Will Authorities Rehabilitate Larysa Heniyush?

On November 1 the Organizing Committee on Commemoration of Stalin repressions victims, the Union of Belarusian Writers, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee has sent a proposal to rehabilitate a well-known Bearusian poet Larysa Heniyush (Heniusz).

The proposal has been written by Academician of the Belarusian Academy of Science Radzim Haretski, writers Vasil Yakavenka, Ales Pashkevihcm Nil Hilevich, human rights activists T. Protska, H. Pahanyajla and more than 70 other well-known public figures of Belarus.

Since 1937 Larysa Heniyush was living in the Czechoslovakia and was a citizen of that country. However in 1948 on order of Moscow she was repatriated to the Soviet Union. There she was arrested and sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment “for assisting world bourgeoisie in hostile activities against the Soviet Union” and “counter-revolutionary activities”.

Larysa Heniyush was released on July 1, 1956, but the unfair sentence hasn’t been reversed.

The name of Larysa Heniyush could be compared to names of Belarusian classics Kupala, Kolas and Tsyotka and other prominent Belarusian workers of culture. Her books “Trammel Net from Nyoman”, “Thyme infusion” and others show their nobleness of thoughts and feelings. A film “Birds without nests” based on “Confession” by Larysa Heniyush was created by Belarusfilm film studio. A play “White Dream” was created. A documentary about Larysa Heniyush “Thorn Wreath of Cornflowers” was created by Letapis studio. Her monuments have been put up in Zelva and Staryja Darohi.

Maxim Tank wrote: “Poems by Larysa Heniyush are not just remarkable. They combine the eternal anguish of the nation and of a human who had gone through awful trials of life, which was impossible even for saints in our time”.