Listapad was born on 7 April 1897 into a farming family in the village of Varkavičy, Slutsky Uyezd, Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (nowadays Slutsk District, Minsk Region of Belarus).

[1] In 1914 he graduated from a teachers college in Panevėžys and returned to his native Slutsk.

After a spell as a teacher, Listapad moved to Minsk and worked in publishing.

His work “Sluckaje viasieĺlie” (Belarusian: Слуцкае вясельле, The Slutsk Wedding) was published in 1920.

[2] Following the defeat of the uprising, he briefly lived in exile in the Second Polish Republic but returned to Slutsk in 1922 and established an underground anti-Soviet organisation.