Culture of Belarus - Literature

Literature

Belarusian literature began with 11th- to 13th-century religious writing; the work of 12th-century poet Kiryla Turauski is representative. Rhyming was common in these works, which were generally written in Old Belarusian, Latin, Polish or Church-Slavic. By the 16th century, Polatsk resident Francysk Skaryna translated the Bible into Belarusian. It was published in Prague and Vilnius between 1517 and 1525, making it the first book printed in Belarus or anywhere in Eastern Europe. The modern period of Belarusian literature began in the late 19th century; one important writer was Yanka Kupala. Many of the writers at the time, such as Uładzimir Žyłka, Kazimir Svayak, Yakub Kolas, Źmitrok Biadula and Maksim Haretski, wrote for a Belarusian language paper called Nasha Niva, published in Vilnius. After (Eastern) Belarus was incorporated into the Soviet Union, the government took control of Belarusian culture, and until 1939 free development of literature occurred only in the territories incorporated into Poland (Western Belarus). Several poets and authors went into exile after the Nazi occupation of Belarus, not to return until the 1960s. In post-war literature, the central topic was World War II (known in Belarus as the Great Patriotic War), that had particularly left particularly deep wounds in Belarus (Vasil Bykaŭ, Ales Adamovich etc.); the pre-war era was also often depicted (Ivan Melezh). A major revival of the Belarusian literature occurred in the 1960s with novels published by Vasil Bykaŭ and Uładzimir Karatkievič.