Larysa Hienijuš

She was born Larysa Miklaševič in the estate Žlobaǔcy (now Vaǔkavysk raion, Grodno Region) into the family of a wealthy land-owner.

On 3 February she married a medical student, Janka Hienijuš, who at that time was studying at Charles University, Prague.

There, one of Hienijušs' neighbors was Alexandra Kosach-Shimanovskaya, sister of Lesya Ukrainka - the author whose work has greatly influenced the Belarusian poet.

When in 1939 the Red Army took over western Belarus, the poet's father, Anton Miklaševič, was shot dead and his mother and two sisters were deported to Kazakhstan.

She preserved and organised the BNR archive, took care of Belarusian immigrants, political refugees and prisoners of war.

She showed an example of a phenomenal spiritual strength by bringing together Belarusians and prisoners of other nationalities, and continued writing poetry.

The authorities denied the poet a quiet old age; only once she was allowed to visit her son Jurka, who lived in Białystok, Poland.

Thanks to the then Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR, Maksim Tank, Larysa Hienijuš's first in Belarus collection of works, «Невадам зь Нёмана» was published in 1967.

In 1999, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee appealed to the General Prosecutor's Office to annul an unjust sentence against both Hienijušs.