Poetry
Вежа
Not translated into English
Ales Dudar · 1928
Synopsis
The poem that gives the collection its title questions an old tower, dark as a ghost: prison or bell tower, no one remembers its past any more. The centuries have worn down its grey stones and covered it with legends that neither the warriors who came from Scandinavia nor the merchants of Constantinople could unravel. Men in heavy boots now cross its drawbridge again, wires link it to dizzying distances, and the poet announces to the ancestors that it now bears metal antennas.
Context
The collection was published in 1928, after three books of verse published in 1925 and 1926. The author was then one of the prominent poets of the group he had helped to found, but his works were withdrawn from libraries on the eve of his execution, and an order of June 1937 prescribed that they be burned. A selection of his works reappeared in 1959, and a 1984 collection places the title Vieža at the head of his collected verse.
Who it is for
Poems in Belarusian from the end of the twenties, to be read in a selection of the author's works; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
The book was banned in 1937 along with the rest of his work; its title was used again in 1984 for a selection of the author's poems.
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