][3] He endured a year of interrogation but did not want to cooperate with the Soviet secret police.[4][5] On June 3, 1937, the Main Department of Literature and Publishing of the Belarusian SSR (Holovlit BSSR) issued Order No. 33 "List of literature subject to confiscation from public libraries, educational institutions, and bookstores" which decreed that all his books had to be burned.
Death and memory
Dudar was sentenced to death and executed in Minsk's NKVD prison on 29 October 1937. The place of his burial is unknown.[1][3]
He was posthumously exonerated during the Krushchev Thaw in 1957.[1]
There is no official place of Dudar commemoration in present-day Belarus, however he is unofficially commemorated on the annual “Remembrance Day” among 132 other poets, writers and cultural figures who were executed by the Soviet authorities on the night of 29–30 October 1937.[6][7]
His works are not included in the school programme but some teachers organise events dedicated to his memory.[8]
