Poetry
Нарач
Not translated into English
Maksim Tank · 1937
Synopsis
The poem begins with the uprising of the fishermen of Lake Narach: the Polish state has leased the lake to a landowner, Jablonski, and fishing there is forbidden to anyone who does not work for him. At the water's edge, the fishermen bury one of their own, Prakhor, who has drowned; the soltys wants to break up the gathering, but Arkhip leads them to take their boats and fish in defiance of the ban. The lake itself plays a part, united with the people who live from it.
Context
Tank began the poem in Vilnius in the autumn of 1935, based on the strike of the fishermen of the villages along the lake. Polish censorship forced him to cut more than a fifth of it; the text appeared in 1937 in the journal Kalossie, some issues of which were seized, and in the collection Žuravinavy cviet. The critic Jan Mackiewicz attacked it in Słowo in March 1938. The author restored the complete text in 1940, but the manuscript was lost during the war; he had drawn a screenplay from it for Belarusfilm, found much later in the archives.
Who it is for
A long poem in Belarusian, in seven parts framed by a prelude and an epilogue; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
The first major work by its author, seized by the Polish authorities, and one of the two long poems that made him known before the war.
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