He wrote extensively for several newspapers, including Naša Niva, Belarus and Zvon, and authored music for the famous song "Zorka Venera" (the Venus Star) based on a poem by Maksim Bahdanovič.

Having graduated from the Maladziečna Teachers' Seminary (1905), he taught in various schools in Belarus for several years, participated in cultural activities and collected folk songs.

[5] After the February Revolution in 1917, Rak-Michajłoŭski moved to Minsk, joined the Belarusian Socialist Assembly, and become actively involved in the political life there.

[2][7] Using his parliamentary immunity, Rak-Michajłoŭski expressed openly his national ideas and, together with his associates, participated in the preparation of an anti-Polish uprising on the territory of Western Belarus.

[2] However, he was arrested on 16 August 1933 by the Soviet authorities in the case of the Belarusian National Centre and, on 9 January 1934, sentenced to capital punishment as "the leader of a counterrevolutionary organisation," replaced later by 10 years of Gulag prison camps.

[5] In 1937, after several years spent in the Solovki prison camp, Rak-Michajłoŭski was sent back to Minsk and sentenced to capital punishment as a Polish agent.